144
X. THE KING--_continued_, 157
XI. THE KING--_continued_, 174
XII. THE KING--_continued_, 185
XIII. THE TEARS OF THE PENITENT, 205
XIV. CHASTISEMENTS, 232
XV. THE SONGS OF THE FUGITIVE, 245
INDEX, 262
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 263
BIBLE CLASS EXPOSITIONS, 264
THE HOUSEHOLD LIBRARY OF EXPOSITION, 265

I.--INTRODUCTION.

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the life of David is its
romantic variety of circumstances. What a many-coloured career that was
which began amidst the pastoral solitudes of Bethlehem, and ended in the
chamber where the dying ears heard the blare of the trumpets that
announced the accession of Bathsheba's son! He passes through the most
sharply contrasted conditions, and from each gathers some fresh fitness
for his great work of giving voice and form to all the phases of devout
feeling. The early shepherd life deeply influenced his character, and
has left its traces on many a line of his psalms.

"Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills;
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills."

And then, in strange contrast with the meditative quiet and lowly duties
of these first years, came the crowded vicissitudes of the tempestuous
course through which he reached his throne--court minstrel, companion
and friend of a king, idol of the people, champion of the armies of
God--and in his sudden elevation keeping the gracious sweetness of his
lowlier, and perhaps happier days. The scene changes with startling
suddenness to the desert. He is "hunted like a partridge upon the
mountains," a fugitive and half a freebooter, taking service at foreign
courts, and lurking on the frontiers with a band of outlaws recruited
from the "dangerous classes" of Israel. Like Dante and many more, he has
to learn the weariness of the exile's lot--how hard his fare, how
homeless his heart, how cold the courtesies of aliens, how unslumbering
the suspicions which watch the refugee who fights on the si