Ver. 13.-Skill and trust ensurin_q victory. In one or two forms this subject has already been dealt with; so, under this heading, we propose to give here only a brief outline, as the filling up of it must of necessity involve some repetition of thought. A new outline may snggest some freshness of form. The principle expressed in tho familiar words," Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you," finds illustration in every age, and in every sphere of our life. Give the illustrative incident connected with this verse. Joab skilfully planned, as a good general; but he called for a full trust in God, and committal of the matter to him, as became the good man. !. MA..-.. MUST PLAN AND WORK AB IF EVERYTHING DEPENDED ON HIS BKILL, This is the life-loyalty. IJ. MAN llfUST PBAY AND WAIT AB IF EVERYTHING DEPENDED ON BIB TRUBT. This is the heart-loyalty. Ill. GOD GIVEB A BLESSING WHICH CROWNS BOTH THE WORKING AND THE WAITING. This is the Divine recognition of the whole man: the acceptance of the offering of a man's whole self, including both the active and the passive sides of his nature . .APPLY. Our fellow-man can see only our working, and so our success may seem to be the natural fruitage of our own work. But we know, and God sees, that our suc- cesses are the Divine benedictions that rest upon the life-toil and the heart-trust, when these are fully and lovingly blended together.-R. 'l'.
EXPOSITION. tarried at Jerusalem," e.t which same stnto. OHAPTER XX. ment, however, the writer of Samuel he.Its, The contents of this chapter a.re e.11 to be to append all that then happened with found in the work of Samuel, but woven in, David in the disastrous motter of Bath- in very different places. The cause of the sheba. and Urio.h, occupying neorly two first considerable difference of this kind is whole chapters (2 Sam. xi. 2-xii. 25)-o in connection with the occurrence of what history not recorded at 11ll by the Chronicle would have seemed a mere casual deto.il of compiler. Why David tarried o.t Jerusalem, expression in our first verse, " But David and how for he did so legitimotely e.nd in OH. XX, 1-8,] THE FIRST DOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. 317