handmaid, and let me set a morsel of bread before thee; and eat, that thou mayest have strength when thou goest on thy way."

On Saul's refusing to take the least nourishment, his servants, together with the women, compelled him, as it were, to do it; and yielding to their urgent expostulations, he rose from the earth, where he had still remained prostrated, and sat up upon a bed, or couch, which was near him. The woman killed a fat calf, which she happened to have at the time, and preparing it, and also some unleavened bread, placed them before Saul and his attendants; after partaking of which, they returned while it was still night to the camp of the Israelites. Sad must have been his thoughts on the way. The remorse of a guilty conscience; the loneliness of hopeless despair, without one friend, human or divine, to sustain him; the curse of God, in the awful prediction of Samuel, sealing his doom; and his terrible forebodings of the ruin which the coming day was to bring upon him, must have caused the heart of this miserable man to have sunk within him, and if he had any resolution or courage left it was of the most reckless, desperate kind. Such is the wretchedness of those who are forsaken of God, and abandoned to the just con sequences of their own wickedness!

CHAPTER XVII.

David returns to Ziklag, and finds it laid waste. He pur sues the Amalekites, and is victorious.

We now resume the order of the narrative, which has been interrupted a little for the sake of introducing the account of Saul's interview with Samuel. For the Philistines had before this moved from Shunem to Aphek, not far from Jezreel. The camp of the Israelites was hard by a fountain in this latter place; so that the two armies were in the immediate neighborhood of each other. As the army of the Philistines was on its way to Aphek, the king of Gath, with his troops, brought up the rear, and David and his men were with him.

The princes of the Philistines, at the head of their respective troops, noticed David and his band, and inquired, "What do these Hebrews here?" Achish, in reply, expressed his surprise, saying; "Is not this David, the servant of Saul the king of Israel, which hath been with me these days, or these years," (that is a considerable time,) "and I have found no fault in him since he fell unto me unto this day."

This reply only excited the indignation of

those who had addressed Achish, and they told him to order David and his men immediately to leave the army, and return to the place of resi dence which had been assigned them. "Let him not," they added, "go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he be an adversary to us: for wherewith should he reconcile himself unto his master? Should it not be with the heads of these men?" (Will he not, as we have every reason to believe, prove treacherous, and, for the sake of restoring himself to the favor of Saul, do all in his power to betray us into the hands of the enemy, and cause us to be defeated and cut off.) "Is not this David, of whom they sang one to another in dances, saying, Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands?" They recollected his former prowess in vanquishing their champion, Goliath, and the subsequent terrible defeat of their army, of which David was thus the principal cause. They knew his influence over his countrymen, and how far the very sight of his person, and the sound of his voice, would go, to inspire the Israelites with a fearless intrepidity in the expected encounter of the two armies. It would be too great a risk to run, and he whom they thus dreaded, must no longer expose them to such dangers.

Achish sent for David, and made him acquainted with the decision. "Surely, as the Lord liveth," said he, "thou hast been upright, and thy

going out and thy coming in with me in the host is good in my sight: for I have not found evil in thee since the day of thy coming unto me unto this day nevertheless the lords favor thee not. Wherefore now return, and go in peace, that thou displease not the lords of the Philistines."

The king of Gath knew that, whatever were his own personal feelings in this matter, he must yield to the decision of the princes; and, renewing his expressions of confidence in David in the strongest terms, he bade him rise up early, the next morning, with his men, and depart as soon as the dawning light would permit them to do it.

On his way to Ziklag David was joined by seven of the bravest men of the tribe of Manasseh, holding a high military rank, for they were "captains of thousands," who rendered him essential service in a severe conflict, to which he was soon called.

For, on returning home, the third day, they found, to their great consternation, that the Amalekites had been there; laying waste the country; leaving Ziklag, which they had sacked and set on fire, a heap of ruins; and carrying off the women and children into captivity. Such summary and terrible revenge did these people take for the ravages which David and his band had, but a little while before, committed upon their country.

David felt the stroke severely. His two wives, Ahinoam and Abigail, were among the captives. So were the wives and the sons and daughters of those of his followers who had families; and would it ever be possible to rescue them? Amid this scene of desolation, in the bitterness of their sorrow, "David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep."

When the first transports of grief were over, the agitated feelings of the people took a new direction. In looking round for the source of the heavy calamity which had befallen them, they seem to have regarded David as the cause of it, by having excited the resentment of the Amalekites against them. They gave vent to their indignation. Murmurs were heard on every side, and they began even to talk of stoni g him whom they had heretofore regarded as their leader with so much confidence and affection. David was greatly distressed. It was a new trial for him to encounter. But we are told that he "encouraged himself in the Lord his God."

Feeling deeply his dependance in his present emergency, the first step that he took was to implore the divine guidance. He directed Abiathar, the high priest, to bring the ephod, and with it, undoubtedly, the Urim and Thummim, that direction might be sought of the Lord.

David proposed the inquiry, in all probability,