simple, yet resolute declaration. Such is ever the character of true valor; decided, fearless, and modest; emphatically so when its reliance is on the arm of the Almighty. In his strength, my young friend, go forward to espouse the right, and to do your duty with the unpretending intrepidity of the heroic son of Jesse. Be your motto; Let no man's heart fail him because of the adver saries of truth and righteousness.

CHAPTER IV.

David meets Goliath, and kills him.

Saul admired the courage of David, but doubted altogether his ability to meet Goliath with any hope of succeeding in the conflict. He avowed his fears, and added the reason for them; "thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth."

David was not to be daunted by any considerations of this kind. He was well aware, indeed, of the vastly superior strength of Goliath. But, then, he was not going to the encounter relying on his own prowess. He trusted in Jehovah to

nerve his arm, and direct his skill. He had already experienced the efficacy of this trust on occasions of the most imminent danger, and when his escape from destruction seemed, if possible, more hopeless than, at the present time, it did to the apprehensions of the king. He let Saul know this, hoping to inspire him with the same confidence in God that removed all fear from his own breast. "Thy servant," said he, "kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: and I went after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.-The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine."

Saul could resist the pious intrepidity of David no longer. He hoped that the result would show that the confidence of the youthful hero was not presumptuous. He could not but admire and reverence the faith in God which thus triumphed over danger the most appalling, while himself alas! was a stranger to its power. "Go," he exclaimed," and the Lord be with thee."

So saying, for no time was to be lost, he caused

his own armor to be put upon David; the heavy helmet of brass upon his head, and the impenetrable coat of mail around his body. David girded on, also, the sword of Saul, and thus equipped prepared to go forward. But he soon found that he needed experience in the use of such instruments of warfare; and fearing they would prove only an incumbrance, divested himself of them. He resorted to more simple, yet in his hands more efficacious means, with which he had long been familiar, and his skill in employing which he had often tested. They were means, too, which he could use, as he thought, with triumphant success, at a distance from his enemy, and before the latter could come so near as to grapple with him in a close, personal contest. He did not expect any miracle to be wrought in his behalf; but, while looking to the Almighty for aid in the preservation of his self-possession and resolute intrepidity of soul, the quickening of his eye, and the invigorating of his arm for the conflict, he did not remit for a moment, the exercise of his habitual dexterity and valor. Such should ever be the union of our own efforts with our reliance on divine strength, in the performance of duty; lest we fall into an inefficient superstition on the one hand, or, on the other, into an arrogant and pernicious self-dependence.

David, with his staff in his hand, proceeded to a brook near by, and choosing five smooth stones