looked upon my people, because their cry is come up unto me.'1

But that we reject the prediction of the Deuteronomist as apocryphal, this sudden change in divine opinion would indicate that Jehovah had been searching the register of ancient prophecy, or consulting Moses on the necessity of fulfilment a hypothesis involving no irreverence towards a Deity whose defective memory and vacillating judgment are so candidly admitted by His own annalists.

Notwithstanding the imperfection of human judgment, history furnishes some happy instances of personal rulers so judiciously chosen by their subjects as to combine, in their administration, internal peace and prosperity with successful resistance to foreign aggression. But what shall we say of the good fortune of a nation whose sovereign has been elected by divine wisdom! What foresight in counsel! What justice in judgment ! What courage in action! What devotion to duty must characterise the Elect of Jehovah! If these expectations are falsified in the career of Saul, shall we attribute imprudent choice to the Deity, or assume that a theocratic régime had destroyed, in the entire nation, the public virtues which flourished among the heathen of antiquity?

But had the divine selection of a king any existence except in the imagination of the prophet? We read of the Phrygian peasant Gordius raised to the throne in response to an oracle which recommended the people to select for their king the first man going to the temple of Jupiter seated on a waggon. Samuel, excited by musical conjuration, was his own oracle; and if it had flashed upon him, in a moment of supposed inspiration, to

1 1 Sam. ix. 15, 16,

anoint as king the first man he should meet of exceptional stature, or the first client tendering backsheesh for the recovery of stray cattle, he would have proclaimed the stranger as the Lord's anointed with an honesty of conviction analogous to the faith of Roman cardinals when they elect a Pope by acclamation.

But if Saul were even possessed of the qualities of a great king, did not the persistent interference of Samuel annul the abdication of Jehovah, perpetuate the evils of Theocracy, prevent Saul from fairly testing the results of merely human government, and mock the Hebrews with a phantom king controlled or cursed by prophets?

In the beginning of his reign Saul obtained a great victory over the Ammonites; and this auspicious event might have won the confidence and established the courage of his subjects, but that, at a great assembly of the people convoked by Samuel, the prophet renewed his denunciations of national iniquity in desiring a king: 'Now therefore,' said Samuel, 'stand and see this great thing, which the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest to-day? I will call upon the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain; that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord sent thunder and rain that day: and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God, that we die not: for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king.'1

Thus far we have a king predicted by Moses, chosen by Jehovah, and nominated by Samuel, ruling over a

1 1 Sam. xii. 16-19.

people miraculously punished for desiring a form of government approved by Jehovah as the most effectual means of saving them from the Philistines!

If the purpose of Samuel had been to discredit and paralyse the administration of Saul, could he have more effectually accomplished his design than by thus depicting monarchical government not only as a folly but as a crime? The result was a foregone conclusion; and, when Saul was subsequently at war with the Philistines, he beheld his subjects following him with fear and trembling, or hiding themselves in caves and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits.' What misery and wretchedness do not these words involve !1

In 1 Sam. xiii. we read of Saul offering a sacrifice to Jehovah in the absence of Samuel. For this venial offence the prophet announced the deposition of the king in favour of a man after God's own heart,' and yet David assumed ecclesiastical robes, offered sacrifices, and bestowed the priestly benediction with impunity.2

In chap. xv. we have the command of Jehovah to 'smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.' Saul piously executed this atrocious edict, with the exception of sparing Agag, and a choice selection of sheep and

oxen.

This error of judgment, redressed by Samuel's murder of Agag, was pronounced an unpardonable offence; Jehovah repented of His choice; Samuel departed to anoint David; the Spirit of the Lord was transferred from Saul to the future king; and Satan

took possession of the deposed monarch. Omniscience might err and repent; but Saul's contrition could not avert the extreme penalty inflicted for the defective obedience of an untutored rustic, on whom the responsibilities of government had been suddenly thrust.

Thus, Jehovah and Samuel abandoned the Chosen Race to the personal government of a man, worried into insanity or divinely afflicted as a demoniac, whose intermittent frenzy was to be further intensified by the irritating consciousness that a divinely appointed rival awaited his deposition or death to occupy the throne of Judah.

Saul and his subjects had never ceased to reverence Jehovah; they are not accused of worshipping alien gods; and yet, for merely trivial errors, the career of the king was closed by suicide or assassination; and his unhappy subjects slain or driven forth as fugitives before the victorious Philistines. What clearer refutation can we hold of the theory, sustained by all the prophets, that the calamities of Israel were manifestations of divine wrath against idolatry? Shall we not rather say that the Hebrews were driven to worship at other shrines by the violated promises of their prophets?

In the story of Saul we detect the popular error which classes royalty among the divine institutions of Scripture a fallacy refuted by Samuel when he called down fire from heaven to attest divine condemnation of monarchy. The prophets spoke of the Lord's anointed' when they had usurped the right to nominate Hebrew kings; but monarchy originated, not in divine, but in human wisdom, seeking social order and political stability through the personal rule of the strongest and the

wisest, who thus became the founders of permanent dynasties, born to the heritage of governing nations. In modern times, constitutional monarchy commands the allegiance of all, who wisely recognise the wisdom of loyalty to the hereditary chief of the commonwealth, claiming our homage, not as the representative of a sacred superstition, but as the executor of the wisdom of the ages. Unanointed kings, therefore, receive their meed of reverence from nations who identify their greatness with a governing race; and, when Royalty claims our homage in the person of a lovely and charming woman, born in the purple as the descendant of kings, loyalty needs no prophetic fiction to evoke its highest form of chivalrous devotion. Alexandra of Wales may seem to inspire, amid scenes of peaceful prosperity, no greater depth of national feeling than respectful interest in a lady of exalted rank; but, if she were overshadowed by the misfortunes of a Marie Stuart, or a Marie Antoinette, men would stake life and fortune in her cause, and, losing on the cast, walk proudly to the scaffold with a smile on their lips.

The disastrous degeneracy of parliamentary government in our time gives us the greater occasion for rejoicing that we still possess a Royal Dynasty to which we may, some day, appeal, to save society from anarchy and confiscation, and rule us in the good old fashion of beneficent despotism.