Now the first lesson on Monarchy, which we remember made us think even in childhood, is the fable of the trees electing a king, told by Jotham, the son of Gideon, in Judges ix. The trees in the process of this election showed a judgment much superior to that which men usually show in such a business. It is true that they did not select first the most strong and stalwart of trees, the cedar or the oak, but they had the good sense to choose the most sweet-natured and bountiful, the olive, then the fig, then the vine. But the bountiful trees thus chosen had good sense too, and would not forsake the fatness and the sweetness and the wine which cheereth God and man, to rule over their fellow trees. Then the poor trees, like a jilted girl who marries in spleen the first scamp she comes across, asked the bramble to be their king; and that barren good-for-nothing of course accepted eagerly the crown which the noble and generous had refused, and called upon the trees to put their trust in its scraggy shadow, “and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.” Young as we were when this fable first caught our attention, we mused a good deal over it, and even then began to learn that those most eager for supremacy, the most forward candidates in elections, are nearly always brambles, not olives or fig-trees or vines; and that the first thought of a bramble, when made ruler over its betters, is naturally to destroy with fire the cedars of Lebanon. But God himself in the case of the Israelites has vouchsafed to us a very clear judgment on the question of Monarchy. In the remarkable constitution for that people which he gave to Moses, he did not include a king, and Israel remained without a king for more years than it is worth while endeavoring to count here. We read, 1 Samuel viii., how “All the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Hamah, and said unto him, Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.