mous with his foes when he is triumphant. Joab and Abishai wanted to kill Shimei still, after they had returned, for cursing the Lord's anointed. David replied: "Shall there a man be put to death this day in Israel? for do not I know that I am this day king over all Israel?" So he turned to Shimei and said:

Thou shalt not die." And the king sware unto him. An offended and jealous tyrant would have slain the miscreant, but the great-hearted David could afford to be generous to his meanest enemy, especially when no danger to the State was involved. What a lesson for statesmen to learn! and what a lesson for all men to consider! Under all circumstances we must love and forgive our enemies at heart, and whatever be our personal or official relationships, it pays to be generous to a fallen foe, if safety will permit it.

A blot will ever remain upon the escutcheon of England for her treatment of the great Napoleon who cast himself upon her mercy and magnanimity. She could, at least, have placed him upon some spot of earth, in some place of confinement, below or above a tropical sun, where he might have enjoyed the blessing of health, and have lived and died in the smiles of a generous and agreeable nature. Saint Helena-the crater of an extinguished volcano -sweltering under an equatorial sun, hung with deadly mists, somber with the everlasting gloom of barrenness, and torn with the terrors of the perpetual tornado! Magnanimity to a fallen and submissive foe! My young friends, always be forgiving, generous, and kind to your enemies-to your Shimeis; and when it is possible, give them your hand and restore them to your confidence. Especially do this if they repent and confess their wrong, as Shimei did-al

though I have no confidence in David's Shimei, and perhaps he had none. It is human, and barely haman, to act the part of a Shimei; but it is divine, it is Christ-like, to act the part of David.

Don't forget it, however, Shimei will throw stones, curse, and kick up a dust. The most insignificant puppet can insult and hurt you when you are down. When the old lion in Esop's fable became decrepit and was about to die he realized this. The other beasts, like the bull and the boar, came and gored and tusked him in his helplessness. He could bear the ignominious insults and injuries received at the hands of what he considered his noble enemies, but when the "ass" came and kicked him or kicked at him, when "the disgrace of nature" scorned him in the hour of his misfortune, this was the keenest cut and the deepest mortification to his pride. Among the Shimeis will be the ass and the dog, the meanest and the lowest of the animal family; and in misfortune we must never be surprised at indignity from the basest and vilest of mankind. So David felt, no doubt, as to his pusillanimous Shimei.

FAST YOUNG MAN TREED.

BSALOM had a fine head of hair-whether blonde or black or auburn I do not know; and it must have been one of his chief personal attractions. Being very luxuriant and heavy in its growth, he "polled" or cropped it every year, and the weight of the cropping amounted to "two hundred shekels after the king's weight," equal to eight pounds Troy weight, according to the Hebrew tables. Perhaps the "king's weight" was something less, but at all events Absasom carried a remarkable head of hair, so much so that the divine record sees fit to mention the fact. Perhaps he ornamented it with jewels and made it glisten with unguents, after the fashion of his day; and its beauty must have corresponded with its weight and exuberance, the charm of the women and the wonder of the men.

To what extent this head of hair was a matter of vanity to Absalom himself we have no means of knowing, and we can only infer that it was by its reference in the record to other things. We know that occasionally we see men wearing long, heavy heads of hair, and nobody ever saw such a man that was not a creature of great vanity. Most men clip or poll their hair very closely, and perhaps Absalom did for aught we