The great array of the Philistines "came and pitched in Shunem, and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they pitched in Gilboa," and unseen by any of the mighty hosts death and rapine, treachery, revenge and murder, smilingly waited for the desperate battle.

Then Saul, gazing upon the great army of his enemies and terrified at the countless thousands, thought he would like to have his fortune told and said, "Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit," and they took him to the witch of Endor, and Saul prayed her to materialize Samuel for his especial benefit. And did she do it? Not at all, or at least not until she had made her own conditions. "And Saul sware to her by the Lord, saying: as the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to you for this thing." And then having brought the King to terms, by cunning hocus-pocus she summoned Samuel from the cold, cold grave. First there was a hush, then a sweeping in of chill, damp air, a scent of decay, the shaking out of a shroud that never rustled, a rush of silent footsteps, and suddenly the door untouched swung noiselessly open and Samuel, with the old regal air, but with the savor of death clothing him like a mantle, and the mildew of death on his brow, stood before them.

You will observe he was far too courteous a ghost to censure a woman—who really was the one who deserved it, since she had wrought the mischief—but said sternly to Saul:

"Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?"

The inference is that after all his triumphs and defeats, his loves and illusions, his glory and fall, he was taking the sweet and silent rest of utter oblivion, and very naturally he did not like to be disturbed, and so he told Saul some things that very nearly scared the lingering hope out of him, and almost reduced him to a condition where he himself was a fit candidate for a companionship with Samuel. Then suddenly the air grew warmer and fresher, the birds began to twitter in the first faint flush of the morning, and looking around one could not see Samuel any more.

Then the witch of Endor wanted Saul to take some refreshment, "But he refused and said, I will not eat."

But the woman did not pay any attention to his refusal, but killed a calf and cooked it, and made some biscuits "and she brought it before Saul, and before his servants, and they did eat" of course, since she smilingly invited them to.

We suppose Saul's wife—at least one of them—was a lady who carried things with a high hand, ruled the servants, nagged her husband, delivered curtain lectures by the hour, scolded him to sleep and then scolded him awake again.

since we hear him saying to his son Jonathan, "Thou son of the perverse, rebellious woman."

And behold Saul and David were the firmest friends, and every act of David's pleased Saul, and every smile delighted him, and Saul honored, trusted and advanced him, until the women came to have a hand in the affair and then all was changed.

It seems that no one had noticed, or dared to give voice to the thought, that David was becoming a dangerous rival of the great King, until the women, with keen penetration, looking upon the handsome David, saw there was a greater one than Saul. And so one day when David returned from a great slaughter of the Philistines, the girls came and danced and sung and waved their white hands and smiled, and despite the probable indignation of the King at the open preference and approval of the young man, they played and said, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands."

And Saul was jealous and "very wroth" and—well, that ended that friendship, and it wasn't the last time that women's smiles and honeyed words of praise have blighted the friendship between men "whose souls were knit together."

And there was a woman whose name was Bath-sheba, and she was very beautiful. Her midnight hair curled softly away from her snowy brow, her long black lashes hiding her love-lit eyes swept her rosy cheeks, and her light step dashed the dew from the grass in the garden, while the blossoms fell from the boughs to kiss her shoulders as she passed.

And one eventide, David, walking upon the roof of his palace, saw her bathing. And the last red rays of the sinking sun touched her softly and changed her into a perfect statue of warm pink marble, and David's soul was ravished by her beauty; and with the impetuosity of a king and the reckless passion of a lover he sought to beguile her. And Bath-sheba, flattered by the preference of the mighty King, allured by imperial grandeur and enticed by royal appeals, tried to forget the husband, who was off to the wars and away, and who had in the first flush of youth won her by his love, his "brow of truth" and a soul untouched by sin—but the King—the King, the pomp and the power!

Ambition was roused in her heart and she wanted to be clothed in the purple and fine linen of majesty, and to wear a jeweled crown upon her brow. And so she forgot a husband's love, a wife's honor, a woman's virtue, and while angels wept and devils laughed, the memory of Uriah vanished from her mind as a star vanishes before the fire-bursting storm-cloud.

Then black-browed conspiracy and red-handed murder, the boon companions of unholy love, whispered in their ears; and though a vision of Uriah often rose unbidden and unwelcome before her, it was dimmed and obscured by the glitter of jewels and the gleam of costly array, that should yet flash upon her arms and throat and clothe her limbs.

So David sent for Uriah (we presume with the consent, perhaps at the instigation of Bath-sheba, for there is no wickedness like the wickedness of an ambitious, faithless wife), honored and feasted him, and the favored young man, happily unconscious of his wife's treachery, perhaps dreaming bright waking dreams of the wealth, fame and power he would win to lay at Bath-sheba's feet, felt himself honored by being made a special envoy to carry a letter from the King to his greatest general, Joab—and in it the King wrote:

"Set ye Uriah in the fore-front of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten and die;" and Joab "assigned Uriah unto a place where he knew the valiant men were," and he was smitten and died.

And David and Bath-sheba were married, but surely, as they stood by the cradle of the little boy who died, the cold hands of the valiant, betrayed Uriah must often have pushed them asunder, and a dark shadow born of their guilty hearts must have passed between them and the child. Perhaps when the feast was the gayest a battle field rose before them, and when the music was the loudest and the sweetest, thrilling through it, they heard a dying moan.

When Joab wanted to reconcile David to Absalom, he wished a mediator with wit, tact and delicacy; with the eloquence of an orator and the subtle flattery of a Decius Brutus, and whom did he choose? A man? No: He sent for "a wise woman," and we read that he instructed her what to do, but judging from other women we are sure she instructed him—anyway she went to the King, and she talked like a lawyer, she plead with eloquence, she confessed charmingly, and she flattered with the cunning of her sex, saying, "for as an angel of God, so is my Lord the King to discern good and bad," and "my Lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God," which you will admit was putting it pretty strong. But then, men who didn't work for their living in those days were used to strong language—of praise. Perhaps it is superfluous for me to add that the "wise woman" accomplished her mission.

We are told in poetic language that David "was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to," and perhaps that was the chief reason (although women always adored a man of valor, intelligence and strength) that "Michal, Saul's daughter, loved David," and thus gave him the proud distinction of being the first man who was ever loved by a woman—at least the first one we have any authentic, official record of.

Once upon a time David had prepared to wipe Nabal, who was a very rich man, and his followers, from the very face of the earth, because a young man "told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness, to salute our master, and he railed on them."

Nabal was a churlish miser and little to be trusted, and it seems Abigail, who "was a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance," had heard nothing of this little affair, but she was equal to the emergency and she at once prepared many presents of wine, and figs, and raisins and other good things, and made haste to go out and meet David, and if possible avert the impending calamity. "And she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold I come after you. But she told not her husband," which shows conclusively that although he was "churlish and evil in his doings" she was not under his dominion to any great extent, or afraid of his anger, for she took things in her own hands and ran the government to suit herself, for the time being at least.

So she met David, made a telling speech, pleaded eloquently, flattered skillfully, and David, who never could withstand the beauty and oratory of another man's wife, granted her every request, as he himself confessed and said (I notice David always got particularly pious when he was going to do or had done anything particularly mean) to Abigail:

"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this day to meet me: and blessed be thy advice."

I don't know what kind of a bargain they had made, but it sounds a little queer to hear him saying to her, "go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice and have accepted thy person."

Abigail returned home and found her husband had been having a gay time while she was away, and "his heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken," so she waited till the morning "when the wine had gone out of Nabal," as it is quaintly put, and then she "told him these things," but as there was nothing but good news in "these things" she must have told him something else that is not recorded, for "his heart died within him, and he became as stone."

Now, I wouldn't cast a suspicion on Abigail for any consideration, but it does seem a little strange that ten days after her memorable meeting with the handsome and musical David, "the Lord smote Nabal that he died."

"And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife."

I simply mention this little romance to prove that there was no evidence of obedience in Abigail's conjugal relations.