hands and take good hold, that we fall It house than to live the easiest life that the world can give.”—Pilkington. DAVID THE NATIONAL HERO. iii. 15. The city of David. iii. 16. The sepulchres of David. They were working on sacred ground. Hence their enthusiasm. Effort must have inspiration. This city David conquered; he beautified it; here he reigned; here he sleeps. They did not stay to shape such thoughts as these. They were instincts. Patriotism lives not by bread only, but by sentiments, by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of good king and wise teacher in the ages past. Theme, DAVID'S LIFE-WORK the basis of national hero-worship. "The I. Preparing for a throne. "He that is born is listed; life is war." foundation of David's character is a firm, unshaken trust in Jehovah, a bright and most spiritual view of creation and the government of the world, a sensitive awe of the Holy One of Israel, a striving ever to be true to him, and a strong desire to return after errors and transgressions."-Ewald. Ps. lxxviii. 70 tells how David was God's elected king. The prophet Samuel shaped the character of the period. His work was long developing. Takes months for common seed to grow. Samuel cast seed into God's world-field; David and Solomon put in the sickle and reaped. What of that? Sower and reaper equally indispensable (John iv. 36-38). David had a creative faculty-he was the poet of song. We have "the book of the chronicles" of King David; we have, too, the books of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs he sang and wrote. Saul's FATAL DAY not the day of the battle of Gilboa, but the day of the battle with Amalek; not the day when Saul died, but the day when Saul disobeyed, led to David's election and anointing. The story is told in the Book of Samuel (I. xvi.). Eliab is rejected. The height of a man's stature and the beauty of his countenance shall not henceforth be signs infallible that God has endowed that man with kingly qualities. God-elected shall be God-endowed. That day David anointed, but God's hand had been upon him in the pastures of Bethlehem. There he thought out, if he did not write, Ps. xxiii. There he discerned a presence which beset him behind and before (Ps. cxxxix.). To him the heavens declared God. How perfect God's law was, and what God's fear meant, he was being taught by the order of God in nature; how guilty and feeble he was, he was being taught by the voice of God in his own conscience (Ps. xix.). David's God was a living, ever-present, helping God (Ps. xxvii.). From the sheepfolds David came to encounter Goliath. From the sheepfolds he was summoned to be harp player to King Saul. He was anointed, but not enthroned. He must learn to wait. God never extemporizes. "Soon ripe, soon rot." Moses eighty years of preparation. Elijah a full-grown man before he appears in sacred history. Jesus Christ eighteen quiet, uneventful years after seeing the holy city, and afterwards forty days in wilderness. The harvest of God in human souls ripens slowly. As David thought of his great work, and felt himself a child with a giant's task, he said, “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength" (Ps. viii.). He recollected the storms he had witnessed as he watched the sheep when he wrote Ps. xxix. But after the longest night the morning breaks. David was called to the court as harp player to King Saul. Saul's servants described David to the king as a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing" (1 Sam. xvi. 18). David was an artist, as we now speak. In Eastern lands shepherd-life and songs have always gone together. The elected king is harpist to the enthroned king. How slowly David ascended the steps to the throne. We, who look back, see some reasons why ascent was gradual. In the pastures he had time to think; in the court he had opportunity to observe. 66 David's harp quieted Saul's excitement (1 Sam. xvi. 23); David's harp helped him to compose his Psalms for the song-life of the Church universal. His chequered life fore-shadowed in Saul's court. To-day the king's bosom friend, to-morrow the butt for the king's javelin. The love of David and Jonathan the one bright and beautiful thing. Purer and more constant friendship was never known. With his escape from Saul's court began II. The work and warfare of David's life. 1. As a freebooter. 2. As king. 1. As a freebooter. Cave of Adullam (1 Sam. xxii. 1, 2). Wild wilderness life. Hunted by Saul (1 Sam. xxiii. 25-29; xxiv. 8-22). Saul's hope failed him in the hour of need, and he fell on Gilboa's fatal field. 2. David was king. First over Judah, then over all Israel. David's reign was one of creation; Solomon's was one of consolidation. A brilliant reign of a great and good man; but, like all things human, not without fault (2 Sam. xi.; 1 Chron. xxi.). The fifty-first Psalm the cry of this kingly penitent. But did "the free spirit" ever come back again as in the earlier days? However, Carlyle's words are both wise and charitable. "Who is called the man after God's own heart'? David, the Hebrew king, had fallen into sins enough-blackest crimes-there was no want of sin; and therefore the unbelievers sneer, and ask, 'Is this your man according to God's heart?' The sneer, I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults, what are the outward details of a life, if the inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, the often-baffled, never-ended struggle of it be forgotten? David's life and history, as written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given us of a man's moral progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul towards what is good and best. Struggle often baffled, sore baffled, driven as into entire wreck; yet a struggle never ended, ever with tears, repentance, true, unconquerable purpose begun anew." He died full of age and honours, and his sepulchre Nehemiah looked upon with reverence, Peter the apostle spoke of with exultation, and to it the feet of countless thousands of weary pilgrims have been directed. ILLUSTRATIONS. A true man.- 66 Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design; and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients. A man Cæsar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman empire. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man as monachism of the hermit Antony; the Reformation, of Luther; Quakerism, of Fox; Methodism, of Wesley; Abolition, of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton cailed the height of Rome;' and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons."-Emerson. Sepulchres." Next to the wells of Syria, the most authentic memorials of past times are the sepulchres, and partly for the same reason. The tombs of ancient Greece and Rome lined the public roads with funeral pillars or towers. Grassy graves and marble monuments fill the churchyards and churches of Christian Europe. But the sepulchres of Palestine were like the habitations of its earliest inhabitants, hewn out of the living limestone rock, and therefore indestructible as the rock itself. In this respect they resembled, though on a smaller scale, the tombs of Upper Egypt; and as there the traveller of the nineteenth century is confronted with the names and records of men who lived thousands of years ago, so also in the excavations of the valleys which surround or approach Shiloh, Shechem, Bethel, and Jerusalem he knows that he sees what were the last resting-places of the generations contemporary with Joshua, Samuel, and David. And the example of Egypt shows that the identification of these sepulchres even with their individual occupants is not so improbable as might be otherwise supposed. If the graves of Rameses and Osirei can still be ascertained, there is nothing improbable in the thought that the tombs of the patriarchs may have survived the lapse of twenty or thirty centuries. The rocky cave on Mount Hor must be at least the spot believed by Josephus to mark the grave of Aaron. The tomb of Joseph must be near one of the two monuments pointed out as such in the opening of the vale of Shechem. The sepulchre which is called the tomb of Rachel exactly agrees with the spot described as 'a little way' from Bethlehem. The tomb of David, which was known with certainty at the time of the Christian era, may perhaps still be found under the mosque which bears his name in the modern Zion. Above all, the cave of Machpelah is concealed, beyond all reasonable doubt, by the mosque at Hebron. But, with these exceptions, we must rest satisfied rather with the general than the particular interest of the tombs of Palestine."-Stanley's ' Sinai and Palestine.' THE WORKMEN'S DAY-BOOK. iii. 20-32. After him Baruch the son of Zabbai, &c. I. Every man is carefully credited with his own tasks and achievements. Rulers, priests, slaves (Nethinims), men, women (ver. 12). Nobody is forgotten. The humblest not passed by in contemptuous silence. II. Special honour is accorded special work. Levites and priests began at the temple, but did not stop there (vers. 22, 28). Zabbai, who earnest ly repaired a second piece, having completed his task did not fold his arms, but went with open eyes and willing hands to seek another task. The goldsmiths and the temple traders came down to the wall not to inspect, but labour (vers. 31, 32). III. Regard is had to the men of practical wisdom. Benjamin and others built over against their house (vers. 23, 28, 29). Meshullam built over against his chamber (ver. 30). Perhaps he was a lodger. (a) They were men of practical sense. Work was near at hand; why go abroad? "There are many Christians who can never find a place large enough to do their duty. Some Churches seem to feel that if anything is to be done some great operation must be started. They cannot even repent without concert and a general ado." - Bushnell. (b) These men found here an inspiration for effort the defence of home. With practical enthusiasm, Hananiah and others built "another piece." All cannot keep the same pace, but all can build. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. "The Son of man shall come and then he shall reward every man according to his works" (Matt. xvi. 27). "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life" (Rev. ii. 10). ADDENDA TO CHAPTER III. TOPOGRAPHY OF THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH. THE only description of the ancient Nehemiah, and although it is hardly city of Jerusalem which exists in the sufficiently distinct to enable us to settle tion. The easiest way to arrive at any correct conclusion regarding it, is to take first the description of the dedication of the walls in ch. xii. (31-40), and, drawing such a diagram as this, we easily get at the main features of the old wall at least. The order of procession was that the princes of Judah went up upon the wall at some point as nearly as possible opposite to the temple, and one half of them turning to the right went towards the dung gate, "and at the fountain gate, which was over against them" (or, in other words, on the opposite or temple side of the city), "went up by the stairs of the city of David at the going up of the wall, above the house of David, even unto the water gate eastward." The water gate, therefore, was one of the southern gates of the temple, and the stairs that led up to it are here identified with those of the city of David, and consequently with Zion. The other party turned to the left, or northwards, and passed from beyond the tower of the furnaces even "unto the broad wall," and passing the gate of Ephraim, the old gate, the fish gate, the towers of Hananeel and Meah, to the sheep gate, "stood still in the prison gate," as the other party had in the water gate. "So stood the two companies of them that gave thanks in the house of God." If from this we turn to the third chapter, which gives a description of the repairs of the wall, we have no difficulty in identifying all the places mentioned in the first sixteen verses with those enumerated in the twelfth chapter. The repairs began at the sheep gate on the north side, and in immediate proximity with the temple, and all the places named in the dedication are again named, but in the reverse order, till we come to the tower of the furnaces, which, if not identical with the tower in the citadel, so often mistaken for the Hippicus, must at least have stood very near to it. Mention is then made, but now in the direct order of the dedication, of "the valley gate," the "dung gate," the "fountain gate ;" and lastly, the "stairs that go down from the city of David." Between these last two places we find mention made of the pool of Siloah and the king's garden, so that we have long passed the so-called sepulchre of David on the modern Zion, and are in the immediate proximity of the temple ; most probably in the valley between the city of David and the city of Jerusalem. What follows is most important (ver. 16): "After him repaired Nehemiah the son of Azbuk, the ruler of the half part of Bethzur, unto the place over against the sepulchres of David, and to the pool that was made, and unto the house of the mighty." This passage, when taken with the context, seems in itself quite sufficient to set at rest the question of the position of the city of David, of the sepulchres of the kings, and consequently of Zion, all which could not be mentioned after Siloah if placed where modern tradition has located them. If the chapter ended with the sixteenth verse there would be no difficulty in determining the sites mentioned above, but unfortunately we have, according to this view, retraced our steps very nearly to the point from which we started, and have got through only half the places enumerated. Two hypotheses may be suggested to account for this difficulty: the one, that there was then, as in the time of Josephus, a second wall, and that the remaining names refer to it; the other, that the first sixteen verses refer to the walls of Jerusalem, and the remaining sixteen to those of the city of David. An attentive consideration of the subject renders it almost certain that the latter is the true explanation of the case. In the enumeration of the places repaired, in the last part of the chapter, we have two which we know, from the description of the dedication, really belonged to the temple. The prison court (iii. 25), which must have been connected with the prison gate, and, as shown by the order of the dedication, to have been on the north side of the temple, is here also connected with the king's high house; all this clearly referring, as shown above, to the castle of David, which originally occupied the site of the Turris Antonia. We have on the opposite side the "water gate," mentioned in the next verse to Ophel, and consequently as clearly identified with the southern gate of the temple. We have also the horse gate, that by which Athaliah was taken out of the temple (2 Kings xi. 16; 2 Chron. xxiii. 15), which Josephus states led to the Kedron, and which is here mentioned as connected with the priests' houses, and probably, therefore, a part of the temple. Mention is also made of the house of Eliashib the high priest, and of the eastern gate, probably that of the temple. In fact, no place is mentioned in these last verses which cannot be more or less directly identified with the localities on the temple hill, and not one which can be located in Jerusalem. The whole of the city of David, however, was so completely rebuilt and remodelled by Herod that there are no local indications to assist us in ascertaining whether the order of description of the places mentioned after ver. 16 proceeds along the northern face, and round by Ophel, and up behind the temple back to the sheep gate; or whether, after crossing the causeway to the armoury and prison, it does not proceed along the western face of the temple to Ophel in the south, and then, along the eastern face, back along the northern, to the place from which the description started. The latter seems the more probable hypothesis, but the determination of the point is not of very great consequence. It is enough to know that the description in the first sixteen verses applies to Jerusalem, and in the last sixteen to Zion, or the city of David, as this is sufficient to explain almost all the difficult passages in the Old Testament which refer to the ancient topography of the city.—Fergusson in Smith's Bible Dictionary.' MODERN JERUSALEM. The first sight of Jerusalem as seen from the south, the first moment when from the ridge of hills which divide the valley of Rephaim from the valley of Bethlehem one sees the white line crowning the horizon, and knows that it is Jerusalem, is a moment never to be forgotten. But there is nothing in the view itself to excite your feelings. Nor is there even when the Mount of Olives heaves in sight, nor when "the horses' hoofs ring on the stones of the streets of Jerusalem." Nor is there in the surrounding outline of hills on the distant horizon. Nebi-Samuel is indeed a high and distinguished point, and Ramah and Gibeah both stand out, but they and all the rest in some degree partake of that featureless character which belongs to all the hills of Judæa. In one respect no one need quarrel with this first aspect of Jerusalem. So far as localities have any concern with religion, it is well to feel that Christianity, even in its first origin, was nurtured in no romantic scenery; that the discourses in the walks to and from Bethany, and in earlier times the psalms and prophecies of David and Isaiah, were not, as in Greece, the offspring of oracular cliffs and grottos, but the simple outpouring of souls which thought of nothing but God and man. It is not, however, inconsistent with this view to add, that though not romantic, though at first sight bare and prosaic in the extreme, there does at last grow up about Jerusalem a beauty as poetical as that which hangs over Athens and Rome. First, it is in the highest degree venerable. Modern houses it is true there are; the interiors of the streets are modern. The old city itself (and I felt a constant satisfaction in the thought) lies buried twenty, thirty, forty feet below these wretched shops and receptacles for AngloOriental conveniences. But still, as you look at it from any commanding point, within or without the walls, you are struck by the gray ruinous masses of which it is made up; it is the ruin, in fact, of the old Jerusalem on which you look-the stones, the columns; the very soil on which you tread is the accumulation of nearly three thousand years. And as with the city, so it is with the |