reign, and send to thee wisdom to rule it well.  And when David had thus counselled and commanded him to do justice and keep God’s law, he blessed him and died, and was buried with his fathers.  This David was an holy man and made the holy psalter, which is an holy book and is contained therein the old law and the new law.  He was a great prophet, for he prophesied the coming of Christ, his nativity, his passion, and resurrection, and also his ascension, and was great with God, yet God would not suffer him to build a temple for him, for he had shed man’s blood.  But God said to him, his son that should reign after him should be a man peaceable, and he should build the temple to God.  And when David had reigned forty years king of Jerusalem, over Judah and Israel, he died in good mind, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David.

THE SONG OF DAVID

He sang of God, the mighty source
Of all things, the stupendous force
  On which all strength depends;
From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes,
All period, power, and enterprise
  Commences, reigns, and ends.

The world, the clustering spheres he made,
The glorious light, the soothing shade,
  Dale, champaign, grove, and hill: 
The multitudinous abyss,
Where secrecy remains in bliss,
  And wisdom hides her skill.

Tell them, I AM, Jehovah said
To Moses:  while Earth heard in dread,
  And, smitten to the heart,
At once, above, beneath, around,
All Nature, without voice or sound,
  Replied, “O Lord, THOU ART.”

_—­C.  Smart_

THE STORY OF A CUP OF WATER

BY THEODORE T. MUNGER

[From “Lamps and Paths,” by courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

—­James Russell Lowell:  Sonnet IV

Restore to God his due in tithe and time: 
  A tithe purloined cankers the whole estate. 
Sundays observe:  think, when the bells do chime,
  ‘Tis angels’ music; therefore come not late. 
God there deals blessings.  If a king did so,
Who would not haste, nay give, to see the show?

—­George Herbert

O Lord, that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!

_—­King Henry VI.,_ Part II.; i.  I

"And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, that is at the gate!  And the three brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David:  but David would not drink of it, but poured it out to the Lord, and said, My God forbid it me, that I should do this thing:  shall I drink the blood of these men that have put their lives in jeopardy? for with the jeopardy of their lives they brought it.  Therefore he would not drink it."—­I Chronicles xi. 17-19