The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 138

band of men, whose hearts God had touched," also I Could there have been a more striking, a fuller, a richer beginning of a new religious life, and one shaped to hi"'hest ends? Who could ever lose the memory, the impressions, the force of hall~wod re~olutions belonging to such a time? lll. 'l'ITE FACT OF THE GRE.!.T OUTER OPPORTUNITIES WHICH THE POSITION OF SAUL AND THE PROVIDENCE OF Goo COMBINED TO PROFFER TO SAUL. Outer opportunity is not everything, and indeed it is not anything where inner fitness and intrinsic gift and the spirit of a mission may not be present. But otherwise, outer opportunity is matter of grmt advantage. As the plant must flower and the tree must fruit, in order to develop to the highest advantage, so thought and purpose, feeling and love, and all life of man, crave the help of some outer opportunity. '!'hey find expression thereby and, in finding e1:pression, unfailingly develop power and quality. God, no doubt' measures opportunity justly, wisely, kindly to us all. And where any child of hi~ may find or fancy he finds himself cramped and stinted in such respect, there may be overpoweringly good reasons for it, of a. kind difficult for us to trace with any dogma.tic assurance at present; and there may be found overwhelmingly ample compensation for it later on in life, or when the span of the present life is pas2ed. Yet can there be little doubt that, so far as the present life ta.ken by itself is concerned, many a. beautiful soul pines a.way for want of outer opportunity of action and of exhibition? many a. mighty courage dwarfs its growth? many a. great heart infolds its rich powers and qualities, instead of unfolding tbem? An old Roman exile poet, who exchanged sunny Rome for the forbidding Pontus, and who shivered as he wrote it, said, "What am I to do alone ? How can I utilize enforced idleness? How speed the day unhallowed by work? When disappointment is my only pay, when to dance in the dark is my mocking destiny, when to write a poem that can find no reader is my fate,-then I learn how much the speaker depends on the hearer, and the fostering of virtue depends on the awarding of praise, and how immense the stimulus of glory's opportunity." This old heathen seized and put into most effective poetry some of life's most affecting facts. Now, to the unbroken length of Saul's public life, an uninterrupted series of inspiring opportunity was undeniably proffered, both of God and man. Zeal that knew no bounds, enthusiasm that threatened to consume intelligent devotion that should disdain and fling even to an infinite distance all the petty interferences of the brood of envy and jealousy and suspicion's spawn,-these were the legitimate expectations of a whole world, from the grand sphere of opportunity in the midst of which Saul presided. Some of them he realized, and he began well, and did" awhile run well." IV. SOME OF THE LEADING INDICATIONS OF SAUL'S QUALITms OF CHARACTER. For instance, before his call, we find him the faithful, trusted, considerate son (1 Sam. ix. 5), The very tone of his recorded conversation with his servant (1 Sam. ix. 6-10) impresses us favourably, as affable, respectful, and open to suggestion and to reply. The master, especially if a. young man, who knows how to unite such qualities as these in his treatment of his servants, may well beget the prepossessions of the very best judges- for the virtue is rare. Then at the time of his private call and the first communications made to him by Samuel, he does not disappoint us for modesty, retiringness, unostenta- tious reticence and guardedness of the tongue. No boastful word was on his lip, no eager ambition grasped at what lay before him; the opposite of even family vain-glory seems to have characterized him (1 Sam. ix. 21; x. 16). At the time of his public call and Divine election from among the tribes, he would fain hide from the honour, and decline the exalted responsibility about to be laid upon him (1 Sam. x. 21-24). And he crowned the day with an instance of self-mastery, temperateness, forbearance (1 Sam. x. 27, compared with xi. 12, 13). The promptness of righteous indignation and zeal of resolution were very conspicuous in the dashing engagement by which ha delivered. those of Jabesh-gilead in the hour of the Ammonites' power (1 Sam. xi. 4- 11 ), and they were witnessed to by the aid and effectual blessing of the "Spirit of God." The events of that day also were crowned with renewed consecration, with sacrifices of thanksgiving, and with a. sacred and general joy on the part of "Saul and all the men of Israel." Yet from this point all went amiss. The strange reversal of all that Saul had formerly seemed began with the unwarrantable impatience and unpardonable presumption which found him anticipating Samuel and sacrificing to the Lord in Gilgal. This was, no doubt, the self-willed presumption on which his whole career WllS C!I, X, 1-14,] 'l'HE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. 12()