Middle Age.

Abigail's meeting with David under the covert of the hill; her
turning him from his purpose of wild revenge by graceful
compliments, by the frank, and yet most modest expression of her
sympathy and admiration; and David's chivalrous answer to her
chivalrous appeal--all that scene, which painters have so often
delighted to draw, is a fore-feeling, a prophecy, as it were, of the
Christian chivalry of after ages. The scene is most human and most
divine: and we are not shocked to hear that after Nabal's death the
fair and rich lady joins her fortune to that of the wild outlaw, and
becomes his wife to wander by wood and wold.

But amid all the simple and sacred beauty of that scene, we cannot
forget, we must not forget that Abigail is but one wife of many;
that there is an element of pure, single, all-absorbing love absent
at least in David's heart, which was present in the hearts of our
forefathers in many a like case, and which they have handed down to
us as an heirloom, as precious as that of our laws and liberties.

And all this was sin unto David; and like all sin, brought with it
its own punishment. I do not mean to judge him: to assign his
exact amount of moral responsibility. Our Lord forbids us
positively to do that to any man; and least of all, to a man who
only acted according to his right, and the fashion of his race and
his age. But we must fix it very clearly in our minds, that sins
may be punished in this life, even though he who commits them is not
aware that they are sins. If you are ignorant that fire burns, your
ignorance will not prevent your hand from suffering if you put it
into the fire. If you are of opinion that two and two make five,