em an idea of married love, which showed
that our Lord's words had at last fallen on good ground, and were
destined to bear fruit an hundredfold.

Gradually, with many confusions, and sometimes sinful mistakes,
there arose, not in the cloister, not in the study--not even, alas!
in the churches of God, as they were then; but in the flowery meads
of May; under the forest boughs, where birds sang to their mates; by
the side of the winter hearth; from the lips of wandering minstrels;
in the hearts of young creatures, whom neither the profligacy of
worldlings, nor the prudery of monks, had yet defiled: from them
arose a voice, most human and yet most divine, reasserting once more
the lost law of Eden, and finding in its fulfilment, strength and
purity, self-sacrifice and self-restraint.

That voice grew clearer and more strong as time went on. It was
purged from youthful mistakes and youthful grossnesses; till, at the
Reformation, it could speak clearly, fully, once and for all--no
longer on the ground of mere nature and private fancy, but on the
ground of Scripture, and reason, and the eternal laws of God; and
the highest ideal of family life became possible to the family and
to the nation, in proportion as they accepted the teaching of the
Reformation: and impossible, alas! in proportion as they still
allowed themselves to be ruled by a priesthood who asserted the
truly monstrous dogma, that the sexes reach each their highest
excellence only when parted from each other.

But these things were hidden from David. One can well conceive that
he, so gifted outwardly and inwardly, must have experienced all that
was then possible of woman's love. In one case, indeed, he was
notably brought under that moral influence of woman, which we now
regard, and rightly, as one of the holiest influences of this life.
The scene is unique in Scripture. It reads like a scene out of the
Middle Age.

Abigail's meeting with David under the covert of the hill; her
turning him from his purpose of wild revenge by graceful
compliments, by the frank, and yet most modest expression of her
sympathy and admiration; and David's chivalrous answer to her
chivalrous appeal--all that scene, which painters have so often
delighted to draw, is a fore-feeling, a prophecy, as it were, of the
Christian chivalry of after ages. The scene is most human and most
divine: and we are not shocked to hear that after Nabal's death the
fair and rich lady joins he