x.x.xVII

A CORONATION

Say, fellows: This is David's big day. Let's enjoy it with him. Let's get in the crowd gathering at Hebron and see a coronation.

And what a crowd! About three hundred and forty-four thousand mighty men of war--all the tribes of Israel were represented there that day--and they came over the hills of Judah from north and east and south to put a crown on David which would make him king of all Israel.

For many years David had waited for this day. At the death of Saul, two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, had proclaimed him king, but ten of the tribes had crowned Saul's son, Ishbosheth, as his father's successor. So David waited seven and a half years longer, and then the whole kingdom came under his rule.

Many times during those long years when a fugitive from Saul, hiding in caves or seeking the protection of heathen kings, it must have seemed as if G.o.d had forgotten him, and once David did almost break down, but he rallied, took a fresh hold, and "carried on."

Now, fellows, it must be a fine sight to see a man receive a royal crown, but it is a finer sight when there are fine qualities in a man deserving honour and reward. No head deserves a crown unless there are crowning virtues in the life. What were some of the qualities in David which merited a crowning on that great day?

One was his faith. Faith in G.o.d; faith in his fellow-man; faith in himself. It takes faith even to start anywhere, and it takes more faith to arrive. David's faith was of the coronation variety.

Another was his patience. David waited. He did not try to force matters. Whenever G.o.d was ready--that was David's time. In one of his great psalms, he wrote: "I waited patiently for the Lord, and he heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings." David's patience was crowned.

Another was David's continual kindness to a foe. He was even kind to Saul's memory and rewarded the men who reverently took Saul's body from the wall of Bethshan and gave it decent burial. David's chivalry was crowned.

But, fellows, the fine thing to know is that the same princely qualities can exist to-day in each one of us; not for crowns on our heads, but for a great satisfaction in our hearts. Faith, patience, and a knightly spirit are just as possible possessions now as they were in David's day. They are spoken of in slightly different terms by Paul in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians,--Faith, hope, and love. You can have them all. They are priceless, but you can have them if you ask for them.

Be a prince of the Royal House!

_Read 2 Samuel 2:1-7._

x.x.xVIII

DO IT RIGHT

Say, fellows, down-town the other day a man tried to save a boy who was caught near some wires, and got killed himself for his trouble.

Hard luck, wasn't it? Yet he had n.o.body to blame for it but himself.

He took hold of a wire which carried the electric current for the street cars. He broke a law of nature and got punished. There was a way he could have gotten the wire away from the boy. A Boy Scout did it later _with a pole_.

Just the difference between touching with the hand or touching with a stick--very little, perhaps, but the law of electricity made the difference important, so that the one meant death--the other, life!

Now here comes along King David trying twice to move the ark of the Lord up to Jerusalem, where it ought to be, the first attempt proving fatal because he was foolish enough to try to handle it as the Philistines did, instead of doing it strictly by the rules G.o.d had made--rules which David should have known very well, because they were in his Bible (Num. 4:4-6, 15; also 1 Chron. 15:11-15). The rules required that the ark should be carried on poles resting on the shoulders of certain men set apart for that service, but David permitted them to put it on an ox cart, attended by Ahio and Uzzah, two well-meaning fellows, no doubt, but not according to the rules.

One of the oxen stumbled, the ark jostled, and Uzzah put his hand on it to steady it. Presto! Uzzah a dead man on the side of the road!

They called David from where he was marching at the front of the procession, and when he got back there and saw what had happened, it gave him an awful shock, for he knew he was just as guilty as Uzzah--and perhaps more so. He ordered the men to take the ark into Obed-edom's house beside the road and be careful to pick it up by the poles. Then he went on back to Jerusalem without it. He got out the Book of Numbers and went over the rules about the ark very carefully.

For three months he studied the matter. Then he went after the ark again--this time in G.o.d's way. He called for the priests and the men appointed to carry the ark; he organized a band and a great choir of singers, and went to Obed-edom's house. There they picked up the ark by the poles and started. Still David was scared, and when they had moved forward only ten yards ("six paces") he made them stop, while a sacrifice of oxen and rams was made to the Lord.

David was overjoyed when he saw everything going well, and he began to dance and to sing. All the way to Jerusalem he danced and shouted for joy.

David thought a lot of the ark, because it meant the presence of G.o.d, and that meant in this case the blessing of G.o.d. As he grew older and wiser he had greater reverence for G.o.d's house and all the holy things which were tokens of G.o.d's presence. In one of the psalms he wrote:

The Lord is in His holy temple; Let all the earth keep silence before Him.

The least a boy can do for G.o.d's honour is to keep quiet in church.

The best a boy can do for himself is to put G.o.d at the very center of his every interest--the fear of G.o.d, love for G.o.d, and reverence for all His holy law.

Take hold as G.o.d says, and everything will go fine!

_Read 2 Samuel 6:1-11._

x.x.xIX

KEEPING FAITH

Say, fellows, it takes a real sport to live up to a promise when conditions shift on him. If there is a streak of yellow in his system he will find some way to kick out every time. Life is a big game, and it takes a real man to play it on the square--if only square and no more.

But, fellows, what can you say about that one man in a thousand who plays the game of "Remember and Pay" as finely as David did?

Young gentlemen, please meet Mephibosheth, this man of the twisted feet and outlandish name. Kings did not usually choose such to live in their courts and sit at the royal table. Only the fine-looking men and beautiful women were invited to become members of the king's household.

But, worse still, this Mephibosheth, being a grandson of Saul, was at any time a possible pretender to the throne. It was the custom of kings to get rid of such. Not so David. When he finds out about the poor cripple over there across the mountains east of the Jordan, he sends for him and invites him to come and live at the palace in Jerusalem.

Now you will find David's promise to Jonathan in 1 Samuel 20:14-17; and his promise to Saul in 1 Samuel 24:20-22. David had only agreed that when he became king he would not kill Saul's descendants. He could have fulfilled his promise by simply allowing Mephibosheth to live as he was doing, visiting around, kind of sneaky like, without any pocket change, among the few friends who would take him in.

What do you suppose Mephibosheth thought when the messengers showed up one morning at Machir's house and called for him to appear before the king? Scared to death, don't you think? No doubt he thought it was all over for him now, except the "slow driving and music on the hill."

Why, when he came before the king he bowed clear down to the marble floor, doing obeisance, and called himself a dead dog. Then, what happened? He had to pinch himself to see whether he was dreaming. He never got over the surprise of it as long as he lived. King David helped him up on his crutches and told him to cheer up, for from that time forward he should sit at his table, and be as one of the king's own sons.

More than that: with all the thoughtfulness and fine courtesy of a Christian gentleman, David turned over to this cripple his grandfather Saul's estate, together with Saul's servant, old Ziba, with his fifteen sons and twenty slaves, to till the land. That was to provide Mephibosheth with an income.

Now, what do you know about that, fellows? It was playing the game of kindness to win, wasn't it? Win what? Why, to win the satisfaction which can only come to one who keeps his promise--and then some, for good measure!

Yes, it takes even more than a good sport to do that. It takes one who is willing to be Christlike.

_Read 2 Samuel, Chapter 9._

XL

THE GAME THAT CAME NEAR BLOWING UP IN THE SEVENTH INNING