Davio.

IT is a hot day, and the sun is shining brightly, as an old man rides on an ass along
the road to Bethlehem. How grand he looks with his long white beard, and his sad, grave
face. Whocan he be? Heis Samuel, about whom we read when he was a boy, doing
what God has commanded him.

He has done many hard things in. his life because God bade him ; but this thing he
is doing to-day is, perhaps, the hardest of them all. Saul, whom he had anointed king
over Israel in the name of God, had
turned out badly. He had disobeyed
God again and again, and thought only
of pleasing himself. And now God has
chosen another to be king in his place.
This is what has brought Samuel to
Bethlehem. He is on his way to Jesse’s
house, to anoint one of his sons to be
king over Israel.

But when he arrives there he is
puzzled. Jesse.has several sons. Which
of them is to be the king? The first
one, who stands before
him, is tall and strong,
just as Saul ‘‘ was higher
than any of the people
from his shoulders and
' upward,” and as
Samuel looked at
him he said to:
himself, “Surely
the Lord’s
“ anointed is be-
fore Him.” But
immediately a voice
from God seemed to
speak, not to his
ears, but to his
spirit “The Lord
seeth, not as man
seeth: for. man
looketh on the out-
ward appearance,
but God looketh on
the heart.” And then
six other sons of
Jesse passed before him; but when he had seen them he said unto Jesse,
“The Lord hath not chosen these”? What was he to do now? Where was he
to find a king for Israel? Are these all Jesse’s children? he asks. He is told there
is one more, the youngest, who is minding the sheep in the fields ; but he is only a stripling,
too young to be anointed king. Then Samuel said, “Send and fetch him.” And his father