BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 179

the face of the earth was the only thing that would give them
any sort of satisfaction.

David delivered the sons of Saul into the hands of the
Gibeonites. Of these seven ‘‘sons” of Saul, two of them were
sons and five of them were grandsons. Armoni and Mephi-
bosheth were the sons of Saul and Rizpah; the other five
were the sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, and were,
therefore, the grandsons of the dead King, and nephews of
Armoni and Mephibosheth, the sons of Saul and Rizpah.
These seven were supposed to compose all that were left of
the bloody house of Saul.

The story grows sadder as it proceeds. If the Gibeonites
had taken these two young men and these five boys and put
them to death, and buried them out of sight, there would have
been some show of mercy in their conduct. These young
men had had no hand in the murder of their fathers. The
sons of Saul were as innocent as you or I of any share in
the cruel slaughter of the Gibeonites. But the old, hard, sad
law comes into force. The sins of Saul are to be visited on
his sons and grandsons. And now these Gibeonites are resolved
to surround this destruction of the remnant of the house of Saul
with all possible cruelty, indignity, and shame. They might
have done their sad work quickly, and have hidden their vic-
tims in some secret grave. But no; this would have had a
touch of mercy in it, and what mercy had Saul shown to
their fathers and friends?

They resolved upon the most torturing of all modes of
execution—the mode of crucifixion. This cruel way of putting
people to death had been common among the Egyptians and
the older nations of antiquity, and it long continued in use
_for no other reason than because it was the most cruel death,
and was supposed to have attached to it the greatest possible