208 BATTLES OF THE BIBLE.

REBELLION AND SORROW.

“¢ Oh, who would bear life’s stormy doom,
Did not thy wing of love
Come brightly wafting through the gloom,
One peace-branch from above.

“ The sorrow, touch’d by Thee, grows bright
With more than rapture’s ray,
As darkness shews us worlds of light

We never saw by day.”
MOORE.

Marianne. We have found out, grandfather, who
fought against David in the most distressing of all his
wars; it was his son Absalom. We read something
about it, but we did not understand very well how the
war began, and what made the people all take Ab-
salom’s part.

Grandfather. The people did not all take Absalom’s
part.

Marianne. But a great many of them did—surely
almost all—when David was obliged to go away out of
Jerusalem and wander in the wilderness.

George. Let grandfather begin at the beginning, and
tell us all about it, that is best.