fifty years he had borne an unsullied name; for more than thirty years
he had been a model of reproachless chivalry. If polygamy and ferocity
in war are not drawbacks to our admiration, certain it is that no
recorded crime or folly that called out divine censure can be laid to
his charge. But in an hour of temptation, or from strange infatuation,
he added murder to adultery,--covering up a great crime by one of still
greater enormity, evincing meanness and treachery as well as ungoverned
passion, and creating a scandal which was considered disgraceful even in
an Oriental palace. "We read," says South in one of his most brilliant
paragraphs, "of nothing like adultery in a persecuted David in the
wilderness, when he fled hither and thither like a chased doe upon the
mountains; but when the delicacies of his palace softened and ungirt his
spirit, then it was that this great hero fell by a glance, and buried
his glories in nocturnal shame, giving to his name a lasting stain, and
to his conscience a fearful wound." Nor did he come to himself until a
child was born, and the prophet Nathan had ingeniously pointed out to
him his flagrant sin. He manifested no wrath against his accuser, as
some despots would have done, but sank to the ground in the greatest
anguish and grief.

Then it was that David's repentance was more marvellous than his
transgression, offering the most memorable instance of contrition
recorded in history,--surpassing in moral sublimity, a thousand times
over, the grief of Theodosius under the rebuke of Ambrose, or the sorrow
of the haughty Plantagenet for the murder of Becket. His repentance was
so profound, so sincere, so remarkable, that it is embalmed forever in
the heart of a sinful world. Its wondrous depth and intensity almost
make us forget the crime itself, which nevertheless pursued him into the
immensity of eternal night, and was visited upon the third and fourth
generation in treason, rebellion, and wars. "Be sure your sin will find