harmless to him at first--
becomes most harmful ere he dies. He commits a crime, or rather a
complication of crimes, which stains his name for ever among men.

I do not think that we shall understand that great crime of David's,
if we suppose it, with some theologians, to have been merely a
sudden and solitary fall, from which he recovered by repentance, and
became for the time to come as good a man as he had ever been. Such
a theory, however well it may fit certain theological systems, does
not fit the facts of human life, or, as I hold, the teaching of
Scripture.

Such terrible crimes are not committed by men in a right state of
mind. Nemo repente fuit turpissimus. He who commits adultery,
treachery, and murder, must have been long tampering, at least in
heart, with all these. Had not David been playing upon the edge of
sin, into sin he would not have fallen.

He may have been quite unconscious of bad habits of mind; but they
must have been there, growing in secret. The tyrannous self-will,
which is too often developed by long success and command: the
unscrupulous craft, which is too often developed by long adversity,
and the necessity of sustaining oneself in a difficult position--
these must have been there. But even they would not have led David
to do the deed which he did, had there not been in him likewise that
fearful moral weakness which comes from long indulgence of the
passions--a weakness which is reckless alike of conscience, of
public opinion, and of danger either to earthly welfare or
everlasting salvation.

It has been said, 'But such a sin is so unlike David's character.'
Doubtless it was, on the theory that David was a character mingled
of good and evil. But on David's own theory, that he was an utterly
weak person without the help of God, the act is perfectly like
David. It is David's self. It is what David would naturally do
when he had left hold of God. Had he left hold of God in the
wilderness he would have become a mere robber-chieftain. He does
leave hold of God in his palace on Zion, and he becomes a mere
Eastern despot.

And what of his sons?

The fearful curse of Nathan, that the sword shall never depart from
his house, needs, as usual, no miracle to fulfil it. It fulfils
itself. The tragedies of his sons, of Amnon, of Absalom, are
altogether natural--to have been foreseen, but not to have been
avoided.

The young men have seen their father put no restraint upon his