One day an aged man with snowy hair and a look of great dignity and presence came to the boy's father's house. He proved to be a great prophet named Samuel, and he was received with much honor. In the course of his visit he asked to see the entire family, and one by one the tall and beautiful sons were presented to him until he had seen seven young men.
"Is this all your household? Have you not another son?" he inquired.
"Yes," said Jesse the Bethlehemite, who by the way was a grandson of that beautiful maiden, Ruth, who came out of Moab with Naomi, "yes, I have still a son, but he is only a youth, out in the fields; you would not wish to see him." But this was a mistake.
"Pray, send for him," answered the prophet.
Then David, for this was his name, came in, modest yet eager, with his pleasant face and his dark kindling eyes. And the prophet said, "This is the Lord's anointed," and then in a ceremony which the simple family seem not to have quite understood, he set the boy apart by prayer and blessing, poured the fragrant oil of consecration on his head, and said in effect that in days to come he would be the King of Israel.
David went back to his fields and his sheep and for a long while nothing happened.
But there arose against Israel in due time a nation of warlike people, called "The Philistines." Nearly all the strong young men of the country went out to fight against these invaders, and among them went the sons of old Jesse. Nobody stayed at home except the old men, the women and the younger boys and little ones. The whole country was turned into a moving camp, and there arrived a time before long when Israel and the Philistines each on a rolling hill, with a valley between them, set their battle in array.
I once supposed that battles were fought on open plains, with soldiers confronting one another in plain sight, as we set out toy regiments of wooden warriors to fight for children's amusement. But since then, in my later years, I have seen the old battlefields of our Civil War and I know better. Soldiers fight behind trees and barns and fences, and in the shelter of hedges and ditches, and a timbered mountain side makes a fine place for a battle ground.
Now I will quote a passage or two from a certain old book, which tells this part of the story in much finer style than I can. The old book is a familiar one, and is full of splendid stories for all the year round. I wish the young people who read this holiday book would make a point hereafter of looking every day in that treasure-house, the Bible.
And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.