ous
attacks.

Unhappily, Adonijah's natural bias was made the more dangerous by the
atmosphere of the court, where flatterers naturally abounded--for "_he
was a very goodly man_," physically a repetition of Absalom, the Adonis
of his time. We may also fairly surmise that his parents were guilty
of partiality and indulgence in their treatment of him, for David would
love him the more as one who revived the memory of his favourite
Absalom, the idol of the people, distinguished for his noble mien and
princely bearing. Courtiers, soldiers, and people all flattered
Adonijah, and Joab, the greatest captain of his age, next only to the
king, was his partisan, the more so because he neither forgot nor
forgave David's reproaches after the death of Absalom. Even Abiathar,
who represented the younger and more ambitious branch of the
priesthood, joined in the general adulation, until Adonijah,
intoxicated by vanity, set up his own court in rivalry to that of his
father, and when he moved abroad was accompanied by a stately retinue
of chariots and horsemen, and fifty foot attendants gorgeously
apparelled.

No doubt every position in life has its own peculiar temptations. The
ill-favoured lad, who is the butt at school and the scapegoat at home,
is in serious danger of becoming bitter and revengeful, and of growing
crooked in character, like a plant in a dark vault, which will have no
beauty because it enjoys no sunshine. But, on the other hand, physical
beauty, which attracts attention and wins admiration, especially if it
is associated with brilliant conversational gifts, and great charm of
manner, has befooled both men and women into sin and misery. Many a
girl has been entrapped into an unhappy marriage; and many a lad, moved
by a vaunting ambition which overleaped itself, has fallen never to
rise: like Icarus, when his waxen wings melted in the sun.

There must have been sad laxity of discipline in the home of David. It
is said of Adonijah that "_his father had not displeased him at any
time in saying, Why hast thou done so_?" In other words, Adonijah had
never been checked and rebuked as he ought to have been, and this
foolish indulgence was as fatal to him as it had been to the sons of
Eli. There are still such homes as David's, although their inmates do
well to draw down the veil of secrecy over them with loyal hands, and
never blazon abroad the grief and anxiety which rend their hearts. In
one home a fair, brig