certain foolish priests,' if we remember, and that David had an equally distinct rightly, objected to the return, and founded their objection on a misunderstanding of David's sin in numbering the people. And secondly, certain equally foolish sceptics quoted triumph antly then, as they may be inclined to do now, the seeming discrepancies between the two accounts of David's census, and grounded thereon an argu. ment against the inspiration of the Bible. If we should succeed in show ing the unwisdom of both, some good purpose will be answered. The Bible offers no solution of the question-wherein lay the sin of David in numbering the people? Let us, then, first endeavour to find a probable, if not a conclusive answer. That David's conduct was offensive to God is distinctly stated. God was displeased with this thing, and smote Israel for it.' David also penitently confessed that in making the census he had done foolishly,' and 'sinned greatly. Was then, the mere numbering of the people a sin? The question is too foolish to require an elaborate answer. A man may surely count up his children's children, and why not a state the sum total of its families? But, further, Moses, as we learn from the book of Numbers, twice told the sum of the people-once in the Wilderness of Sinai, and again on the Plains of Moab. Was that blameless in Moses which was a sin in David? The answer is not far to seek. A special purpose was served in both the returns of Moses. The host of Israel needed a large force for defence and for aggression. Their high mission could not be accomplished without such a force. By means of the census the number of men able to bear arms were divided off from the Levites, who had their peculiar and non-military duties to perform. Moreover, the census on both occasions was not merely allowed by Jehovah, it was commanded. Before taking either census, The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take ye the sum of all the congregation of Israel.' Until, then, it can be shown that there was an equal need in David's case for a larger body of fighting men, in order to complete some purpose connected with the peculiar position of the people of Israel, " command from God to take the sum of the people,' so as to secure that larger force, we must conclude, paradoxical though it may seem—that what was right in Moses was wrong in David. Jehovah, as already intimated, expressly declared that David's census displeased Him, and punished David through his people for his sin; and it is surely contrary to all our notions of the righteous and all-wise Jehovah that he should command a thing to be done, and then when it is done visit men with his frowns for doing it. The various attempts made to ascertain the precise nature of David's sin may be classified as follows: (1) those which find the sin in the character of the census itself; and (2) those which mainly regard the probable motives which prompted David to make the census. The first are neither ingenious nor plausible. One of them points to the thoroughness of the census as the special evil. Moses only reckoned those who were twenty years old and upwards: David sinned in taking all below that age. We fear the author of this flimsy solution can never have read the twenty-third verse of the twenty-seventh chapter of the first book of Chronicles, where this so-called thoroughness is expressly denied: But David took not the number of them from twenty years old and under, because the Lord had said he would increase Israel like the stars of the heavens.' Another finds that David's sin was, in neglecting to require from every man of twenty years old and upwards, whether rich or poor, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary, as an offering to the Lord' (Ex xxx. 12.) There is no proof, however, that Moses levied this half shekel poll tax more than once, and it was certainly not established as a permanent tax till after the captivity. Was not David's sin rather in the purpose he had in view when he made the census, or in the spirit out of which it sprang? At least four answers have been suggested which recognize this as the most probable way of obtaining a solution. Some, like those already quoted, seem the suggestions of ignorance; but others appear to us as Wherein lay David's Sin? - 163 outskirts of the empire till the very last, beginning with the most eastern districts beyond Jordan, thence going northward, thence along the western border southward, and only approaching Jerusalem when well-nigh a year had elapsed; that in his enumeration he omitted altogether the Levites and the tribe of Benjamin, out of sheer disgust with his work; and that throughout he was attended with an armed force, as if to overawe the refractory - favour this conjecture. And further, in meditating this extension of territory David was going directly in the face of the declation which God had made to Abraham as to the limits of the Promised Land, limits which now in David's reign had for the first time been reached. From the river of Egypt, unto the great river, the river Euphrates,' David was lord and king. His empire stretched far beyond Jordan on the east to the utmost sea on the west, from the spurs of Mount Lebanon in the north to the frontiers of Egypt. That there was some military purpose in view when the census was taken also appears from the circumstance that the numbers of the men of Judah and Israel given by Joab are described in the book of Samuel as nearly satisfactory as any we can hope to obtain. Of the ignorant suggestions this is one: that David made a gra- | tuitous attempt to falsify the promise given to Abraham. God had said, Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore.' David determined to Dumber the numberless! But apart from the fact that David well knew, and has abundantly shown that he well knew, that the promise extends 'to the last syllable of recorded time,' this unsatisfactory answer takes no notice whatever of that passage already quoted from the Chronicles, where God's pro- | mise to Abraham is mentioned as the very reason why David did not number all the people. A second suggestion is not contradicted, like the last, by any distinct passage of Holy Writ, but is contradicted by what may be learnt from Holy Writ of David's general character. If there was one sin of which David was not guilty-it was the sin of covetousness. The man who amassed such untold wealth for the erection of a temple on which he should never gaze, and in which he should never worship, and whose own liberal-mindedness acted so magically upon the people at large, was certainly not the man to make a census for the sole purpose of enriching him-valiant men that drew the sword,' a self and his family. Two other explanations remain to be noticed. In our judgment the probable source of David's sin in making the census is to be found in one or both. One of them is this: that David having been generally successful in his military campaigns, and having made that people who were weak and divided when first he reared his standard at Hebron, a well-organized and formidable nation, and having latterly been forbidden by statute from going to war in person-in an evil hour began to dream of foreign conquests, and, it may be, to aspire after the fame of Sesostris, the Napoleon of ancient Egypt. His census was therefore taken that he might learn to what extent his army could be re-enforced, and how many men could be brought into the field. The fact that Joab, bad man though he was, expostulated with David when he commanded him to take the census; that in taking it he kept chiefly on the description the latter part of which is repeated by the Chronicler. The census was made, if this explanation of David's sin be correct, that David might learn to what extent he could swell out his already large military force of 300,000 men, that he sought that additional force in order to translate into sober fact his dreams of foreign conquest, and that the indulgence of such a purpose showed a wilful disregard of God's word to Abraham, which stated the precise limits within which the Promised Land should be confined. Another solution is offered. David, this suggests, had become so great and strong, that like Nebuchadnezzar afterwards, he forgot for the moment to whom he was indebted for his success. His eyes were so dazzled by the splendour of the sceptre he grasped, the symbol of so much majesty and power, that his self-flattery blinded him; and he gave not God the glory.' As though he had said, 'My prowess has achieved these victories.. My moved him to number Israel and wisdom has organized this commou- Judah. The marginal reading in wealth. Is not this the great empire Samuel supplies the noun Satan for which I have built up for the honour the pronoun he, and so makes both acof my majesty? I will let the nations counts tally. This we believe to be the around me hear how numerous are my true reading. Strange as it may seem people. I will leave behind me an that such an error should have crept enduring record of my greatness.' into the text, it is as manifestly unfair, There may be some weight in this when the context supplies a refutation, suggestion. to lay the fault at the door of inspiration, as it would have been to lay the fault at the same door, when Barker and Lucas, King James's printers, in a thousand copies of an edition of the English Bible in 1632, left out the word not from the seventh commandment; or when Baskitt, in his splendid folio Bible issued at Oxford in 1716, put as the running title of the twentiethchapter of Luke-the parable of the vinegar.' Taken with the last, then, we are disposed to regard David's sin as partly ambition, partly ingratitude: ambition, that sought to be gratified by the violation of a well-known promise of God; and ingratitude, the result of listening too readily to the evil promptings of his own heart. But before any one of us hastily cast a stone at David for his ambition and ingratitude, let us carefully sift our own hearts to be quite sure we are free from both. The apparent discrepancies in the two accounts of this census remain to be considered. These are fourfold: the seeming difference between the statements of the books of Samuel and of Chronicles as to the authors by whom David was instigated to take the census, the variation in the sum total of the two returns, the different prices paid Araunah or Ornan, and the difference in the time during which the famine, the first of the three punishments offered by Gad, the seer to David, was to last. In 2 Samuel xxiv. 1, we read—'The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.' In 1 Chronicles xxi. 1, we read, 'And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.' In the one account, that is, God is said to be the author, and in the other account Satan: so that, taking the words as they stand in the book of Samuel with what immediately follows, God moves David to do that which after Iwards he chides and punishes him for doing. The very absurdity of this is its own refutation. But observe, God tempts no man to evil,' as James tells us, and David himself acknowledges that in obtaining the census he has done foolishly and sinned against God, a confession that would never have been made if David knew that God had As to the variation in the sum-total of the returns given by Joab, the answer, though more complex, is most triumphant. The Bible, as in many other such cases, furnishes weapons for its own defence. Samuel says, 'And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.' The account in Chronicles says, 'All they of Israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men that drew the sword; and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew the sword.' That is: the book of Samuel gives the sum-total as one million three hundred thousand; and the book of Chronicles as one million five hundred and seventy thousand, being an apparent difference between the two accounts of two hundred and seventy thousand. The explanation is as follows: The book of Samuel says, there were in Israel, eight hundred thousand; but by the expression implying that all were not included. Now what was omitted as evidently not needing to be reckoned? We think, the regular army, already numbered, consisting of twelve generals, each with a force af 24,000 men, (1 Chron. xxvii.) which would make a total of 288,000 over and above what Samuel tells us were in Israel. There was also a body Apparent discrepancies explained. of 12,000 men that waited on the twelve princes of the twelve tribes. This will make 300,000 men not reckoned, because their numbers were already known; and if our explanation be correct, David did not want to know how large his force already was, but how much larger he could make it. It should also be observed that the army of observation which David kept on the frontiers of Philistia, and mentioned in 2 Samuel vi. 1, is reckoned in the book of Samuel with the men of Judab. A total is thus made of 1,600,000. In the book of Chronicles, however, the expression is, not as in Samuel there were in Israel' -but all Israel were, implying that the regular force of 288,000 men and the guard of honour for the princes of 12,000 were included; and while Samuel includes the army of observation of 30,000, the Chronicler omits all mention of it, because this army could not be reckoned as all of Judah as the 1,100,000 were all of Israel since many of its rank and file belonged to Israel. Now adding this 30,000 to the 1,100,000 of all Israel, and the 470,000 of Judah we have precisely the same sum-total, 1,600,000. The answer may be tabulated thus: Samuel's account contains princes ... 2. The body guard of the 12 500,000 288,000 12,000 1,600,000 The Chronicler's account contains 1. All Israel, (and so the regular army and the body guard) 2. Judah ... ... 3. But omits in the last item the army of observation, since all are not men of Judah ... 165 The different sums that David paid to Araunah or Ornan are as follows: fifty shekels of silver, that is about £5, as the book of Samuel tells us; and six hundred shekels of gold by weight, that is, over £1,000, as the Chronicler tells us. An examination of each narrative will show that these different payments do not refer to one and the same transaction. David comes to the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, according to the book of Samuel, and offers to buy the floor, the wood, and the oxen, that he may at once offer a sacrifice. Araunah generously offers them all as a gift. David refuses, that the offering may be his own and not Araunah's, and there and then pays Araunah fifty shekels of silver for the spot on which to build the altar, the wood wherewith to make it, and the oxen for the sacrifice. The account in Chronicles refers, not to this act, but to a subsequent one, which may yet have taken place on the same day, and very shortly after. It refers, not to the threshing-floor, threshing instruments and other instruments of wood, and the oxen, but to the purchase of the laud adjoining the threshing-floor as a site for the future temple. This is evident from the word used by the Chronicler to specify for what the six hundred shekels of gold by weight were given, a word which is elsewhere rendered in our English version as equivalent to 'site' or 'ground' on which a certain village stood, the place of Shechem,' and in another passage is actually translated 'city'; (vide Gen. xii. 6; xviii. 24.) 'So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.' The variation as to the length of time that the famine was to continue is the fourth matter to be noticed. And here we may premise that the Hebrews, like the Greeks and Romans, used letters for figures, and that some of these Hebrew letters bear a very striking resemblance to each other. For instance, Zain seven, may easily be written, especially if the transcriber be careless, to look like Gimel, which stands for three. Some such mistake has been made; and probably the correct reading of 2 Sam. xxiv. 13 would be, 'three 1,600,000 years of famine." 1,100,000 470,000 30,000 We shall not attempt to condense | modern English would be to rob them the two narratives of David's census. of half their charm. They are both too short to make such a work needful; and to re-write them in IOTA. INTELLECTUAL NO. II. WE have already enumerated and given definitions of a few of those intellectual powers with which the believer is endowed. In our present article we want to show that The Intellectual powers with which the believer is endowed are capable of indefinite improvement. A perfect child, at the time of its birth, possesses every physical member of a perfect man. Those members however will never reach the perfection of manhood, either in grace or strength, unless they receive suitable nourishment and are diligently and wisely exercised. A perfect child, at the time of his birth, has every sense which he will possess if he live to become a man; but neglect to bring those senses under cultivation, and not only will they be destitute to a large extent of discriminating power, but from their owners a multitude of enjoyments will be sealed up. Such a person would be utterly unable to distinguish many of the minuter shades of colour, a bagpipe would be to him as musical as a richly toned organ, and a tulip as fragrant as a violet or rose. What is true of our senses, and of our physical powers, is equally true of our mental and moral powers. Great as is the difference between a thoroughly cultivated ear and one uncultivated, much greater is the difference between a thoroughly cultivated and an cultivated conscience; and this is true not only of the conscience, but of every power we possess. un The power of attention is capable of indefinite improvement. We have defined attention as the power of fixing, and keeping the mind fixed on a thought or subject. We all possess this power. In some it is undisciplined and wild; in others it is well-trained and entirely under control. PROGRESS. There are some believers whose attention it seems impossible to arouse to some subjects, even of the highest religious importance; there are others, who, when their attention is excited, seem unable to keep it fixed for more than a few minutes at most. The sad consequence is, that many subjects of vital importance are not at all understood by them. What many who have been for years in the church know of the great doctrines and duties of Christianity is very little compared with what they do not know. Why is this? It is not because the range of pulpit subjects is so limited, for perhaps there never was a time when the whole counsel of God was more fully declared than now it is not because persons hear so little and read so little, but because they pay so little attention to much that they do hear and read. Painfully acute is the conviction of many an earnest-hearted preacher, that much that he utters leaves upon his audience but the most superficial impression. And yet all our attainments, on any subject, depend very much on the exercise of this power. It is said of the great Newton that he traced back his discoveries to the unwearied employment of his attention. Newton indeed is not only a glorious example of the perfection to which this power can be carried, but also of the process by which that perfection can be attained. He loved the studies in which he achieved such marvellous triumphs. His recurrence to these studies was constant, and his determination to understand them was unconquerable. Under these influences he often became so completely absorbed in his subject as to be totally unconscious of every thing around him. Fellow believer, in relation to Christianity we ask :-Shall we call ourselves |