life in his own soul."

Should we seek for the cause of David's fall, for that easy descent in
the path of rectitude,--may we not find it in that fatal custom of
Eastern kings to have more wives than was divinely instituted in the
Garden of Eden,--an indulgence which weakened the moral sense and
unchained the passions? Polygamy, under any circumstances, is the folly
and weakness of kings, as well as the misfortune and curse of nations.
It divided and distracted the household of David, and gave rise to
incessant intrigues and conspiracies in his palace, which embittered his
latter days and even undermined his throne.

We read of no further backslidings which seemed to call forth the divine
displeasure, unless it were the census, or numbering of the people, even
against the expostulations of Joab. Why this census, in which we can see
no harm, should have been followed by so dire a calamity as a pestilence
in which seventy thousand persons perished in four days, we cannot see
by the light of reason, unless it indicated the purpose of establishing
an absolute monarchy for personal aggrandizement, or the extension of
unnecessary conquests, and hence an infringement of the theocratic
character of the Hebrew commonwealth. The conquests of David had thus
far been so brilliant, and his kingdom was so prosperous, that had he
been a pagan monarch he might have meditated the establishment of a
military monarchy, or have laid the foundation of an empire, like Cyrus
in after-times. From a less beginning than the Jewish commonwealth at
the time of David, the Greeks and Romans advanced to sovereignty over
both neighboring and distant States. The numbering of the Israelitish
nation seemed to indicate a desire for extended empire against the plain
indications of the divine will. But whatever was the nature of that sin,
it seems to have been one of no ordinary magnitude; and in view of its