quence; for it was plain, that, though the enemy declined fighting, yet there was no possibility of hindering them from following him so near as to give his retreat every appearance of flight, and to bring an expedition, begun with success, to an ignominious and a fatal end.
"He upbraided them with his own example, that early their prophets had foretold he was a prince fond of luxury and ease, which, in the main, he did not deny, but confessed that he was so; and that they all should have an attachment to their pleasures and enjoyments, he thought but reasonable. He desired, however, in this, they would do as much as he did, and only suspend their love of ease and rest as long as their duty to God, to their country, and their murdered brethren, required; for, till these duties were fulfilled, ease and enjoyment to a Christian, and especially to them bound by oath to accomplish a certain purpose, was, in his eyes, little short of apostacy." A loud acclamation now followed from the whole army. They declared again, that they renewed their sacrament taken at the passage of the Hawash, that they were Christ's soldiers, and would follow their sovereign unto death.
Though the great personal merit of the king, and the grace, force, and dignity with which he spoke, had, of themselves, produced a very sudden change in the mind of the soldiers, yet, to the increase of this good disposition it had very much contributed, that a monk, of great holiness and austerity of manners, living in a cell on the point of a steep rock, had come down from Shoa to the camp, declaring that he had found it written in the Revelation of St John, that this year the religion of Mahomet was to be
