of knowledge are a precious jewel; and the light and savour that my soul has felt under thy conversation is an additional proof of it; for the excellency and the power of religion is all of God. I wish my brother would relate a little of the dealings of God with him; I should be all attention, my heart is sweetly becalmed, my seat is pure easy; I do not believe that I should be tired if I was to sit here all night; nor do I believe that I should feel the want of food; my very body has lost its appetite since my soul has been at this banquet.

Cushi. I can hardly help laughing at thee, my brother, for thou sayest I could sit all night when we have done that already; it was twelve. o'clock yesterday when we met under this tree, and now it wants half an hour of the same; we have sat just twenty-three hours and a half; surely, if some people were to hear thee, they would say as the giddy multitude did of Peter and John, that they were full of new wine. As for thy body having lost its appetite is no wonder; the body and soul are closely united, and both interested in the covenant of grace. If the soul is burdened, the countenance of the body will proclaim it; the knees will tremble under its burden, and the whole animal frame will feel the effects of it. But, on the other hand, if the soul be enrapt in the vision of faith, as Paul was, it is so forgotten that the soul cannot relate whether the body was in the company or not; and

when the soul is indulged with the smiles of God, the body will forget both its wants and its infirmities, as Elijah did when his body fasted forty days, after the angels had entertained him under the juniper tree; or like Abraham, who, at almost an hundred years old, ran to the tent and ordered an entertainment for the best guest that ever visited the world.

David certainly had some meaning when he said, "My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God," Psalm lxxxiv. 2; and, on the other hand, the terrors of God on his soul made the beauty of his body to consume away like a moth, Psalm xxxix. 11. But I shall proceed to give my dear brother some account of the dealings of God with me, and I shall do it with pleasure; for I never find my spirit more in its element than when, like David, I am telling others who fear God, what he hath done for my soul, Psalm lxvi. 16. And indeed I think this is doing the work of an evangelist, much more than relating what we have done for God.

In my younger days I was one of a melancholy turn of mind, and was kept in perpetual bondage through the fear of death; and at certain seasons I was rather devotional, after the manner of the Jews, but very ignorant of the nature and being of Jehovah. Nor did I ever rightly consider his omnipresence, his universal providence, his care for, nor his government of the world, until the great stir was made in Israel about David, the son

of Jesse, killing the Goliah of Gath. The report of that wonderful act forcibly struck me; the thoughts of his formidable and panoplied antagonist, and the unarmed stripling, I mean David, going against him with no other armour than faith in God, whom he so often styles the shield of his help; surely, he was clad with zeal for the Lord God of Israel, as with a cloak. His bold declaration to his formidable adversary, and the wonderful event that justified his confident prediction,` wrought wonderfully upon me, and effectually brought me to believe verily that there is a God that judgeth in the earth.

From that time I was led to watch narrowly the hand of God with that eminent man; and in my heart said, as Ruth did to Naomi, "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." I saw him in so blessed a state, and so visibly defended and upheld by the Almighty, that at times I was provoked to jealousy, and secretly envied him his happiness, yet would have given all the world for a part or lot in David's God, whom he so often styles the portion of his soul.

Ahimaaz. You bring many things to my mind; but to break in upon your warm conversation would extinguish the glowing fervour of your spirit; go on, my brother, I am all at

tention.

Cushi. I soon heard of Saul's hatred to David, of his cruel jealousy, and of his attempting to kill him; and some, who were very much attached to

Saul, represented David in a bad light, and took the part of Saul as one appointed, anointed, and set up by God himself to be king over Israel. These things at times staggered me; and David's killing the Philistines, and scalping three hundred of them, in order to obtain Saul's daughter for his wife, was very puzzling to me. But I still observed that the protecting and delivering hand of God was evidently with him.

Jonathan, who I believe was a good man, his tender regard for David, his espousing his cause, and exposing himself to all the rage and malice of his father, and loving him as his own soul, often brought me to believe that there was a divine union between them; and indeed before ever I obtained boldness to speak to the sweet Psalmist of Israel, I felt something of the same blessed unction on my own soul. One thing greatly confounded me, and that was David's going down to the cave of Adullam, and appearing at the head of such a set of vagrants; for "every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them," 1 Sam. xxii. 2. This I could not easily get over, that such a set of men should join themselves to him; and that a favourite of heaven should put himself as commander in chief at the head of such a ragged regiment.

But when Saul's awful apostasy from God was made known, of his seeking to the witch of Endor

for relief and counsel, of the hand of God that went out against him, of the miserable end that he made, together with the wonderful deliverances that God wrought for David, of Samuel's attachment to him, of the best of saints loving him, and of the almighty power of God that levelled all his enemies, and exalted him on the throne of Israel, in spite of all opposition, I was so confirmed in the faithfulness and truth of David's God, that an invisible power led me to one greater than David; and a sudden thought struck me that David was an eminent type of the much desired and long looked for Messiah, who is the only sovereign of Israel, David's son, and David's Lord.

This divine dictator led my mind forth to traverse David's life and conduct, as representing the life of one greater; and from that time I traced all up to David's antetype, and there my misconstructions were rectified, and all my doubts resolved.

I considered, first, his descent from a low family, his mean calling as a shepherd, his ruddy countenance, 1Sam. xvi. 12; his being but a stripling, xvii. 56; and his slender legs, Psalm cxlvii. 10; all typical of him that was so long foretold, who was to be fairer than the children of men, Psalm xlv. 2; and called the woman's seed. David's effeminate appearance, and masculine exploits, led me to contemplate perpetually on the mighty deeds that were to be performed in future, by one whose