ver more varied? What recorded experiences are more
interesting and instructive?--a life of heroism, of adventures, of
triumphs, of humiliations, of outward and inward conflicts. Who ever
loved and hated with more intensity than David?--tender yet fierce,
brave yet weak, magnanimous yet unrelenting, exultant yet sad,
committing crimes yet triumphantly rising after disgraceful falls by the
force of a piety so ardent that even his backslidings now appear but as
spots upon a sun. His varied experiences call out our sympathy and
admiration more than the life of any secular hero whom poetry and
history have immortalized. He was an Achilles and a Ulysses, a Marcus
Aurelius and a Theodosius, an Alfred and a Saint Louis combined; equally
great in war and in peace, in action and in meditation; creating an
empire, yet transmitting to posterity a collection of poems identified
forever with the spiritual life of individuals and nations. Interesting
to us as are the events of David's memorable career, and the sentiments
and sorrows which extort our sympathy, yet it is the relation of a
sinful soul with its Maker, by which he infuses his inner life into all
other souls, and furnishes materials of thought for all generations.

David was the youngest and seventh son of Jesse, a prominent man of the
tribe of Judah, whose great-grandmother was Ruth, the interesting wife
of Boaz the Jew. He was born in Bethlehem, near Jerusalem,--a town
rendered afterward so illustrious as the birthplace of our Lord, who was
himself of the house and lineage of David. He first appears in history
at the sacrificial feast which his townspeople periodically held,
presided over by his father, when the prophet Samuel unexpectedly
appeared at the festival to select from the sons of Jesse a successor to
Saul. He was not tall and commanding like the Benjamite hero, but was
ruddy of countenance, with auburn hair, beautiful eyes, and graceful
figure, equally remarkable for strength and agility. He had the charge
of his father's sheep,--not the most honorable employment in the eyes of
his brothers, who, according to Ewald, treated him with little
consideration; but even as a shepherd boy he had already proved his
strength and courage by an encounter with a bear and a lion.

Until David was thirty years of age his life was identified with the
fading glories of the reign of Saul, who laid the foundation of the
military power of his successors,--a man who lacked only th