sun and moon, the mountains and valleys, fire and hail, storms and winds, yea, upon the stars of night.  “Bless ye the Lord, O my soul! for his mercy endureth forever.”  And this is why he was a man after God’s own heart.  Let cynics and critics, and unbelievers like Bayle, delight to pick flaws in David’s life.  Who denies his faults?  He was loved because his soul was permeated with exalted loyalty, because he hungered and thirsted after righteousness, because he could not find words to express sufficiently his sense of sin and his longing for forgiveness, his consciousness of littleness and unworthiness when contrasted with the majesty of Jehovah.  Let not our eyes be fixed upon his defects, but upon the general tenor of his life.  It is true he is in war merciless and cruel; he hurls anathemas on his enemies.  His wrath is as supernal as his love; he is inspired with the fiercest resentments; he exhibits the mighty anger of Homer’s heroes; he never could forgive Joab for the slaughter of Abner and Absalom.  But the abiding sentiments of his heart are gentleness and magnanimity.  How affectionately his soul clung to Jonathan!  What a power of self-denial, when he was faint and thirsty, in refusing the water which his brave companions brought him at the risk of their lives!  How generously he spared the life of Saul!  How patiently he bore the rebukes of Nathan!  How nobly he treated the aged Barzillai!  His impulses were all generous.  He was affectionate to weakness.  He had no egotistic ends.  He forgot his own sorrows in the sufferings of his people.  He had no pride in all the pomp of power, although he never forgot that he was the Lord’s anointed.

When we pass from David’s personal character to the services he rendered, how exalted his record!  He laid the foundation of the prosperity of his nation.  Where would have been the glories of Solomon but for the genius and deeds of David?  But more than any material greatness are the imperishable lyrics he bequeathed to all ages and nations, in which are unfolded the varied experiences of a good man in his warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil,—­those priceless utterances which portray every passion that can move the human soul.  He has left bare to the contemplation of all ages all that a lofty soul can suffer or enjoy, all that can be learned from folly and sin, all that can stimulate religious life, all that can console in sorrow and affliction.  These experiences and aspirations he has embodied in lyric poetry, on the whole the most exquisite in the Hebrew language, creating a new world of religious thought and feeling, and furnishing the foundation for Christian psalmody, to be sung from age to age throughout the world.  His kingdom passed away, but his Psalms remain,—­a realm which no civilization can afford to lose.  As Moses lives in his jurisprudence, Solomon in his proverbs, Isaiah in his prophecies, and Paul in his epistles, so David lives in those poems that are still the most expressive of all the forms in which the public worship of God is still continued.  Such poetry could not have been written, had not the author experienced in his own life every variety of suffering and joy.