very frequently they throw a flood of light upon
these, and all but prove their trustworthiness by their appropriateness.
They are not authoritative, but they merit respectful consideration,
and, as Dr. Perowne puts it in his valuable work on the Psalms, stand on
a par with the subscriptions to the Epistles in the New Testament.
Regarding them thus, and yet examining the psalms to which they are
prefixed, there seem to be about forty-five which we may attribute with
some confidence to David, and with these we shall be concerned in this
book.

II.--EARLY DAYS

The life of David is naturally divided into epochs, of which we may
avail ourselves for the more ready arrangement of our material. These
are--his early years up to his escape from the court of Saul, his exile,
the prosperous beginning of his reign, his sin and penitence, his flight
before Absalom's rebellion, and the darkened end.

We have but faint incidental traces of his life up to his anointing by
Samuel, with which the narrative in the historical books opens. But
perhaps the fact that the story begins with that consecration to office,
is of more value than the missing biography of his childhood could have
been. It teaches us the point of view from which Scripture regards its
greatest names--as nothing, except in so far as they are God's
instruments. Hence its carelessness, notwithstanding that so much of it
is history, of all that merely illustrates the personal character of
its heroes. Hence, too, the clearness with which, notwithstanding that
indifference, the living men are set before us--the image cut with half
a dozen strokes of the chisel.

We do not know the age of David when Samuel appeared in the little
village with the horn of sacred oil in his hand. The only approximation
to it is furnished by the fact, that he was thirty at the beginning of
his reign. (2 Sam. v. 4.) If we take into account that his exile must
have lasted for a very considerable period (one portion of it, his
second flight to the Philistines, was sixteen months, 1 Sam. xxvii.
7),--that the previous residence at the court of Saul must have been
long enough to give time for his gradual rise to popularity, and
thereafter for the gradual development of the king's insane
hatred,--that further back still there was an indefinite period, between
the fight with Goliath, and the first visit as a minstrel-physician to
the palace, which was spent at Bethlehem, and that that visit i