this for which he makes his first bid, and that a sincere and hearty bid. The mere acknowledgment of so great a principle was a happy inauguration of bis own kingship and a favourable omen for bis reign. He ood learnt not a little of the intrinsic value of this harmony in previous affliction of bis own, in observation of bow things had gone in the notorious absence of it with Saul, and partly in bis own experience while he ruled over only a portion of the people. And having now gained the opportunity, he seizes i~ almost eagerly, he sanctifies it by an immediate practic~l honouring of it, and does his best not to lose early or needlessly so great and splendid an offer of Pro- vidence. Who can estimate the value of the act of a man already known as a good man, and occupying the place of a great man, when he thus sees the opportunity of advertising before a whole nation (not the individual quality of individual character, which haply might claim retirement for its perfection, best blossom in the dark and be "born to blush unseen," but) that intrinsically good and Heaven-born principle which the arbitrary disposition and the despot would have made it their first endeavour to trample underfoot and hide out of the way? The man who stamps a beneficent prin- ciple of this kind with royal approbation-with that most royal kind of approbation which belongs to exalted and wide moral influence-is one of the very chiefest of the benefactors of his kind, and honours his own nature and its Author at the same time. His deed is one of the best in kind, most multifarious in good effect, and most far- ~reaching in place and time. The fashion of the selfish, the haughty, the arbitrary, is the contrary-to smother with jealous fear for themselves and their supposed influence the growth of opinion and private judgment the co-operation and the sympathy of tho many, while they love their obedience best when it is the blindest. \ II. THE RATIONAL WAY TAKEN TO OBTAIN THAT HARMONY. This wa~ shown in two degrees. David is not a leveller. He knows well the principle of hierarchy, which nature itself illustrates in every direction, but nowhere more than in the gift and circumstance of man. These distinctions he does not affect to ignore or to despise. So (1) he consults the judgment of the captains and every leader, who themselves formed a very" congregation of Israel" round about him; and (2) tests the willinghood, or professes to do so, of the" brethren" and" the priests and Levites"" everywhere ... in all the land of Israel." There is no doing even the best and most religious thing altogether over the heads of the great people themselves. The principle of proxy in religion is nobly and opportunely here dishonoured. A religious people can alone con- stitute a religious nation. Willinghood in religion alone adequately attests the reality of its nature. This ruler David yields of his own accord what not a few, even of enlightened, civilized, modern times, would think it a great deal to yield-the pride of commanding, the pride of personal authority, the pride of bee.ring down any possible little difference or contrnriety of opinion that might be expressed-in order to attain the end, nnd an end in itself supremely desirable. Bow often that end-the end answering exactly to that description, that it is Aupremely desirable-gets overlooked aud suffers loss or absolute eclipse because of the eager, jealous, unlovely fray of personal, class, or priestly feeling! When we act thus we court defeat for our co.use, though it be the highest; and to the great foe against whom we should show front so united we show instead the joints in our harness and armour and the weak places of ourselves. When -we act thus it is not the resistlessness of the force of co-operation that we are likely to get, for it is not this that we are honestly seeking. We are seeking self first. The confidence that we do not give, or offer to give, we do not get offered in return, nor get it at all. We are poor, weak, uncertain. 'l'here is not constitution in us, r.or the health and soundness of constitutionalism. Great is the gulf between that people of whatsoever sort and the ruler, the first principle of the latter of whom is that ho must rule with unquestioned and inelastic command, and they obey with unquestioning aud blind obedience. Nations and communities and families have, in numbers that cannot be numbered, suffered wreck irretrievable from this one cause, and yet the forcible and innumerable warnings do not seem as yet to have secured a thorough mastery of the lesson on the po.rt of the world. But at all events one clear, noble, loving exemplifica- tion of the very opposite is furnished to us by the prudent and sympathetic conduct of David in the narrative before us. He determines on ascertaining whether it is not possible to have the entire approval of the nation and the hearty co-operation of nil. And he takes the right method to evoko these. The effect is that which bas rarely 200 THE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. [oB. xm.1-H.
failed to be the effect under any fairly analogous circumstances, th&t &splendid eX&mple of nation11l and religious willinghood &nd harmonious consent is brought to view-a common glory of ruler and people and 11 universal source of instruction to the world. "All the congregation said that they would do so : for the thing w&S right in the eyes of all the people."