the warlike Romans.

How small and unimportant the Israelites appeared to the world then!
Yet we know that in reality they were greater than any people the world
had ever seen. God's words have been fulfilled; through the Children
of Israel all the nations of the world are blessed.

The old empires have crumbled into dust; the great conquerors of
ancient days are forgotten; few people to-day remember the names of the
wise men of Greece and Rome, but our lives and thoughts are daily
influenced by the thoughts, words, and deeds of the Jews of old.
Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David, Elijah--their very names are
nearer and dearer to us than those of the heroes of our own land.

When Queen Victoria was asked the secret of England's greatness, she
held up a Bible. Their Sacred Book was all that the Jews possessed.
Their whole greatness was wrapped up in it. As the heathen truly said,
they were 'The People of the Book.'

And now let us glance at the history books of the Bible. The first and
second Books of Samuel have been put together from several other
records. Most likely Samuel himself did part of the work. In Shiloh,
where he was educated, the old documents were kept, and Samuel, the
gifted lad, who so early gave his heart to God, was in every way fitted
to write the story of the Lord's chosen people during his own life-time.

The Bible mentions several other histories that were written in these
days besides those which we know. '_Now the acts of David the king,
first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the
seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the
seer._' (These last have disappeared.) (1 Chronicles xxix. 29.)

Stores of books were being gathered. When, for instance, Saul was
chosen king, Samuel '_wrote in a book and laid it up before the Lord._'
(1 Samuel x. 25.) These books were most likely written on a rough kind
of parchment, made from the skins of goats, sewn together, and rolled
up into thick rolls.

The Books of Samuel are very precious to us, for in them we read nearly
all we know of the history of David the shepherd-king. Some of David's
own writings are found in these books, but for most of them we have to
turn to the Book of the Psalms, which was the manual of the Temple
choir, and became the national collection of sacred poems. These
Psalms were composed by different authors, and at different times,
chiefly for use in the Temple, but t