bable. Saul had become a tyrant even to his own family; and the same man who could cast a javelin at his noble son Jonathan, with the hope to slay him, after heaping on him all manner of abuse, only because of his love for, and defence of, David, would not scruple to outrage every feeling of his daughter, and compel her, by the most iniquitous force, to annul her brief period of connection with David, and become the wife of another.

That Michal was the unhappy sufferer, not the agent, in these nefarious and most illegal proceedings, is clearly evident from two circumstances. In the first

place, we are expressly told, "that Saul gave Michal, his daughter," &c. Her name, as agent, is not mentioned, whence we infer that it was her father's tyranny, against which a weak and defenceless woman had no power to rebel. In the second, it is clearly demonstrable that she herself was blameless, else would not David have made her restoration to himself one of the very first proceedings of his regal power. Had there been even the semblance of a divorce, he could not have done this, the law expressly forbidding it; but the iniquitous tyranny of Saul, in this outrage to his child, completely justified David's after-proceedings. He would not visit on a blameless child the sins of a guilty father, by leaving her in the position to which parental tyranny had assigned her; but recalled her to his heart, and to his home, at the very time, when, had his noble spirit retained any spark of enmity towards the house of Saul, he might, and with some appearance of justice, have permitted her to remain neglected and uncared for, in the equivocal station which, as no divorce had taken

place between her and himself, she must unavoidably have occupied in Phalti's house.

The next mention we have of Michal after her restoration to David, is indicative of a feeling very contrary to that which at first attracted us towards her, and displays an imperfection of character which we might perhaps expect from the daughter of Saul, but certainly not from the wife of David.

For the last twenty years, the ark of God had remained in Kirjath Jearim, in the house of Abinadab, whose son, Eleazer, had been sanctified to keep it. Through all the troubles of the reign of Saul it had quietly remained there; no inclination having been demonstrated by either king or subjects to remove it, and so arguing an indifference to its sacred presence, only too fully borne out by the many illegal acts of Saul. David could not feel this indifference. The ark of God was to him so inexpressibly sacred, that his heart yearned for its holy influence in the city where he dwelt; and therefore every preparation was made for conducting it to Hebron with all befitting sanctity and honor. The fear, however, excited by the smiting of Uzzah for his irreverence, urged his turning it aside from the direct road to the city, and bringing it into the house of Obed-edom, the Gittite. There it abode three months; and the Lord so blessed Obed-edom, and all his household, that David again coveted its presence in his, own city, believing with a child-like and loving faith, that the presence of the Lord dwelt there, and would bless all those who sought to do him reverence and honor. "So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom, to the city of David, with gladness."

It was a very jubilee of rejoicing to the inmates of Hebron. Trumpets and holy songs marked its progress, and every six paces sacrifices of oxen and fatlings were offered to the Lord; and the king himself, disrobed of all regal ornaments, and attired simply in a linen ephod as one of the inferior priests, joined with his whole heart in the solemn rejoicing, by leaping and dancing before the Lord. The mode of this holy rejoicing may read strangely to our refined ears; but the song and the dance were ever the natural symbols of rejoicing in Israel. Amusements, which are by many deemed so profane as to be excluded from all professors of religion, were, in Judea and by the chosen people of God, not only allowed, but sanctified and hallowed, by their intimate association with the service of the Lord.

"And as the ark came into the city of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window, and saw the king rejoicing, &c. And she despised him in her heart." Despised him! she who had once so loved him? How could contempt exist with love? Michal was a very woman; it was not the leaping and dancing she despised, but that King David should, without any semblance of royalty or state, clothed in the lowly garments of an inferior priest, mingle with the crowds, and become for the time as one of them. We know that such were her feelings by her scornful address to the king, when on the conclusion of the burnt-offerings and peace-offerings David returned to bless his household, and was met by Michal, eager to give vent to her contempt. "How glorious was the king of Israel to-day, who uncovered himself (meaning removed the coverings of royalty) in the eyes of the lowest of his servants, even as one of the

vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself," alluding to the lowest class of the people, who were often compelled to remove their long upper garment, lest it should hinder them in their work. "And David said unto Michal, It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel: and therefore will I rejoice before the Lord. And I will yet be more vile than thus, and be base in my own sight: and (yet more) of the maidservants of which thou hast spoken, shall I be had in honor;" a calm, yet emphatic reproof, bringing forcibly before her the folly of her contempt. What were the trappings of state, the distinction of ranks, before the Eternal? In His sight king and serf, prince and peasant were the same, judged only by the rendering of the heart towards Him, by their zeal or indifference in His service. It was the Lord who had made David what he was, and therefore what was he more in His sight than the lowest of his subjects? Nor did he rejoice merely from individual thanksgiving. It was the purest joy to a heart like David's, that to him the blessed privilege was granted of bringing the ark of the Lord into his city; a proof that the Eternal deigned to bless the city of David with His immediate presence, and must in itself have created not only individual, but national rejoicing.

The allusion to his having been chosen in lieu of Michal's father, and all his house, cannot in any way be regarded as an unkind and uncalled-for reproach from David to his wife. The extent of the love he bore her, we infer not only from the fact of his recalling her, but from his making her restoration an absolute condition

with Abner ere he would accept that warrior's allegiance. Abner was a person of the greatest consequence in Israel, alike from his near connection with the family of Saul, his great influence with the people, and his skill and courage as a warrior. To obtain his subjection and allegiance was of almost vital importance to the popularity of David; yet did that monarch refuse to receive him, even at the risk of sacrificing his offered submission, unless he would bring him back his wife.

No feeling, therefore, actuated him towards Michal as Saul's daughter. Nor would a syllable of reproach have escaped his lips concerning her parentage, had he not been roused to just indignation, by her reproaching him with his zeal in the service of his God. Nothing is more painful, or more difficult to be borne with patience, than a contemptuous attack on our zeal in devotion, or in our ardent wish to serve the Lord, either in glorifying him, or doing good to our fellow-creatures; and the nearer and dearer the person who utters such reproach, the more exquisitely painful is it to bear. Michal does not appear to have been a religious woman. In no

part of her history can we trace the workings of that secret, yet ever-acting piety, which characterised so many of her countrywomen. Her very love for David would seem to have been excited, not so much from his beautiful and unwavering piety, but from the dazzling beauty and chivalric qualities which had so distinguished him. Had she been religious, her joy and thanksgiving that the ark of her God was permitted to abide in her husband's city would have occupied her mind, to the exclusion of every petty and contemptuous feeling. Had she loved David for those spiritual quali