ation to have a king
over them like other nations. Samuel, forseeing the evils which would
result from their choice, remonstrated with them and reminded them of
their past success, and pointed out the advantageous elements in
their present condition. But there is a point at which desire becomes
deaf and blind, and the evil of it can be recognised only after it is
gratified. God therefore gave them a king in His anger."

The truth, then, which is embodied in this incident, and which is
liable to reappear in the experience of any individual, is this, that
sometimes God yields to importunity, and grants to men what He knows
will be no blessing to them. "It is a thing," says South, "partly
worth our wonder, partly our compassion, that what the greatest part
of men most passionately desire, that they are generally most unfit
for; so that at a distance they court that as an enjoyment, which
upon experience they find a plague and a great calamity." It is
astonishing how many things we desire for the same reason as the
Israelites sought a king, merely that we may have what other people
have. We may not definitely covet our neighbour's house or his wife
or his position or anything that is his; but deep within us remains
the scarcely-conscious conviction that we have not all we might and
ought to have until our condition more resembles his. We take our
ideas of happiness from what we see in other people, and have little
originality to devise any special and more appropriate enjoyment or
success. Fashion or tradition or the necessity of one class in
society has promoted certain possessions and conditions to the rank
of extremely desirable or even necessary elements of happiness, and
forthwith we desire them, without duly considering our own
individuality and what it is that must always constitute happiness
for us, or what it is that fits us for present usefulness. Health,
position, fame, a certain settlement in life, income, marriage; such
things are eagerly sought by thousands, and they are sought without
sufficient discrimination, or at any rate without a well-informed
weighing of consequences. We refuse, too, to see that already without
those things our condition has much advantage, and that we are
actually happy. We may be dimly conscious that our tastes are not
precisely those of other men, and that if the ordinary ways of
society are the best men can devise for spending life satisfactorily,
these are scarcely the ways that