of raising up the beings of another world, to answer her interrogatories. Such pretenders have always found ready belief in ages of ignorance and superstition; and their deceptions were among the many forms of idolatry, which the Israelites were expressly forbidden to practise. In the early part of Saul's reign, he had driven these impostors from the land; and the punishment of death was denounced on all who were found guilty of their arts. But Saul had now sunk to that state of mental and moral degradation, in which the impious pretensions of wizards and witches were likely to be believed; and he resolved to consult a woman of this description, who lived at Endor. Accompanied by two of his attendants, and disguising himself, that his rank might not be recognized, Saul appeared before the woman, and desired her to cause Samuel the Prophet to appear before him. At first, she refused, alleging the severe laws of Saul himself against such practices; but on receiving his assurance that no harm should happen to her in consequence, she complied, and pretended to attempt what he required. Suddenly, to her indescribable terror, the Prophet Samuel appeared, "an old man, covered with a mantle;" and she instantly felt that the hand of God had guided the king of Israel to her, to receive by the very means he so impiously used to encourage himself, the confirmation of his worst fears.

Saul, stooping with his face to the ground,

demanded of Samuel, what he should do, and what would be his fate in the battle with the Philistines; the answer was, that the kingdom was taken from him, and given to David, because he had not obeyed the voice of the LORD; that the Israelites would be defeated by the Philistines, and himself slain. On hearing this sentence, Saul fell to the earth senseless: he was recovered with difficulty, and, after having eaten food, of which he was much in need, he departed the same night, and returned sorrowful to his camp.

The denunciation of the Prophet was soon accomplished. The Philistines fought with the Israelites on Mount Gilboa, when a dreadful slaughter ensued; and three sons of Saul, Jonathan, Abinadab, and Melchishua, were slain in the heat of the battle. Saul fled wounded, and dreading to fall alive into the hands of the Philistines, he turned to his armourbearer, and commanded him to draw his sword and slay him: but the armourbearer refused; when Saul, taking the sword into his own hand, fell upon it, and died. When the armourbearer saw that his master was dead, he fell upon his sword, and died with him.

On the following day, when the Philistines, according to their barbarous custom, came to strip the slain, they found the bodies of Saul and his sons with savage ferocity they cut off the head of Saul, stripped the body of its armour,

which they hung up as a trophy in the temple of Ashtaroth, and then fastened it with those of his sons, on hooks on the wall of Bethsan, a town situated on the Jordan, to the south of the Sea of Tiberias. When the People of Jabesh, (the city which Saul at the commencement of his reign so valiantly delivered from the Ammonites) heard of this savage insult to their deliverer, they rose up in the night, and came and took down the bodies of Saul and his sons, and bringing them to their own city, buried their remains with funeral rites. Thus perished the first of Israel's kings: a man who had shown himself utterly unworthy of the high office to which he had been raised. Perhaps his selection was to afford a useful lesson to a people, who desired to be governed like other nations, when they were privileged to call the God of heaven and earth their Lawgiver and Judge. Saul's character resembles closely that of the petty sovereigns of his age; vigorous and energetic, but fitful and uncertain; sometimes yielding to the unlawful and perverse wishes of the multitude, and at others ruling them with despotic and cruel sway; yielding to his passions until his mind became disordered, and with the weakness of inconsistent vice, repenting, and committing sin, as passion or remorse swayed him. Yet was he not perhaps a worse king than the kings of the nations round, such as the Israelites so earnestly desired; his sin was in being like them,

with better knowledge, and a divinely inspired Prophet for his guide and teacher.

The death of Saul closes the First Book of Samuel his history commences in the ninth chapter of the same Book, which thus contains also the history of David, before he is made king.

On the third day after David's return to Ziklag, from the pursuit of the Amalekites, a man came to him from the camp of Saul, with his clothes rent and earth upon his head, in sign of mourning, bearing the news of the defeat of the Israelites, and the death of Saul and Jonathan. Not satisfied with being the messenger of this important intelligence, he thought to gain a reward by boasting that he had slain Saul, saying, "As I happened by chance upon Mount Gilboa, behold, Saul leaned upon his spear, and lo! the chariots and horsemen followed hard after him. And when he looked behind him, he saw me, and called unto me. And I answered here am I.

And he said who art thou? And I answered, I am an Amalekite. He said unto me again, Stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me, for anguish is come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me. So I stood upon him, and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen: and I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought them hither unto my Lord."

The words produced an effect the very reverse of what the Amalekite expected. He was treated as a regicide. "How, wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand against the LORD's anointed?" "Thy blood be upon thy head, for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the LORD's anointed:" And David commanded the man to be put to death.

Instead of rejoicing over the unhappy fate of his implacable enemy, David's heart was touched with sorrow, and he composed that beautiful lament, which has perhaps never been surpassed in sublime pathos, or poetic imagery; it is as follows:

"And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul, and over Jonathan his son."

"The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places, how are the mighty fallen!"

The beauty of Israel,-Jonathan is here meant the word translated beauty,' means also 'antelope,' a common comparison for beauty and strength. Jonathan and Saul were both remarkable for their personal strength and agility.