r action and prosperous in it all, the
other paralyzed, shrinking from all work, and leaving the conduct of
the war to the servant whom he feared; the one conscious of the Divine
presence making him strong and calm, the other writhing in the gripe of
his evil spirit, and either foaming in fury, or stiffened into torpor;
the one steadily growing in power and favour with God and man, the other
sinking in deeper mire, and wrapped about with thickening mists as he
moves to his doom. The tragic pathos of these two lives in their fateful
antagonism is the embodiment of that awful alternative of life and
death, blessing and cursing, which it was the very aim of Judaism to
stamp ineffaceably on the conscience.

David's flight begins a period to which a large number of his psalms are
referred. We may call them "The Songs of the Outlaw." The titles in the
psalter connect several with specific events during his persecution by
Saul, and besides these, there are others which have marked
characteristics in common, and may therefore be regarded as belonging to
the same time. The bulk of the former class are found in the second book
of the psalter (Ps. xlii.-lxxii.), which has been arranged with some
care. There are first eight Korahite psalms, and one of Asaph's; then a
group of fifteen Davidic (li.-lxv.), followed by two anonymous; then
three more of David's (lxviii.-lxx.), followed by one anonymous and the
well-known prayer "for Solomon." Now it is worth notice that the group
of fifteen psalms ascribed to David is as nearly as possible divided in
halves, eight having inscriptions which give a specific date of
composition, and seven having no such detail. There has also been some
attempt at arranging the psalms of these two classes alternately, but
that has not been accurately carried out. These facts show that the
titles are at all events as old as the compilation of the second book of
the psalter, and were regarded as accurate then. Several points about
the complete book of psalms as we have it, seem to indicate that these
two first books were an older nucleus, which was in existence long prior
to the present collection--and if so, the date of the titles must be
carried back a very long way indeed, and with a proportionate increase
of authority.

Of the eight psalms in the second book having titles with specific
dates, five (Ps. lii., liv., lvi., lvii., lix.) are assigned to the
period of the Sauline persecution, and, as it would