ut in David it took a
very poetic form. Close by was the home where he was born. There, in
Bethlehem, he had passed the dreamy years of his childhood and youth
amid the love of his parents and brothers, whom he now had with him;
there he fed his sheep and sang to his harp; and there, morning and
evening, he gathered with others about the well--the meeting-place of
his companions--loved with all the passionate energy of his nature, and
still loved in spite of the troublous times that had come upon him. As
David broods over these memories, he longs with a yearning, homesick
feeling for Bethlehem and its well. And, like a poet as he was, he
conceives that if he could but drink of its water, it would relieve this
feverish unrest and longing for the past. It was a very natural feeling.
You are too young to know what it means; but we who are older think of
these little things in a strange, yearning way. It is the little things
of childhood that we long for--to lie under the roof on which we heard
the rain patter years and years ago; to gather fruit in the old orchard;
to fish in the same streams; to sit on the same rock, or under the same
elm or maple, and see the sun go down behind the same old hills; to
drink from the same spring that refreshed us in summer days that will
not come again--_you_ are too young for this, but we who are older know
well how David felt. He was not a man to hide his feelings, and so he
uttered his longing for the water of the well by the gate of Bethlehem.
His words are overheard; and three of these terrible followers of
his--fierce as lions and fleet as deer--took their swords and fought
their way through the Philistines, slaying we know not how many, and
brought back some of the water. It was enough for _them_ that David
wanted it.

Now, some people would say that it was very foolish and sentimental of
David to be indulging in such a whim, and still more foolish in these
men to gratify it at the risk of their lives; but I think there is a
better way of looking at it. If David had _required_ them to procure the
water at the risk of their lives, it would have been very wrong; but the
whole thing was unknown to him till the water was brought. I prefer to
regard it as an act of splendid heroism, prompted by chivalric devotion,
and I will not stop to consider whether or not it was sensible and
prudent. And I want to say to you that whenever you see or hear of an
action that has these qualities of hero