SAUL'S SEVEN SONS HANGED.

DURING the reign of David Israel was afflicted with a famine which lasted for three years, and the people were greatly distressed. David, full of grief, prayed to God that he would reveal for what cause he had sent the famine upon the land; and we are told the Deity condescended to reveal to the monarch that it was in consequence of the savage conduct of the late king Saul toward the Gibeonites.

The Gibeonites were not Hebrews, but a remnant of the Amorites, or people who dwelt in Canaan before the arrival of the descendants of Abraham. But David determined that justice should be righteously administered to them, though they were not of his people, and he asked them what atonement he could make for the sufferings they had endured.

The Gibeonites demanded that seven of the sons of Saul should be delivered up to them and then they would rest appeased. David granted this request; and the Gibeonites hanged seven of the race of their oppressor upon a tree, just about the beginning of harvest-time. A sad sight must it have been for these wretched brothers to behold the rich corn waving gently in the warm summer breezes, to see the fields decked with wild flowers, and all nature arrayed in a garment of gladness, and to know that they must perish for their father's sin, and that in a few moments the eternal darkness of the grave would shut all the beauties of the earth from their eyes for ever. But it was to be so; they were all hanged together, and from that time the famine ceased. And Rizpah, the mother of two of these unfortunate men, spread sackcloth over the bodies and suffered neither bird nor beast to approach them.