warning. He deliberately repeated his brother's offence.
Yet he knew the tragic story of his death, and how his brilliant life
had been ended by violence in a wood, where he perished without a
friend; and he must often have seen his father brooding alone over the
trouble thus caused, as if he was still whispering to himself: "_O
Absalom, my son, would God I had died for thee! O Absalom, my son, my
son_!" Yet the very sin of Absalom which had been so terribly
punished, Adonijah boldly committed.

History is crowded with examples of ambitious men who died in
disappointment and despair,--Alexander, who conquered a world, and then
wept because there were no more worlds to conquer, perished in a scene
of debauchery, after setting fire to the city. Hannibal, who filled
three bushel measures with the gold rings of fallen knights, at last,
by poison self-administered, died unwept in a foreign land. Caesar,
who had practically the whole world at his feet, was stabbed to the
heart by so-called friends, even Brutus being among them. Napoleon,
the scourge and conqueror of Europe, died, a heart-broken exile, in St
Helena. Indeed, it is written in letters of blood on the pages of
history, "_The expectation of the wicked shall perish_."

Happily, angels' voices are calling us to higher things. Conscience
whispers to us of duty and love. Christ Himself, from the Cross, which
was the stepping-stone to His throne, still cries to every one who will
listen, "_Follow me_."

The false must be displaced by the true--the world by the Christ--the
usurper by the Divinely-appointed King. It was thus that Adonijah's
scheme was defeated. Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, and Nathan, the
prophet, hurried in to tell David of Adonijah's revolt against his
authority, and that at his coronation-festival, then begun, even Joab,
the commander-in-chief, and Abiathar, the priest, were present. Then
David's old decision and promptitude reasserted themselves once more.
At his command, Solomon, his designated successor, was seated on the
King's own mule, and rode in state to Gihon, where Zadok anointed him
in Jehovah's name; and when the trumpet was blown all the people said,
"_God save King Solomon_!"

It was the crowning of the new king which proved the dethronement of
the false; and this fact enshrines a principle divine and permanent.
False doctrine is overcome, not by abuse, but by the proclamation of
the true. Evil, whether enthroned in the