his head, and mind, and heart, continually. Thus tasked and worn out he came to the period of 70 years of age, when there “ was no warmth in him." The blood began to run cold and thin through his veins. The heart, weary with its beating, inclined to stagger or to stand still. The machinery of life had nearly run down, and the tokens grew unmistakeable and clear that he was about to go-his body the way of all the earth, and his soul the way of all spirits.

This Abishag, the Shunamite, who was brought to minister to David in this singular style, was what was called then a secondary wife. Polygamy, such as this, was tolerated then on account of the hardness of their hearts, and was therefore not forbidden. We find in a subsequent chapter evidence of this. When Adonijah expressed his wish to marry Abishag the Shunamite, he was punished for it, because she was in a secondary but in a lawful sense a wife to king David.

Adonijah claimed, in spite of what he knew, or ought to have known, the sovereignty and the crown of Israel. Therefore, to anticipate opposition, and to lose no time-with the penetration of a thorough tactician, perfectly aware that to falter was to lose the day, and to strike a blow rapidly was probably, though it was not historically, to gain it-he said, "I will be king." He made up his mind to it. Man purposes but God performs. He thought his will was stronger than God's word; he lived to see his entire mistake. He prepared him chariots, and all the equipage and the splendour of royalty. He was the more sure, inasmuch as his father, who had never expressed himself displeased at him, and was growing old, and probably overwhelmed and pressed down by the weight of years,

and the fatigue and the exhaustion necessarily attendant, would not trouble himself about his successor, being too absorbed about himself. He went at this crisis and conferred with Joab, an old soldier, whose services seem generally to have been in the highest market, and who was ready to draw his sword in any cause, and on any side, provided he saw advantages on the side he was summoned to adopt. "He conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah, and with Abiathar the priest; and they following Adonijah helped him." Joab ought to have known better. He had been well treated by his royal master, he had received great kindness, but he had shewn himself from first to last an equivocal and vacillating character, and not actuated by the purest and noblest feelings of loyalty and love. But Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Shimei, and the mighty men who belonged to David, were not with Adonijah; and Adonijah took care not to ask their opinion. We see how thoroughly he pondered his position. He knew the men that could be bought. He knew also the noble men that all the gold and silver of Israel could not buy. It was said severely by a statesman that every man has his price. I do not believe it; I never will believe it. There are men that would be loyal in the best, and stedfast and unfaltering in the worst of circumstances. There are merchants who would not do a dishonourable or a mean act. There are soldiers who would not, under the worst of treatment, be disloyal to their sovereign, undutiful to their country, or act unworthy of their colours. I do not believe that every man has his price; it was a wicked maxim, fit to fall from worthless and wicked lips only. It is not borne out

by fact. At all events, if Joab had his price, Zadok the priest had not, and Benaiah, had not, and Nathan the prophet had not. They resisted every temptation, stood fast to their legitimate sovereign, ready to live or to die with him. One admires such conduct; there is nothing more beautiful than a consistent character faithfully sustained. One can forgive the incidental errors of consistency, but few can fail to admire that character which clings to what it believes to be duty, when that duty is set in unpopularity, in proscription, or in universal contempt.

We read that Nathan spoke to Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon and the wife of David, and gave her proper counsel. He said, You must go and tell your husband what has taken place; and after you have told him, even while you are talking to the king, I will step in myself, and back and sustain you. You go to speak what is true, to plead for what is right; and I, the prophet of the Lord, will follow you, and with the weight of my character, and the influence that I have over David, for I have never flattered him, but spoken faithfully to him, and rebuked him, I will appeal to David, and let him know what is the state of matters, and ask him to act accordingly. We ac cordingly read that Bathsheba told David the whole state of things, while Nathan came in, sustained her statements by his word, and exhorted David to do what she had requested. "Then king David answered and said, Call me Bathsheba. And she came into the king's presence, and stood before the king;" and David at once said he recognized his oath, and the word of the Lord; Solomon was to be his successor; he bade them therefore ignore the seeming or the

sham royal procession of Adonijah, and at once to enthrone Solomon, prepare the appropriate equipage, sound the trumpets, and let the shout of the people ring from earth to heaven, and be re-echoed from heaven to earth, "God save king Solomon." This was done till the earth, it is said, rent with the sound. Adonijah heard it; he wondered what it was. He thought probably it was some disloyal fellows trying to disturb the unanimity of his election and the happiness of his reign, and he said, "Wherefore is this noise of the city being in an uproar? And while he yet spake, behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest came; and Adonijah said unto him, Come in ; for thou art a valiant man, and bringest good tidings." But what a mistake: how different were the tidings. "Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah, Verily our lord king David hath made Solomon king." Adonijah saw there was an end to his short-lived reign, and thinking that as he had usurped the throne he would now be tried as a traitor, he ran and caught hold of the horns, or the four corners of the altar, which was always regarded as a shelter for the criminal till the charge against him was investigated. He pleaded with Solomon that he might not be destroyed, and Solomon shewed that if he had the strength to secure the victory that was his right, he had the magnanimity, which conquerors have not always, to make a good and humane use of it.

WHAT WOULDEST THOU?

"What wouldest thou?" 1 Kings i. 16.

A QUESTION most appropriate as the preface of a new year, and indeed of every year. It is by taking these words, spoken by an earthly king, but applicable in a far higher sense, that I would bring before you some of those characteristic traits by which each and all are severally distinguished. This will enable each to search his own heart, and see what in that heart he most deeply and thoroughly needs, or thinks he needs.

When Bathsheba came into the presence of the king, the king always ready to grant her the request that she desired, if that request was reasonable and right, asked her this question, "What wouldest thou ?" I ask of each hearer or reader what David asked of Bathsheba, "What wouldest thou?" In a daily newspaper you have spread before its first you on page the varied wants of commercial and of political men, of statesmen, of literary men, of ecclesiastics, and of the religious community. These wants are all upon the surface; they relate to outer life, they do not touch the inner springs of human life and character. Let me apply, therefore, to you in a far higher sense than its popular or original one, this question, "What wouldest thou ?" Ask the young man starting on the