The Project Gutenberg eBook, David, by Charles Kingsley

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: David

Author: Charles Kingsley

Release Date: November 27, 2003 [eBook #10326]

Language: English

Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAVID***

Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

DAVID: FIVE SERMONS

NOTE:--The first four of these Sermons were preached before the
University of Cambridge.

SERMON I. DAVID'S WEAKNESS

Psalm lxxviii. 71, 72, 73. He chose David his servant, and took him
away from the sheep-folds. As he was following the ewes great with
young ones, he took him; that he might feed Jacob his people, and
Israel his inheritance. So he fed them with a faithful and true
heart, and ruled them prudently with all his power.

I am about to preach to you four sermons on the character of David.
His history, I take for granted, you all know.

I look on David as an all but ideal king, educated for his office by
an all but ideal training. A shepherd first; a life--be it
remembered--full of danger in those times and lands; then captain of
a band of outlaws; and lastly a king, gradually and with difficulty
fighting his way to a secure throne.

This was his course. But the most important stage of it was
probably the first. Among the dumb animals he learnt experience
which he afterwards put into practice among human beings. The
shepherd of the sheep became the shepherd of men. He who had slain
the lion and the bear became the champion of his native land. He
who followed the ewes great with young, fed God's oppressed and
weary people with a faithful and true heart, till he raised them
into a great and strong nation. So both sides of the true kingly
character, the masculine and the feminine, are brought out in David.
For the greedy and tyrannous, he has indignant defiance: for the
weak and helpless, patient tenderness.

My motives for choosing this subject I will explain in a very few
words.

We have heard much of late about 'Muscular Christianity.' A clever
expression, spoken in jest by I know not whom, has been bandied
about the world, and supposed by many to represent some new ideal of