ught him out before them, he
was taller than any of the people from his shoulders up, and looked a
king indeed. For the first time in all their history they cried,

"God save the King!"

Then Saul went home, and there went with him a body of men whose hearts
God had touched, while Samuel wrote in a book the order of the kingdom
and laid it up before the Lord.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SHEPHERD BOY OF BETHLEHEM.

After Saul had been king of Israel for a few years, Samuel was deeply
troubled about him, for he had hoped that he would be as truly a king
as he looked, but he had a strange and wilful spirit that led him to
turn away from the counsel of the Lord and follow his own way.

Samuel had been grieved again and again by Saul's rashness, until at
last he said to him when he had taken the spoil of the enemy to
sacrifice to the Lord,

"To obey is better than sacrifice; because thou hast rejected the word
of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king," and he went
to his house and mourned over Saul, for he had loved him.

At last the Lord told Samuel to cease from mourning for Saul, for He
had rejected him, but to fill his horn with oil, and go to Bethlehem
where Jesse lived, for He had chosen one of the sons of Jesse to be
king in place of Saul.

Samuel went to Bethlehem leading a heifer, as the Lord had told him to
do, that he might hold a sacrifice. He told the elders of the city to
make ready for the sacrifice, and when he had found the house of Jesse,
he called him and his sons. Jesse was the grandson of Ruth and Boaz,
and owned the fields, no doubt, where Ruth gleaned. When Samuel saw
Eliab, the son of Jesse, he said:

"Surely the Lord's anointed is before Him," but the Lord said:

"Look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature, because I
have refused him, for the Lord seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh
on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."

Then Jesse called Abinidab, but Samuel said:

"The Lord hath not chosen this." Then he made Shammah to pass before
him, but Samuel said:

"Neither hath the Lord chosen this."

Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel, but Samuel said:

"The Lord hath not chosen these."

"Are here all thy children?" said Samuel.

"There remaineth yet the youngest, and he keepeth the sheep," Jesse
replied. Then Samuel said:

"Send and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hither."

So Jesse se