ment.

On the Lord's-day there was a festival, but it was not very large, and partook of the character of a market. Books having been frequently distributed here, we were rather sparing. One man gave an anna for a small volume of tracts. During our stay we visited the government school, and were pleased not only with the readiness of the boys to answer questions but to see our books lying on the master's table.

KHUNDAGIRI is another celebrated spot in this neighbourhood, and is renowned for its rock-cut caves. The group of hills in which these caves abound is five or six miles from Bhubaneswar, and as we were so near we determined to ride over and see them. Khundagari is really one hill only of the group, but to the whole group this name is now generally applied. Some of the caves are in groups and others are separate. They were for the most part miserable little holes, only a few feet square, with scarcely room enough for a man to sit in them upright. The entrances are very small, and to get into them a man must bend almost double. The exterior of one is cut in the shape of a tiger's head, the open mouth being the entrance to the cave. Three or four of us managed to squeeze into this at the same time, and Jugoo, taking a piece of charcoal, wrote at the back, in Oryia, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." "There," said Dunai, "there is hope even in the devil's

ΟΙ

The hati gumpa," elephant cave, is the earliest, and Fergusson thinks it was excavated two hundred years before Christ, of twenty centuries ago. His evidence for this conclusion is an inscription over the entrance, and internal evidence. The former corresponds, in character at least, with caves found in other parts of India. Years ago the inscription was deciphered, but this furnished no evidence as to the date when the cave was excavated. The characters, however, are those which were in use by the Buddhists, and while the caves are not destitute of sculpture there is an absence of everything in the shape of idols. Some of the caves are of a much later age, as is proved by the difference in the designs and sculpture. "One of the most singular features," says Fergusson, in hisRock-cut Caves of India, “in all the Buddhist caves here is the total absence of all images of Buddha, and indeed of any apparent object of worship; a circumstance which alone would, I conceive, be sufficient to place them in a higher antiquity than any series in Western India, for it is tolerably certain that the adoration of images, and particularly of that of the founder of the religion, was the introduction of a later aud more corrupt era, and unknown to the immediate followers of the deified." Again he observes with reference to the elephant cave inscription, "we are left entirely to the character of the letters and its internal evidence for an approximative era in which it could have been written. But as it would take up too much space here to enter into all the arguments, I shall content myself with stating that I think the balance of evidence inclines to a date about two hundred years before Christ, and that cannot be very far from the truth."

TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO! What a difference there is in England now from what there was then. The old Druids with all their rites have long since passed away; but until very recently-within the last few years→

1862.

SAUL,

THIS act of senseless rage revealed the design of the jealous king. He was impervious to reasoning, for Jonathan had done his best to work the conviction of David's innocence, and he was so carried away by anger as to risk the life of his own son rather than relinquish his design against that of his supposed rival. He meant to kill the shepherd who had now become his courtier. Death, and nothing less, would satisfy him, as the fate of one whose interests seemed to touch his own unfavourably.

The whole of this history of Saul and David is a most instructive play of human passion and natural feeling. The actors in the scene, with the exception of one, are by no means great men. David alone has any claim to greatness. But there are very sharply contrasted hues of character brought to view, even upon this little stage. It seems as though the whole circle of human life were photographed here in miniature. Rage, ungoverned and insane, on the one side, stands opVOL. III.-NEW SERIES, No. 11.

posed to faithful friendship on the other. But even the friendship is human, and therefore flecked with human weaknesses; for we have the white lie concocted between David and Jonathan by which David may escape, and again the half-selfish glance at the future by which Jonathan pledges David to his interests when he shall have become successful and risen to the throne. Conscience in those early days was not morbidly sensitive, perhaps it was rather morbidly insensible. David and Jonathan could tell a story about David's going down to Bethlehem to sacrifice, without many qualms, although it was, I am afraid, worse than mythical; and Jonathan does not seem to have felt that it injured the disinterested character of his friendship at all,

*The above sermon is printed at the request of the last Midland Conference. It would have been gladly withheld, as altogether unintended for publication, could this have been done without discourteously refusing a request, which the author can only construe as an expression of undeserved kindness. It is printed exactly as delivered.

when he made David swear to shew kindness to him and to his descendants in the time to come. It is by marks like these that we assure ourselves of the truth of these Scripture narratives. They are the reflection of real life, and must be founded on fact. Art may do much to imitate the real, but art, after all, is not nature. There is something in the very atmosphere which breathes in these old pages that proclaims their truth; no man could invent them. No piece of real life is uninstructive. Every throb of geniune human action and experience speaks to all men if they will only listen. It does not matter how long ago, nor how far away the events took place, if they were real incidents of human life and passion; for the human heart is unchanged from age to age. Time is nothing, and space is nothing to the great principles of our nature, so that all the instruction which this narrative contains is ours to day as truly as ever it belonged to earlier readers. Its meanings are green and fragrant across the ages; and it is our fault if we do not appropriate them to spiritual uses. Let us endeavour to do so by a glance at the truths which the story embodies. It teaches us,

I. That violence of character is proof rather of weakness than of strength. We have, I think, remarkable illustration of this truth in the character of Saul. He stands before us as a man whose emotions were very easily touched, and when affected at all, showed themselves in violent manifestations. His conduct towards David is a series of alternations between passionate fondness and equally furious hatred. At first he receives the appointed deliverer of the people kindly. The shepherd youth is introduced to the king when Goliath of Gath sends out his challenge to the hosts of Israel. Saul admires the courage with which one unskilled in war proposes to meet the powerful enemy, offers David his armour, and bids him God speed. But, very soon, jealousy

takes the place of goodwill. When the women of Israel, after David's victory, exclaim, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands, the vain monarch cannot endure the cry. The courage and skill of the shepherd are forgotten; he has no admiration to spare for patriotism, or for faith; one devouring impulse of jealousy seizes upon his spirit and turns his love to hatred. Again, however, he is to some extent conciliated. David is taken into favour for his many noble qualities. He is skilled in music too, and music has power to drive away a certain nervous malady with which the king is tormented. Yet the idea that this is after all his rival, and will be his successor, is still there; and once and again, in furious rage, he seeks David's life. I need not go further with the narrative; you all remember it. Note, however, the revelation of character which it contains. We are apt to suppose that strength of passion is an argument for strength of general charcter. A man who rages and storms impresses us with an idea of power. And yet I think no one can read the history of Saul without gathering a sense of weakness rather than of strength. We feel, that after all, this turmoil is the turmoil of a little nature. It is, to borrow a colloquial phrase, 'a storm in a teacup.' We do not think of the deep feeling of a man while we reflect upon Saul; we think rather of the struggles of an unruly child. The first idea of power wears away when we look more closely, and gives place to the truer conception-that of a violence which is not strong but weak. This passing from fondness to anger, and back again from anger to fondness, is more like a schoolboy than a king. It is weak, very weak. It is not true, then, that violence and strength go hand in hand. Violence comes of being easily moved. There is a sort of sensitive temperament which can be flung in a moment into any extreme of feeling. It is obedient to the passing impression, whatever