BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 175

dren; its eyes are blind to all sorrows, though they are the
sorrows of the weak and the helpless. In all his cruel wars
Saul accomplished nothing more shameless and uncalled for
than the massacre of Gibeon and its confederate towns. Men,
women and children were put to the sword in blind, wicked
fury. The city of Nob had been destroyed and four score
and five harmless priests of the temple had been slain in cold
blood. Saul intended to make Gibeon the seat of national
worship, and it may be that the Gibeonites opposed his plan.
But this was no reason for putting them to a shameful death.
It is true, as we have seen, that they were the descendants
of the Canaanites, but they were under the sheltering care
of Israel, and the services they and their predecessors had
rendered the land, surely gave them the right of protection
from such cruel treatment. Saul was a man of blood; he
loved the sword, and was destined to die by the sword, but
after the most shameful and humiliating manner. An awful
battle waged about the slopes of Gilboa. But the end of Saul
was dark and tragical. We read in the book of Samuel:
“And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit
him and he was sore wounded of the archers.” But Saul
was not slain by the arrows of the archers. He died by his
own hand! The first King of Israel ended his brilliant career
a royal suicide! ‘Then said Saul unto his armor-bearer,
Draw thy sword and thrust me through therewith, lest these
uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me.
But his armor-bearer would not; for he was sore afraid: there-
fore Saul took a sword and fell upon it. . . . , So Saul
died! . . . And it came to pass on the morrow when
the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul
and his three sons fallen in Mount Gilboa. And they cut off
his head and stripped off his armor, and sent into the land