ughts engrossed alone:
For them his painful course was run:
To bless, to save, his only care;
To chill the guilty soul with fear;
To point the pathway to the skies,
And teach, and urge, and aid, to rise;
Where strait, and difficult to keep,
It climbs, and climbs, o'er Virtue's steep.

CXXII. DEATH OF ABSALOM. (420)

David numbered the people that were with him, and set captains of
thousands and captains of hundreds over them. And David sent forth a third
part of the people under the hand of Joab, and a third part under the hand
of Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother, and a third part under the
hand of Ittai, the Gittite.

And the king said unto the people, I will surely go forth with you myself
also. But the people answered, thou shalt not go forth; for if we flee
away, they will not care for us; neither if half of us die, will they care
for us; but now thou art worth ten thousand of us; therefore now it is
better that thou succor us out of the city. And the king said unto them,
What seemeth you best, I will do.

And the king stood by the gate side, and all the people came out by
hundreds and by thousands. And the king commanded Joab, and Abishai, and
Ittai, saying, Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with
Absalom. And all the people heard when the king gave all the captains
charge concerning Absalom.

So the people went out into the field against Israel; and the battle was
in the wood of Ephraim; where the people of Israel were slain before the
servants of David, and there was there a great slaughter that day of
twenty thousand men. For the battle was there scattered over the face of
all the country: and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword
devoured.

And Absalom met the servants of David. And Absalom rode upon a mule, and
the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught
hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and
the mule that was under him went away.

And a certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, Behold, I saw Absalom
hanged in an oak. And Joab said unto the man that told him, And, behold,
thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and
I would have given thee ten shekels of silver and a girdle. And the man
said unto Joab, Though I should receive a thousand shekels of silver in my
hand, yet would I not put forth my hand against the king's son; for, in
our hearing, the king charge