d the number (_i.e._, of
the psalms in the Psalter), when he fought the single fight with
Goliath:--

"(1.) I was little among my brethren, and the youngest in the house of
my father: I kept the flock of my father. (2.) My hands made a pipe, my
fingers tuned a psaltery. (3.) And who shall tell it to my Lord? He is
the Lord, He shall hear me. (4.) He sent His angel (messenger), and
took me from the flocks of my father, and anointed me with the oil of
His anointing. (5.) But my brethren were fair and large, and in them the
Lord took not pleasure. (6.) I went out to meet the Philistine, and he
cursed me by his idols. (7.) But I, drawing his sword, beheaded him, and
took away reproach from the children of Israel."

IV.--THE EXILE.

David's first years at the court of Saul in Gibeah do not appear to have
produced any psalms which still survive.

"The sweetest songs are those
Which tell of saddest thought."

It was natural, then, that a period full of novelty and of prosperous
activity, very unlike the quiet days at Bethlehem, should rather
accumulate materials for future use than be fruitful in actual
production. The old life shut to behind him for ever, like some
enchanted door in a hill-side, and an unexplored land lay beckoning
before. The new was widening his experience, but it had to be mastered,
to be assimilated by meditation before it became vocal.

The bare facts of this section are familiar and soon told. There is
first a period in which he is trusted by Saul, who sets him in high
command, with the approbation not only of the people, but even of the
official classes. But a new dynasty resting on military pre-eminence
cannot afford to let a successful soldier stand on the steps of the
throne; and the shrill chant of the women out of all the cities of
Israel, which even in Saul's hearing answered the praises of his prowess
with a louder acclaim for David's victories, startled the king for the
first time with a revelation of the national feeling. His unslumbering
suspicion "eyed David from that day." Rage and terror threw him again
into the gripe of his evil spirit, and in his paroxysm he flings his
heavy spear, the symbol of his royalty, at the lithe harper, with fierce
vows of murder. The failure of his attempt to kill David seems to have
aggravated his dread of him as bearing a charm which won all hearts and
averted all dangers. A second stage is marked not only by Saul's growing
fear, but by D