checkered and so seriously marred with wilfulness, indulgence, and sin, we are reminded of the lines often quoted from our greatest national poet- " The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones;" and we :tsk-Are these lines, in any large and important sense, true; and must we so invert our fixed notious as to admit that the good in our lives is temporary and fa<!ing, while the evil is permanent, and must go on, with its mischievous influences, when we have passed away? We cannot think this. What is true about men-especially such public men as David-may be stated under three headings. I. EVERY MAN'S LIFE, WHILE BEING LIVED, II! SUBJECT TO CRITICISM. We must Ill accept of this condition. We must not wonder if the criticism finds out and unduly magnifies the evil that may be in us. Though often a source of much bitterness and trouble, and often painfully depressing to the earnest man, it is, on the whole, healthy that public men should be thus exposed, and must take count of the fact that their fellows will never let their wrong-doings or wrong teachings hide away or work in secret. It is more true that the "evil of a man"' lives while he lives. II. IN THE TIME OF A MAN'S DEATH CRITICISM IB DISARMED. Such a time has a strange calming and solemnizing influence even on political and theological opponents, The "other party" will write sketches of the dead man's life without a trace of bitter• ness or referrnce to a disputed topic. Perhaps this was never more strikingly illu3trated than at the death of the good Dean Stanley. Touchingly tender and beautiful were the references made to him, and all vied in saying good or saying nothing. The good, not the evil, lived after him. And so in David's death-time, all the evil and the enwity were put aside, that the nation might do homage to its great and good king. III. AFTER DEATH CRITICISM IS KTh'DLY. By common consent men try to forget the evil, and fix their thoughts only on the good. Biographies scarcely even hint the natural weaknesses, the stumblings, or the stains. Nay, a kind of glory-halo gathers round the l,eroie dead, in which we even lose sight of their infirmities; and so it is the good in a man that lives after him. 'l'hen comes the question-Does our homage in death to a man necessarily imply ap]>roval of his career? Yes; it does of his career as a whole-of the great features of it. Though this must be admitted, that the homage is far oftenei· rendered to genius urn.1.1 Lo character.-H. '£. HOMILETICAL INDEX TO
THE .FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. CHAPTER I. CHAPTER III. TRIID PA.OE THEM& J"'AG11: On the whole Book-Chronicles 6 Checkered Life 86 On the First Nine Chapters-Genco.• 'fhe Best Rewards of Piety, etc. 37 logics ... 7 Genealogy of Israel's Roye.I Household SS A Mighty One 7 The Kings of the Royal Line-DaviJ On the Genenlogicnl Tables of the and Solomon : the Lessons of their First Six Cho.pters 8 Lives ... 38 The Mission of Scripture Genealogies 9 Kings of the Roynl Line-Zedckinh: The 'fwo Great Ro.oe-Heads 10 the Lesson of his Life 3!) Nimrod, the First Conqueror 11 David's Double Reign 3!) The Divided Earth 12 Review of the Kings 40 Abro.ham's Double Kame ... 18 The Builder oC the Second Temple ... 41 The Relations of Edom and Isrnel 13 Geneo.logies H CHAPTER IV. The Genealogies in Relation to Christ 14 A Unique Instance of the Beneficent The Genealogies in Relo.tion to the Disappointments of Human Suffer- Church and the World ,.. 15 ing'~ Cry 47 No.tum) and Spiritual Paternity 16 An Exo.n:.ple of Earnest Pro.yor for The Human Raoe; Unity and Division 17 Earthly Things, to be Imitated 48 Though Transient, not Vain 17 The Prayer for the Hand ... 50 The Prayer of Victory over Evil 51 CHAPTER II. The Gracious Benignity of Answer to The Human Family 24 Prayer 52 A Transgressor and Troubler 24 Jnbez Si, G3 The Families of the Scribes 25 Weavers, Husbo.ndmcn, and Potters r, l Jacob-Israel 26 Dwellings and Genenlogios :,.'\ Divine Judgment on Individual Sin 27 "Princes in their Fawllies" 55 Sinners are Troublers 28 " Fo.t Pnsture " •.. 56 Ltssons from the Story of Boo.z 29 A Model Prnyer .. . 1i6, 60, 65 The Character of Jesse 29 Othneil's Adventure; or, the Impulso Artistic Gifts finding Religious of Promised Rewards 57 Spheres 80 The Dignity of all Work The Prowess of J nir 81 Might and Right ... The Mission of the Kenites 82 God's We.ye with Amalek ... ii INDEX.