We cannot therefore be too thankful that it was not left to any partisan to interpret this remarkable character, and to enforce the moral of the story. We cannot be too thankful that the story was not entrusted to any one who had a purpose to serve. Considered as a biographer merely, the sacred historian neither extenuates nor sets down aught in malice. Moreover, he does not weigh the good acts of David against the evil, in order to show which quality predominates. He does not apologize for his crimes, or take trouble to prove that the praises and thanksgivings of an adulterer and a murderer are not those of a hypocrite. For to him David, in these two characters, is not one man, but two. There is no concord between David fighting for God, in the confidence of God's righteousness, and David violating the plainest laws of society for his own selfish lusts. They are not to be harmonized. To place the records of both side by side, to leave them unreconciled, and allow the conscience of every man to find their lesson, -this is the task of the man who wrote the Books of Samuel. And, my brethren, it is by this quality in the writer that it has pleased God to give to this story of David a power over

the hearts and consciences of men which has perhaps not been exerted through any other character of the Bible.

For our unlettered brethren, the story of David possesses a fascination which is not even equalled by that of St. Paul. This is due in some degree to that Book of Psalms, which furnishes the simplest and most complete devotional exemplar which we possess. It is due also, no doubt, to the idyllic beauty of the shepherd's earliest story-to the romantic adventures of the patriot-to the absorbing interest which attaches to the events of the whole reign. But men prize and love the story of David for other reasons than these. They find in it the picture of their own struggles in their humbler field. They learn from David's weakness and transgressions that he is one with themselves. When he abhors himself in dust and ashes, they are reminded that they, too, have need of purification; but that it should not prevent their returning to the conflict, for that God will receive them and bless them again. They do not feel the inconsistency which unbelievers point to in David, with the sneering question, "Is this the man after God's own heart?" They feel rather that were it not for these inconsistencies David

would be unlike them, and his story no pattern of theirs. They know that when they yield to God, they do righteous acts and are righteous: that when they yield to self they are unrighteous, and are the servants of an evil power. They know they are inconsistent, but they know God loves them, and their faith is sure. They have tried to balance their state before God, but have ceased from the task sick at heart and unsatisfied. They know that if their life were recorded truly, it would consist of acts unreconciled, unreconcilable, even as David's acts. But God is their helper, and to Him, not to man, do they look for pardon and for justification.

It is, then, just in this circumstance, that David's righteous and evil acts are not to be harmonized, that the wholesomeness of his written story lies. As I have said, it is a circumstance which has presented great obstacles to unbelievers. I cannot but think that, even from the unbeliever's standpoint, to feel this difficulty shows strange ignorance of human nature. But without our entering on so large a digression, let this history impress upon us how needful it is for us to keep unmoved the landmarks which divide right from wrong. The Jews' downfall was near when they began to

confound moral distinctions; to call light darkness, and darkness light; to put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. It is dangerous to begin paltering with God, and the more dangerous that there is constant temptation. We are all aware of it in ourselves. We are ever tempted to palliate sin in the rich which we should condemn in the poor: to find in our own case some justification for acts which we should not recognize in the case of others. And in our time there is no lack of writers, unhappily, who set themselves deliberately to confuse our notions; to surround all the sins against the Decalogue with a halo of false glory; to make the sinner attractive, and leave the sin to appear repulsive if it can. And if it is allowable here to instance a merely human writer in terms of praise, we may well rejoice that the great dramatist, our representative English writer, of whom we are proud, and of our pride in whom we may be glad, is great in his moral teaching as in the brilliancy of his other gifts: that he never sought to make vice lovely, or goodness unattractive; that the bravery of a Macbeth is not made to dignify his selfishness; and that the skill of an Iago is not allowed for one moment to weaken the impression produced by his

wickedness. This is true art as well as true

morality.

The biographer of David, then, desires that we should judge the acts of his hero as we should judge them in any other person, or in ourselves. We are to admire his fidelity when he is faithful, and to detest his sin when he transgresses. The crime against Bathsheba and against Uriah is related without a word or a hint of extenuation. We are to loathe the crime; not less, because it was David who committed it; not more, because it was under circumstances of grossness which were merely the accidents of the age. If a modern king wished to attain the same objects, he would proceed perhaps very differently. David's method seems to us clumsy when compared with some modern refinements of treachery. But the moving cause -gratification of self, and disregard of all that stood in the way of it-this is the sin; the rest is merely an accident of time and locality. The sin is not of an age, but of all time.

The particular stage of this narrative of sin and repentance of which our text reminds us is where the prophet Nathan, under cover of the parable of the poor man and his ewe-lamb, forces the king unwittingly to pronounce his