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ore melancholy t sacred history, or in any other, a character more melancholy to contemplate than that of Saul. Naturally humble and modest, though of strong passions, he might have adorned a private station. lu circumstances which did not expose him to strong temptation, he would probably have acted virtuously. But his natural rashness was controlled neither by a powerful understanding nor a scrupulous conscience; and the obligations of duty, and North Face Outlet the ties of gratitude, always felt by him too slightly, were totally disregarded when ambition, envy, and jealousy had taken possession of his mind. The diabolical nature of these passions is seen, with frightful distinctness, in Saul, whom their indulgence transformed into an unnatural and blood-thirsty monster, who constantly exhibited the moral infatuation,'so common among those who have abandoned themselves to sin, of thinking that the punishment of one crime may be escaped by the perpetration of another. In him also is seen that moral anomaly or contradiction, which would be incredible, did we not so often witness it, of an individual pursuing habitually a course which his better nature pronounces not only flagitious, but insane ( Sam. xxiv. -). Saul knew that that person should http://www.clearance-northfaceoutlet.com be king whom yet he persisted in seeking to destroy, and so accelerated his own ruin. For it can hardly be doubted that the distractions and disaffection occasioned by Saul's persecution of David produced that weakness in his government which encouraged the Philistines to make the invasion in which himself and his sons perished. * I gave tiiee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath' (Ho*, xii. ). In the prolonged troubles and disastrous termination of this first reign, the Hebrews were vividly shown how vain was their favourite remedy for the mischiefs of foreign invasion and intestine discord.—R.L.SCAPE-GOAT. [goat, Scape.] SCARLET. [purple.] SCEPTRE. The Hebrew word thus rendered is ty', which in its primary signification denotes a staff of wood (Ezek. xix. ), about the height of a man, which the ancient kings and chiefs bore as an insigne of honour (Iliad, i. , ; ii. , sq.: Amos i. ; Zech. x. ; Ezek. xix. ; Wisd. x. ; cotnp. Gen. xlix. ; Num. xxiv. ; Isa. xiv. ). As such it appears to have originated in the shepherd's staff, since the first kings were mostly nomade princes (Strabo, xvi. ; comp. Ps. xxix). There were, however, some nations among whom the agricultural life must have been the earliest known ; and we should not among them expect to And the shepherd's stall' advanced to symbolical honour. Accordingly, Diodorus Siculus (iii. ) informs us, North Face Jackets that the sceptre of the Egyptian kings bore the shape of a plough—a testimony confirmed by existing monuments, in which the long staff which forms the sceptre, terminates in a form obviously intended to represent a plough.A golden sceptre, that is, one washed or plated with gold, is mentioned in Ezek. iv. (comp. Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. , ; Iliad, i. ; ii. ; Odi/ss. xi. ). Other decorations of Oriental sceptres are noticed The North Face Outlet by Strabo (xvi. ). Inclining the sceptre was a mark of kingly favour (Esth. iv. ), and the kissing it a token of submission (Esth. v. ). Saul appears to have carried his javelin as a mark of superiority ( Sam. xv. ; xxii. ).SCHOOLS, EDUCATION. Before