The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-02-06
LAKE HERALD: MONDAY. FEBRUARY 1899

brother Absalom lays in wait for Amnon
with treachery and wine and kills him.
This makes Absalom heir TO the throne
David meanwhile gets sick of a loathsome
disease. Absalom takes advantage OF his
fathers illness and fondness. for David
loved. Absalom beyond measure steals the
king drives his father from the city
barefooted and bareheaded and appropri-
ates his concubines in the light of the
sun. A little later, Absalon gets out to
hunt down his father in the wilderness.
Joab. the leader of Davids little army,
fsolates the usurper and kills him in spite
full Drodigal life. David's grief over Alb
salon is as the breaking of a father 5
heart:
Is it so far from thee
Thou canst no longer see
In the chamber. by the gate,
That old man deSolate,
Weeping and wailing sore
For his son. who is no more
Absalom, my son!
From the ages that are past
The voice sounds like blast.
over seas that wreck and drown;
Over tumult of traffic and town,
And from ages vet to be,
Come the echoes back to me
Absalom, my SOUR
when David gets back TO Jerusalem
he has anxious months of civil war and
is again obliged to lean upon JOab, his
accomplice in the murder of Uriah and
the virtual assassin of Absalom. David
was never able to rid himself of this
treacherous and Strongminded old repro
bate. He kept the old king in his cruel
grip with the inevitabieness of natural
law When at length there were years
OF prosperity, the king was reminded of
his utter helDlessness by an awful pesti-
lence, and when he bethought him Of
building a temple in honor of Jehovah,
he was reminded of his record asa man
las he grew old and feeble his condi-
ton was Ditiable. >Of all his dozen or
twenty wives and concubines not one
either cared or was fit to take care of
him. The son of one of his carrier wives
took Joab into his counsel and plotted to
seize the throne. That he failed was due
TO the vigorous action of Bathsheba.
David's favorite wife and the mother OF
Solomon. She made her way TO the
chamber of the bedridden old king. re-
minded him of his promise that her son
should succeed him. and had Solomon
crowned and anointed on the spot. Vita
in an hour all Jerusalem was shouting
Long live King Solomon and David
went on slowly dying.
Il have neither time nor disposition to
speak of the crownless old kings dying
words 1t is sufficient to say that there
are streaks of darkness and remnants of
cruelty in David's charge 10 his son,
which give new meaning to Christ's say
ing concerning God. thousand years
nearer the cross: Verify l say unto you,
the least in the kingdom of heaven is
greater than he
Yet. David's Denitence. as recorded in
the book of Samuel or the fifty-frst
PSALM was penitence after Gods own
heart. Next to the story of the prodigal
no picture of penitence in all the Bible
is more nearly ideal than that of the
ffty-firSt psalm.
David was also a man after Gods own
heart. in that he served his day and gen.
Grafton by the will of God. The main
trend of his life and work made for
righteousness. No king who has ever
lived has done more for his people than
David did for Israel. We must judge
him with some of the leniency with
which we judge a man like Lincoln, who,
as president of our republic, was also u
man after Gods own heart