I have this impression of David—­that if you had seen him when he was young, you would have thought him the most glorious human being you had ever looked on.  He was one of those persons who fascinate all who come near them.  He bound everybody to him in a wonderful way.  They not only liked him, but they became absorbed in him, and were ready to obey him, and serve him, and to give themselves up to him in every way possible.  I am not at all surprised that Saul’s son and daughter and Saul himself fell in love with, and could hardly live without, him.  It was so all along; and even after he became an old man everybody was fascinated by him—­even his old uncles—­and stood ready to do his bidding and consult his wishes.

It was somewhat so with Richard Coeur de Lion and Napoleon and Mary Stuart and Alexander and Julius Caesar; but the personal fascination of none of these persons was so great as that of David.  In some respects he was no greater than some of these; but he had a broader and more lovable nature than any of them, for he had what not one of them had in anything like the same degree—­a great and noble generosity.  David deserved all the love that was lavished upon him, because—­let men love him ever so much—­he loved more in return.

There was not apparently, at this early time of his life, one grain of selfishness about him.  You know that the word chivalry was not used till about a thousand years back, while David lived almost three times as long ago; but he was one of the most chivalrous men that ever lived.  By chivalry I mean a union of honor, purity, religion, nobleness, bravery, and devotion to a cause or person.  David excited this chivalric devotion in others because he had so much of it in himself.  And here I will stop a moment just to say that if you want to awaken any feeling in another toward yourself, you must first have it in yourself.  I think there is a very general notion that in order to awaken admiration and love and regard in others one must have a fine appearance.  There is a great deal of misplaced faith in fine clothes and bright eyes and clear complexions and pretty features; but I have yet to learn that these ever win genuine love and admiration.  And so far as I have observed, a true sentiment only grows out of a corresponding sentiment; feeling comes from feeling; in short, others come at last to feel toward us just about as we feel toward them.  And I never knew a person, young or old, to show a kind, generous, hearty disposition to others who was not surrounded by friends.  And I have seen—­I know not how many—­selfish and unobliging and unsympathetic persons go friendless all their days in spite of wealth and fine appearance.  Now, put this away in your memory to think of hereafter.