de of his
"natural enemies." One more swift transition and he is on the throne,
for long years victorious, prosperous, and beloved.

"Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place
The wisdom which adversity had bred,"

till suddenly he is plunged into the mire, and falsifies all his past,
and ruins for ever, by the sin of his mature age, his peace of heart
and the prosperity of his kingdom. Thenceforward trouble is never far
away; and his later years are shaded with the saddening consciousness of
his great fault, as well as by hatred and rebellion and murder in his
family, and discontent and alienation in his kingdom.

None of the great men of Scripture pass through a course of so many
changes; none of them touched human life at so many points; none of them
were so tempered and polished by swift alternation of heat and cold, by
such heavy blows and the friction of such rapid revolutions. Like his
great Son and Lord, though in a lower sense, he, too, must be "in all
points tempted like as we are," that his words may be fitted for the
solace and strength of the whole world. Poets "learn in suffering what
they teach in song." These quick transitions of fortune, and this wide
experience, are the many-coloured threads from which the rich web of his
psalms is woven.

And while the life is singularly varied, the character is also
singularly full and versatile. In this respect, too, he is most unlike
the other leading figures of Old Testament history. Contrast him, for
example, with the stern majesty of Moses, austere and simple as the
tables of stone; or with the unvarying tone in the gaunt strength of
Elijah. These and the other mighty men in Israel are like the ruder
instruments of music--the trumpet of Sinai, with its one prolonged note.
David is like his own harp of many chords, through which the breath of
God murmured, drawing forth wailing and rejoicing, the clear ring of
triumphant trust, the low plaint of penitence, the blended harmonies of
all devout emotions.

The man had his faults--grave enough. Let it be remembered that no one
has judged them more rigorously than himself. The critics who have
delighted to point at them have been anticipated by the penitent; and
their indictment has been little more than the quotation of his own
confession. His tremulously susceptible nature, especially assailable by
the delights of sense, led him astray. There are traces in his life of
occasional craft and untruthfulness w