If now the term of life runs on, and the seasons are prolonged, old age comes forward, and not without its burdens and privations. Will you plead here with old Barzillai, to whom David gave a gracious invitation, to mark the sense he entertained of the value of past services, proposing that he should return with him when he was restored from exile, and brought back in peace and honour to Jerusalem? The old man’s answer was not entirely the most proper and becoming: “and Barzillai said unto the king, Can thy servant taste what I eat, or what I drink? can I hear any more the voice of singing-men or singing-women? Wherefore, then, should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king?” But Barzillai, if this was ill spoken, showed a prudent spirit in what followed, for he puts in a prompt plea for his son: “Behold,” said he, “thy servant Chimham; let him go with my lord the king, and do with him what shall seem good unto thee.” Now David might, no doubt, have replied, “I want you for the council-board, where your sage experience may yield me better service than this youth can furnish.” But David had a due regard to the privileges of descent, and to the preference to be shown to the children of deserving parents who may spend their lives in the service of their country, and frequently can find no reward in this life, but in the persons of surviving children. It is the plain stamp of barbarism which rests upon those governments which do not recognize this principle, and where the hand of power makes one only testament for the frail possessor after all his services. David formed a different judgment; he accepted Barzillai’s tender of his son; he followed the same course which he had pursued with poor Mephibosheth, the son of the princely, noble-minded Jonathan, who preferred the known will of God, and his love to David, to the crown of one who had incurred the forfeiture of what he had so ill-sustained. David placed Mephibosheth at his own board, although he could neither serve him in the field, nor attend him in his exile. The first order made upon the king’s return, after receiving Mephibosheth’s excuse, was to confirm to him the grant which had before been made in his behalf.