Saul hath slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands.
When Jonathan suspected his father’s evil intentions, he told David to go away from the palace for three days. “After three days,” he said, “I will come to your hiding-place and bring an arrow-boy with me, and I will shoot three arrows. If I say to the boy, ‘Run and find the arrows on this side of you, come back,’ you can come back to the palace in safety; but if I say, ‘Haste, stay not,’ then there is danger, and you must flee.” After two days Saul missed David at the dining-table, and told Jonathan that if he found David he would surely kill him. And he threw a javelin at Jonathan to kill him too, because he was the friend of David. Quickly Jonathan went with the boy to the place appointed and shot an arrow far beyond the mark and cried to the boy, “Haste, stay not.” The boy ran and brought him the arrow and returned to the palace. David came out from his hiding-place. The two friends kissed each other and made promises of eternal friendship. And they saw each other only once after that day. So the arrow-boy helped the two friends.
15. THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE
(2 Samuel 4: 4; 9: 1-13)
One afternoon, long ago, a little boy prince five years old, was playing with his toys in his father’s palace, and his nurse was watching him. Suddenly a messenger ran up to the house and rushed in, bearing the sad news that a terrible battle had been fought between the Hebrews and the Philistines in which King Saul and the little prince’s father, Jonathan, David’s friend, had been slain. “Yes,” he said, “Saul and Jonathan are dead! Flee for your lives!” The nurse picked up the little boy in her arms to carry him away quickly, when, in her haste and fright, she stumbled and fell. In the fall the little boy’s ankles were broken, and ever after he was a helpless cripple. The little lame prince was hidden away in a friend’s house so safely that almost everybody supposed the Philistine soldiers must have slain him too. A few years afterward, David said: “Is there yet any left of the family of Saul that I may show the kindness of God to him for Jonathan’s sake?” One of the servants said, “Jonathan hath yet a son who is lame in both his feet.” “Bring him to me,” said David; and when he was before the king, David said: “Fear not; for I will surely show kindness to you for Jonathan, your father’s sake. I will give you his farm lands; and you shall eat at my table as one of my own sons.” So David’s friendship for Jonathan was shown to this lame prince who was crippled in both his feet, and whose name was Mephibosheth.
16. THE BABIES AND THE WISE JUDGE
(1 Kings 3)
One night a King was sleeping, and in his sleep he dreamed that God came to him and said, “Ask what I shall give thee.” He said, “Give me a wise heart to judge the people justly in all things.” God said to him: “Because you have not asked for riches, or long life, or the death of your enemies, but have asked for a heart of wisdom, I will give you a wise heart, and riches, and long life if you will obey me.”
The young King awoke; and it was a dream. But he became one of the richest and wisest of the kings of the earth to rule and to judge his people. One day two mothers came to him, each bringing a baby boy, but one was dead and one was alive. One mother said: “O king, judge my case! We two mothers live in one house. One night this woman’s baby boy died, and she came into my room and stole my little baby boy away, and put her dead baby boy in its place while I was sleeping. In the morning, there beside me in my bed was her dead baby.” The other woman said, “No, no, the living is my son, and the dead is your son.” The King said to his servants, “Go quickly, and bring me a sword!” They brought a sword. The King said, “Divide the living baby in two, and give half to one and half to the other.” The mother whose the living child was cried out to the King, “O my lord, give her the living child; do not slay it!” But the other said, “Yes, divide it.” Then the King knew which was the real mother and said, “Give her the living child; she is his mother.” All the people heard of this, and they said, “King Solomon is the wisest man that ever lived to rule wisely and to judge justly.”