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It appears from the story that David had never known of his existence, or had forgotten it in the stress of his anxieties and struggles. The boy was born after he and Jonathan parted from each other in the wood at Ziph, and so completely had he been kept out of the way that the courtiers at Jerusalem could only summon Ziba — a prosperous servant of Soul's family — to ask him the question David proposed. There was every reason for keeping him in concealment. Oriental fashions would have prompted a new king to kill all surviving members of a rival household, and David might destroy the possible claimant. David, no doubt, looked forward with tremulous eagerness to the coming of Jonathan's son. He already loved him. He looked eagerly upon the cripple prostrate before him, "longing for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still." It requires no stretch of imagination to see in Mephibosheth many excellent qualities. This modest, humble, loyal youth had inherited something of his father's generous spirit. He was perfectly content to be as his father, in a place second to David's. He was, in a sense, entitled to the throne. He might easily have been made a claimant for it by soured politicians, who would have rallied round his supposed interests to advance their own. History is full of such instances. Mephibosheth chose, and kept in perfect obscurity. Physical deformity has a varied effect upon the sufferer. It embitters some against God and man. Lord Byron seems to have been made miserable by his lameness. Shakespeare represents King Richard

III. as full of rage at his misfortunes, and determined to work mischief.

"I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,

And descant on mine own deformity.

I am determined to prove a villain."

But, on the other hand, grace sometimes compensates for nature's lack. Multitudes will approach the study of this chapter, wondering what there is in it worthy their time and of the Bible itself.But it teaches us a few valuable lessons. Let us note among them how —

I. IT CORRECTS OUR ESTIMATE OF WHAT WE CALL SMALL DEEDS. David did a great many notable things that impress us far more than this one; but it is just here that we see far into his true character. The Bible makes this record because of its importance in the portraiture of a great character, and our estimate of it will be a test of our own spirit. Is there not something here worth remembering and copying? What is to come up at the judgment-day as the ground of our acceptance, but trifling deeds of love done spontaneously and soon forgotten, simply because they were the natural outworking of our dispositions? The story is told of a Russian soldier exposed to intense cold while on duty as a sentinel. A poor working man, going home, took off his coat and gave it to him for his protection. That night the sentinel perished. Not long after the working man was brought to his deathbed, and fell into a slumber, in which he dreamed that he saw Jesus wearing his old coat. "You have my coat on," he said to him. "Yes," was the answer of the Lord. "You gave it to me the cold night I was a sentinel in the forest. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

II. THIS STORY ILLUSTRATES THE HUMANENESS OF THE WHOLE BIBLE. It balances some of the recorded cruelties of the early ages. Now, the world is full of inequalities, selfishness, and strife for place and power and of forgotten friends. Hence it needs, early and late, the lessons of love, the lessons that show us the obligations of friendship, no matter what the relative position of the friends may come to he, and the claims of the children upon the friends of their parents. This, the Bible tells us, was one of the great acts of David's life. The whole world responds to a touch of humanity, and the Bible is for the whole world. That spirit is cultivated by it which led Webster to remember his early neighbours when he came to greatness and power; which led Governor Andrew to say, "I never despised a man because he was ignorant or because he was poor or because he was black." No one illustrates it as Christ Himself does, in Whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead. This narrative proves that —

III. THE KINDNESS OF MAN TO MAN IS A GODLIKE QUALITY. David gives two reasons for finding Jonathan's son: first, his old covenant, which included the children of both parties; and, second, the Divine law of love. He wished to show "the kindness of God" to Mephibosheth. The phrase, "kindness of God" may be taken to mean either the kindness God requires of man or shows to man. Robert-son Smith says ("Prophets of Israel") that it is not necessary to distinguish between Jehovah's kindness to Israel, which we should call his grace, or Israel's duty of kindness to Jehovah, which we should call piety, and the relation between man and man, which embraces the duties of love and mutual consideration. To the Hebrew mind these three are essentially one, and all are comprised in the same covenant. As Portia says: —

"We do pray for mercy,

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy."

IV. CHRISTIAN LOVE ALONE WILL ENABLE US TO SHOW ONE ANOTHER THE "KINDNESS OF GOD." David uses this beautiful expression, "kindness of God;" but his ideas of it were extremely limited as compared with those we find all through the Gospels. He showed kindness towards his old friend's son. There is pathos and gentleness and a right royal spirit in his act. We cannot., with Christ on the cross before us, construe our duties and our privileges as men once did before he read the law anew and told us its real meaning. In Christ God Himself has come down. He has sought out the lame, the halt, the blind, the paralytic, the forgotten, the dead in trespasses and sins. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoking flax He will not quench. He devises means by which His banished may not be expelled from Him. This is God's kindness, leading to sacrifice for the fallen and the perishing. This is the love of God towards men. By the work of the Holy Spirit this love becomes the possession of men.

(Monday Club Sermons.)

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KJV: And David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan's sake?

WEB: David said, "Is there yet any who is left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?"