NATHAN AND DAVID.

66

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE HEIR OF JEROBOAM.'

"FATHER, your songs are not as the songs of the land; when you join your voice to the sweet strings of the harp, your psalm is not in honour of the shining Mazaroth, nor to Arcturus and his sons. When you worship, you do not spread abroad your hands to the Moon, walking in brightness, neither do you court the sweet influences of the Pleiades; but your hymn is to the Lord Jehovah, and you bid me mingle my voice with the choral Hallel in His praise. Who is the Lord? my father, and where did you learn to call upon His name?"

Such was the question that the son of Mahadi first asked of his father concerning the Truth. Mahadi was an Arab poet- -a convert to the law of Jehovah who led a settled though pastoral life on the rich borders of Chaldea. The father had waited till the opening reason of his son led him to inquire

into the spiritual worship that he saw paid to the Almighty and Invisible Lord of all.

"It was in the walled cities of Israel, my son, where I spent my youth in captivity, that I learned to call upon the Lord Jehovah, the God of our father Ishmael—it was He who made all things. Ourselves below, and the heavenly host walking in brightness above, whom the men of this land ignorantly and sinfully worship, are equally His creatures."

"But wherefore did you leave the minstrel land, and dwell apart from the true worshippers?"

"Because I found, that where many men abound much sin and temptation prevail, even among the most highly favoured of them; therefore I withdrew from courts and cities. Listen to the tale of my early days, and judge whether the camp and royal palace, or the quiet pasture and peaceful sheepfold is safest abiding-place for man. I was the first-born son of the Chief of a powerful Arab tribe, a lineal descendant of Ishmael, the elder, but disinherited son of Abraham. We led a wandering life, partly as shepherds and partly as robbers, in the desert that stretches from the borders of Damascus to the Dead Sea, implicitly fulfilling the prophecy of the Lord, which declared, that our hand should be against every man, and every man's

hand against us.' It was the only part of His Word our tribes ever did follow,-for we had lost all remembrances of the God of our Father Ishmael, except a few faint traditions. It is true, we were unstained by the abominations of the Canaanite,— we offered no human sacrifices to demons; but we paid the ignorant adoration of savages to the Stars that guided us across the pathless waste, to the stately Pillars of sand that moved before us, to the fierce Simoom, and even to the Mirage of the desert. We carried on predatory warfare equally against the ancient possessors of the Promised Land and the Israelites themselves; yet there was a more rancorous feeling manifested towards the last,-for we not only viewed their growing power and enlarged border, under Saul and David, with jealousy, but we recalled the old tradition, that their father Isaac had supplanted ours in his birthright, which made bitter war between the descendants of the same brethren. Our Arab tribes forgot, or knew not, that the children of Isaac adhered to the pure faith of Abraham's God, while Idolatry prevailed in the black tents of Kedar.

"A youth who has pursued the harmless occupation of a shepherd, can as little imagine the life of a child of the desert as the dog that watches his flock

knows of the breeding of the wolf's whelp. Strife and rapine were considered as warlike virtues in my father's tent. I was early inured to draw the bow and aim the javelin, either in advance or retreat. The playfellows of my infancy were my father's favourite mare and her foals. As soon as I could walk, my mother suffered me to play between the feet of the noble and sagacious animal, who treated me with the tenderness she did her young, suffered me to share her milk with her foals, and let me climb her back by her white and flowing mane, that nearly touched the ground. Her wildest colts were used to bear my light weight, and would traverse the waste with the speed of an arrow, unencumbered by bridle and saddle, never failing to snuff the distant tents, and bear me back safely from my excursions in chasing the swift little gazelles that inhabit the desert. Thus reared, I had attained my fourteenth year, and should have been a mighty hunter both of man and beast, before the Lord, like Nimrod of old, had not Providence led me to those who called upon the name of Jehovah.

"I had succeeded, with some difficulty, in taming one of the most ungovernable young steeds that ever was backed by an Arab boy. Mounted on this fleet creature, I had followed the steps of the light