66 his name attracted round him a motley group of those that were in distress, or in debt, or discontented, and among them were the mighty men" whose brave deeds won them the foremost parts in tha army with which David was to fulfil the ancient promises to his people. There were his three nephews, Joab, the ferocious, and imperious the chivalrous Abishai, and Asahel, the fleet of foot; there was the warlike Levite Benaiah who slew lions and lionlike men, and others who, like David himself, had done battle with the gigantic sons of Anak. Yet even these valiant men, so wild and lawless, could be kept in check by the voice of their young captain; and outlaws as they were, they spoiled no peaceful villages, they lifted not their hands against the persecuting monarch, and the neighboring farms lost not one lamb through their violence. Some at least listened to the song of their warlike minstrel : 46 Come, ye children, and hearken to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. With such strains as these, sung to his harp, the warrior gained the hearts of his men to enthusiastic love, and gathered followers on all sides, among them eleven fierce men of Gad, with faces like lions and feet swift as roes, who swam the Jordan in time of flood, and fought their way to him. putting all enemies in the valleys to flight. But the Eastern sun burnt on the bare rocks. A huge fissure, opening in the mountain ridge, encumbered at the bottom with broken rocks, with precipitous banks scarcely affording a footing for the wild goats,-such is the spot where, upon a cleft on the steep precipice, still remain the foundations of the "hold," or tower, believed to have been David's retreat, and near at hand is the low-browed entrance of the galleried cave, alternating between narrow passages and spacious halls, but all oppressively hot and close. Waste and wild, without a bush or a tree, in the feverish atmosphere of Palestine, it was a desolate region, and at length the wanderer's heart fainted in him, as he thought of his own home, with its rich and lovely terraced slopes, green with wheat, trellised with vines, and clouded with gray olive, and of the cool cisterns of living water by the gate of which he loved to sing "He shall feed me in a green pasture, And lead me forth beside the waters of comfort." His parched longing lips gave utterance to the sigh, "O that one would give me to drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate!" Three of his brave men, apparently Abisha, Benaiah, and Eleazar, 'heard the wish. Between their mountain fastness and the dearly-loved spring lay the host of the Philistines; but their love for their leader feared no enemies. It was not only water that he longed for, but the water from the fountain which he had loved in his childhood. They descended from their chasm, broke through the midst of the enemy's army, and drew the water from the favorite spring, bearing it back, once again through the foe, to the tower upon the rock! Deeply moved was their chief at this act of self devotion,-so much moved that the water seemed to him too sacred to be put to his own use. 66 My God forbid it me that I should do this thing. Shall I drink the b'ood of these men that have put their lives in jeopardy, for with the jeopardy of their lives they brought it?" And as a hallowed and precious gift, he poured out unto the Lord the water obtained at the price of such peril to his followers. In later times we meet with another hero who, by his personal qualities inspired something of the same enthusiastic attachment as did David, and who met with an adventure somewhat similar, showing the like nobleness of mind on the part of both leader and followers. It was Alexander of Macedon, whose character as a man, with all its dark shades of violence, rage, and profanity, has a nobleness and sweetness that win our hearts, while his greatness rests on a far broader basis than that of his conquests. though they are unrivalled. No one else so gained the love of the conquered, had such wide and comprehensive views for the amelioration of the world, or rose so superior to the prejudice of race; nor have any ten years left so lasting a trace upon the history of the world as those of his career. It is not, however of his victories that we are here to speak, but of his return march from the banks of the Indus, in B C. 326, when he had newly recovered from the severe wound which he had received under the fig tree, within the mud-wall of the city of the Malli. This expedition was as much the exploration of a discoverer as the journey of a conqueror: and, at the mouth of the Indus, he sent his ships to survey the coasts of the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, while he himself marched along the shore of the province, then called G drosia, and now Mekhran. It was a most dismal tract. Above towered mountains of reddishbrown bare stone, treeless and without verdure, the scanty grass produced in the summer being burnt up long before September, the month of his march; and all the slope below was equally desolate slopes of gravel. The few inhabitants were called by the Greeks fish-eaters and turtle eaters, because there was, apparently, nothing else to eat; and their huts were built of turtle-shells. The recollections connected with the region were dismal. Semiramis and Cyrus were each said to have lost an aimy there through hunger and thirst; and these foes, the most fatal foes of the invader, began to attack the Greek host. Nothing but the discipline and all-pervading influence of Alexander could have borne his army through. Speed was their sole chance; and through the burning sun, over the arid rock, he stimulated their steps with his own high spirit of unshrinking endurance, till he had dragged them through one of the most rapid and extraordinary marches of his wonderful career. His own share in their privations was fully and freely taken; and once when, like the rest, he was faiut with heat and deadly thirst, a small quantity of water, won with great fatigue and difficulty, was brought to him, he esteemed it too precious to be applied to his own refreshment, but poured it forth as a libation, lest, he said, his warriors should thirst the more when they saw him drink alone; and, no doubt, too, because he felt the exceeding value of that which was purchased by loyal love. A like story is told of Rodolf of Hapsburg, the founder of the greatness of Austria, and one of the most open-hearted of men. A flagon of water was brought to him when his army was suffering from severe drought. "I cannot," he said, "drink alone, nor can all share so small a quantity. I do not thirst for myself, but for my whole army." Yet there have been thirsty lips that have made a still more trying renunciation. Our own Sir Philip Sidney, riding back, with the mortal hurt in his broken thigh, from the fight at Zutphen, and giving the draught from his own lips to the dying man whose necessities were greater than his own, has long been our proverb for the giver of that self-denying cup of water that shall by no means lose its reward. A tradition of an act of somewhat the same character survived in a Slesvig family, now extinct. It was during the wars that raged from 1652 to 1660, between Frederick III. of Denmark and Charles Gustavus of Sweden, that, after a battle, in which the victory had remained with the Danes, a stout burgher of Flensborg was about to refresh himself, ere retiring to have his wounds dressed, with a draught of beer from a wooden bottle, when an imploring cry from a wounded Swede, lying on the field, made him turn, and with the very words of Sidney, "Thy need is greater thin mine," he knelt down by the fallen enemy, to pour the liquor into his mouth. His requital was a pistolshot in the should r from the treacherous Swede. "Rascal," he cried, "I would have befriended you, and you would murder me in return! Now will I punish you. I would have given you the whole bottle; but now you shall have only half." And drinking off half himself, he gave the rest to the Swede. The king, hearing the story, sent for the burgher, and asked him how he came to spare the life of such a rascal. "Sire," said the honest burgher, I could never kill a wounded enemy." "Thou meritest to be a noble," the king said, and created him one immediately, giving him as armorial bearings a wooden bottle pierced with an arrow! The family only lately became extinct in the person of an old maiden lady. T HOW ONE MAN HAS SAVED A HOST. B. C. 507. HERE have been times when the devotion of one man has been the saving of an army. Such, according to old Roman story, was the feat of Horatius Cocles. It was in the year B. C. 507, not long after the kings had been expelled from Rome, when they were endeavoring to return by the aid of the Etruscans. Lars Porsena, one of the great Etruscan chieftains, bad taken up the cause of the banished Tarquinius Superbus and his son Sextus, and gathered all his forces together, to advance upon the city of Rome. The great walls, of old Etrurian architecture, had probably already risen round the growing town, and all the people came flocking in from the country for shelter there; but the Tiber was the best defence, and it was only crossed by one wooden bridge, and the further side of that was guarded by a fort, called the Janiculum But the vanguards of the overwhelming Etruscan army soon took the fort, and then, in the gallant words of Lord Macaulay's ballad,— "Thus in all the Senate There was no heart so boid. Up rose the Fathers all, In haste they girded up their gowns, And hied them to the wall. They held a council standing Before the River Gate: Short time was there, ye well may guess For musing or debate. Out spoke the Consul roundly, The bridge must straight go down For, since Janiculum is lost, Naught else can save the town,' "Just then a scout came flying, On the low hills to westward And saw the swarthy storm of dust "But the Consul's brow was rad, And the Consul's speech was low, And darkly looked he at the wall, And darkly at the foe. 'Their van will be upon us Before the bridge goes down; And if they once may win the bridge, What hope to save the town?' Then out spoke brave Horatius, 866 And for the tender mother Who feed the eternal flame, To save them from false Sextus, "Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul May well be stopped by three: "Then out spake Spurius Lartius, A Ramnian proud was he, 'Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, And keep the bridge with thee.' And out spake strong Herminius, |