life’ Alone with his sheep

~

DAVID 3t

The fight was soon over. “David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone,
and smote the Philistine in the forehead, and he fell upon his face to the earth.” And
when David ran to the
giant, and, taking his own
sword, cut off his head, the
army of the Philistine fled,
and the Israelites pursued
after them, and slew a
great number.

We are not surprised
that this brave boy grew
up to be a brave king. -

But David learned
something better than
courage in his shepherd

in the wilderness he had
learned to think about
God. He was not afraid
of the wild beasts, because
he knew God was with him.
He dared to fight the giant, because he believed God would help him. And he never
forgot the lessons he had learned. When he was a king he loved to go back in thought
to the time when, as he fed his father’s flock, God took care of him. In the Temple at
Jerusalem he used to sing the same hymn he had sung as a boy on the hillside,—

The Lord is my Shepherd ;

I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.

 

He needed this courage and this fear of God in his after years. His was not an easy
life. At first Saul made much of him, and he lived with him in his palace, and played the
harp to him when he was in a bad temper.. It was during that time Jonathan, Saul’s son,
became such a great friend of David’s, and loved him as his own soul. But after a while
Saul grew jealous of him, and tried to kill him, and David-had to fly for his life, and hide
in the caves and woods, so that Saul might not find him.

But he was always brave and God-fearing. More than once he could have killed Saul. At
one time Saul came into the cave to rest where David and his men were hiding ; but David
only cut offa bit of his robe to show him how easily he might have slain him. At another
time David and one of his young men went in the night into the tent where Saul ‘was
sleeping, and took away his spear and pitcher of water, when he might have .taken
his life.
: And even when Saul was dead, and David was anointed king, first of the tribes of
Judah and Benjamin, and afterwards king of the ten other tribes, he had many difficulties
and dangers. Once his favourite son Absalom rebelled against him, and he was obliged. to
fly for his life and wander about in the wilderness with a few of the people who did not
follow Absalom,

But he always practised the two great lessons he had learned as a shepherd boy. I
do not mean to say he never did what was wrong. He fell into great sins more than
once ; but because he feared God he was truly sorry for what he had done, and asked God
to forgive him, and help him to fight against and conquer sin, as he had fought against
and killed the lion and the giant. fab ncs