the weeping fugitive, and cast stones at the Lord's anointed; and Ahithophel, his former familiar friend and courtly confidant, with whom he has often taken sweet counsel and walked in the house of God, lifts up the heel against him, and basely goes over to the standard of the conspirators.

No wonder he exclaims, as with the sigh of a breaking heart: "Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying; my throat is dried; mine eyes fail, while I wait for my God. They that hate me without cause are more than the hairs of my head; they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty.... Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor. Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. And I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none."[2] "I mourn in my complaint and make a noise, because of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked; for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. My heart is sore pained within me, and the terrors of death are fallen upon me; fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I flee away, and be at rest; lo! then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness; I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest."[3]

Vain wish, O disquieted and trembling soul! No wings, no distance, no solitude, can save thee. Nearer at hand thou shalt find thy refuge, even in the Lord of the morning. And well knows the persecuted king where to look for succor and consolation. "O Lord, my God! in thee do I put my trust. Save me from them that persecute me, and deliver me; lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver."[4] "Show thy marvellous loving-kindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them that put their trust in thee from those who rise up against them! Keep me as the apple of thine eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wing, from the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies who compass me about."[5] "Plead my cause, O Lord! with them that strive with me; fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for my help; draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation."[6]

How expressive is all this of utter helplessness, and reliance upon the living God! What fervent prayer is here! what faith in a personal power and a special providence which no human agency can baffle or resist! Proud mortals! talk no more of the strong will, the valiant arm, the dauntless courage, and your own self-sufficiency! "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm." "Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." What is the strategy of generals and the prowess of armies, to him "who rideth upon the heavens in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky"? Faith as a grain of mustard-seed is better than all your military science, and the prayer of the humblest peasant is mightier than embattled millions. The prayer of faith divides the sea, cleaves the granite, marshals the troops of the tempest, and makes the angels of God our allies. "When I call upon thee, then shall mine enemies be put to flight; this I know, for God is on my side." Such is David's confidence; such, my brethren, be ours! Is not every attribute of Jehovah in league with the devout believer, and all his infinite resources pledged to the support of his servants? And without any doubt of a divine hearing or fear of ultimate failure, every persecuted Christian may pray to the God of David: "Be thou my strong rock, for a house of defence to save me."

The second idea is refuge from punishment. The chief element of David's distress is a painful consciousness of guilt. It is conscience that wrings the wormwood for him into every cup of sorrow. It is remorse for past transgression that turns his tears into gall and makes his persecutions intolerable. Pure and innocent, he might defy his enemies, he might glory in tribulations. But he is forced to regard the wicked as God's sword for the punishment of his sins; and in all his pleadings we hear the voice of the penitent—sad confessions, bitter self-reproaches, touching appeals to the mercy of Heaven. "Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee. Deliver me from my transgressions; make me not a reproach of the foolish.... Remove thy stroke away from me; I am consumed by the blow of thy hand."[7] "Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink. Let not the water-flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up. Hear me, O Lord! for thy loving-kindness is good. Turn unto me, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies; and hide not thy face from thy servant, for I am in trouble. Hear me speedily."[8]

A good man, we all know, may be surprised by temptation, and so fall into grievous sin. Thus some of God's holiest servants have committed enormous crimes. Not the single or occasional act, however, constitutes character; but the habit of a man's life—his dominant impulse and prevailing tendency. To judge St. Peter, for example, by the one solitary instance of defection, were manifestly unfair; when his whole course, up to that moment, and ever afterward, was marked by uncompromising fidelity to the Master, with the most heroic daring and enduring in his service. Far more just were it to estimate the man by the tears which he wept when the reproving glance brought home the guilt to his conscience, and by his subsequent earnest endeavors to undo the evil he had done and honor the Saviour he had denied.

Apply this principle to the royal penitent. Who ever more truly loved God, or more honestly sought to serve him? Was not holy obedience the tenor and tendency of his life? If he erred in numbering the people—if he took Uriah's wife to his bosom, and slew the husband to conceal the crime—it was under the power of peculiar temptation, which we, having never experienced, are quite incapable of estimating; and those deplorable deeds are the only recorded exceptions—the manifest violent contradictions—to a long life of singular piety, purity and uprightness. And now, made sensible of his sin, mark you how bitterly he grieves for it, and how earnestly he groans for its forgiveness:—

"Have mercy upon me, O God! according to thy loving-kindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight; that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when