im again to say, "I am not satisfied with what I have got; but I mean to send my officers to ransack every nook and corner of thy house, and to lay their hand on everything that is pleasant and goodly in thy sight, and to take it away and bring it to me." This was too much even for Ahab. He had submitted to a great deal, but he could not submit to this. Unwilling, however, to reply on the spur of the moment, he called together the elders of the people, and asked them what he was to do. Evidently the poor man was at his wits' end. "And all the elders and all the people said unto him, Hearken not unto him, nor consent.' They had some spark of patriotism and courage left, and they refused to submit to such insolent and tyrannical demands. Well, the messengers departed and told Benhadad; and he instantly swore one of his profane oaths-being a heathen, and mark you, one of those doomed to extermination by the law of God-he said, "The gods do so unto me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me." But the king of Israel, evidently encouraged by his counsellors, plucked up a little courage, and he said very quietly and very justly, in words that are always true, "Let not him that girdeth on his harness (that is, his armour) boast himself as he that putteth it off;" that is, be not so sure of victory. It is all very well to talk magniloquent things when you are putting on your armour, but you are not sure you will put it off a conqueror. Well, "it came to pass, when Benhadad heard this, as he was drinking"-for he seems to have been a drunken person-" that he said unto all his servants, Set yourselves in array: and they set themselves in array against the city. And

behold, there came a prophet unto Ahab, king of Is rael, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou seen al this great multitude? behold, I will deliver it irto thine hand this day; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. And Ahab said, By whom?" Then he explained to him that by a little stratagem-scarcely a stratagem; by means wholly disproportionate; so disproportionate to the issue that the evidence would be irresistible that it was God's doing, and therefore marvellous in his eyes—this mighty host should be utterly defeated. Ahab accordingly sent out the persons that he was directed to send; and Benhadad, secure from his numbers and his strength, who was drinking to excess in his pavilion, sent orders to catch these young men that had come out, evidently despising them. But he soon found he was mistaken; for "these young men of the princes of the provinces came out of the city, and the army which followed them. And they slew every one his man, and the Syrians fled; and Israel pursued them; and Benhadad, the king of Syria escaped on a horse with the horsemen. And the king of Israel went out, and smote the horses and chariots and slew the Syrians with a great slaughter." Well, a prophet-who he was seems difficult to determine, probably Micaiah the son of Imla, who plays a conspicuous part in the history of Israel-this prophet came to Ahab and said, “Thus saith the Lord, Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.” These servants of Benhadad had been saying, that they were beaten because the gods of the Syrians were gods of the hills, but that they had found out

that they were not gods of the valleys. You know that the heathen had a god for every locality; a certain river belonged to one god, a certain country and capital to another. Rome was the city of Mars; Athens was the city of Minerva; each spot had its tutelary deity. Well, these heathen Syrians, supposing that the Israelites were just like themselves, and were under the guardianship of tutelary gods, thought that they had gods who were omnipotent on the hills; but that the moment they came down into the valleys that they (the Syrians) would be able to overwhelm them. This was their opinion, and in this opinion Benhadad prepared another army; the Israelites were a mere handful pitched against them; but slaughter and entire rout followed and a vast number of them fell by the ruins of the walls of the city, and by the sword of the pursuing Israelites.

After Ahab had been thus triumphant in both these great battles, the servants of Benhadad fell upon an ingenious trick. As they could not exterminate Ahab on the field of conflict, they thought that they would destroy him by making him compromise and concede when he ought neither to have compromised nor conceded, according to the word of the God of Israel. It was this: that they should go to Ahab, flushed as he was with victory, and when perhaps he might be more softly disposed, and say to him, "Benhadad is alive, now will you spare him ?" And Ahab instantly said, "Is he yet alive? he is my brother;" that is, his life shall be spared, and I will take care nothing shall be done to him. Benhadad, who was evidently a clever though a depraved ruler, came to Ahab and

said, "Now, as you have spared my life so magnanimously, let us make a covenant together. I will give you streets in Damascus-that is, I will give you share of my kingdom, as you have given me a share of your magnanimity." And Ahab, like a foolish, thoughtless man, made a covenant with him, which he was expressly forbidden to do. It is just as if Nana Sahib were to come to Sir Colin Campbell, and say, "If you will only take a bit of my city, and give me a bit of yours, and come to terms, then we will be at peace and friendship with each other." Anything more absurd could not be conceived.

The consequence of this was, that a prophet came to Ahab, and asked him what he had done. We never gain by compromising truth, by diluting what is obvious duty. It is easier to gain a victory than it is to make a good and prosperous use of that victory; and the most successful generals in the field have often failed in so using their success, as to establish it on a permanent basis. This was the case with Ahab and his generals and the results were most disastrous. The prophet, first of all, got another person to smite him, that he might look like one wounded in the battle; and then he came to Ahab, and stated not what was untrue, but gave a parable in order to extort from him a condemnation of his own conduct; just as in the case of the beautiful parable of the ewe lamb, related by Nathan to David, eliciting judgment before he knew that he himself was the subject of that judg ment. The duty of Ahab was to put to death Benhadad, and every Syrian found in arms against his dynasty and his throne. How often do we discover as we read history, that what seems at the moment

mercy, is in its larger influence the greatest cruelty; and what sometimes seems a severe course, is in its issies the most beneficent and merciful. In other words, justice and righteousness, and truth are always and everywhere dutiful; and anything that interferes with these has not God's blessing, and therefore cannot have a prosperous issue.

NABOTH'S VINEYARD.

I KINGS XXI.

NABOTH'S VINEYARD. AHAB'S TEMPER AND WIFE. HYPOCRISY. THE MURDER OF THE JEZREELITE. JUDGMENT DENOUNCED.

We find drawn in the chapter I have read the character of a merciless and ruthless tyrant, who acted not according to justice nor the laws of his country, but according to the dictates of his own wicked and avaricious nature. It appears that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard; mark you, a vineyard that he received by inheritance; and that having received by inheritance, he was expressly forbidden by the law of the land of Israel to alienate upon any terms whatever; but was bound to defend it with all the powers that he had, and under the sacredness of the most solemn obligation. Ahab, we read, asked him to let him have it, and he refused. Now the king did wrong in making such a request; and Naboth, however stern his reply seems to us to