ho did not love to obey? However, he was
cursed--cursed for a ceremony of the Law; and that dancing David, the
man who took Uriah's wife and basely murdered Uriah, was said to be the
man after God's own heart.

Soon afterwards the evil spirit fell upon my lord. Samuel had
commanded him to smite the Amalekites, and to spare not men or women,
infants or sucklings, oxen or sheep, camel or ass. Saul gathered his
soldiers together and lay in wait in the valley. In his mercy, for he
was ever tender-hearted, he warned the Kenites that they might escape.
He then smote the Amalekites from Havilah to Shur, but he took Agag
alive, and spared some of the spoil. When the battle was over, Samuel
came to meet him, and rebuked him as if he had been a child for what he
called rebellion and stubbornness. The priest stood up before the
king, and told him that his rebellion was as witchcraft, and his
stubbornness as idolatry. "Because thou hast rejected the word of the
Lord," he cried, "He hath also rejected thee from being king."
Rebellion, stubbornness! Saul was neither rebellious nor stubborn. He
had smitten the Amalekites; in obedience to Samuel's command, he had
done what he hated to do; he had slaughtered young and old, but he had
saved Agag, and although he humbled himself before Samuel, and prayed
him to remain, he would not. Saul laid hold upon the skirt of his
mantle; but he departed, and it was rent, and he cursed Saul, and
declared that as the garment was rent, so had the Lord rent the kingdom
of Israel from him that day, and given it to another better than he.
Then Samuel called Agag unto him, and hewed the unarmed man in pieces,
and declared he would see Saul no more. Now Saul was brave, the
bravest of the brave, but he greatly feared at times what he called his
Terror. What it was which troubled him none ever rightly knew. He was
not mad as others are mad, for his senses never left him, and he was
always the counsel and the strength of the nation, whom they all sought
in their distress. But something had caught him of which he could not
rid himself, and he would come to me with wild eyes, and clasp me in
his arms. I could not comfort him; and all I heard was a strange word
or two about a Face which haunted him and would not leave him. I could
not comfort him, but it was to me nevertheless he always fled; and
although he spoke so little, for he dared not name his Terror, he said
to me more than he has said to