to be such.  Yet when their strength was united they were capable, by their determination and tenacity of purpose, of extraordinary military exploits.  Everything depended on their morale.  Demoralized and weakened by doubts and scruples, or when conscious that they were disobeying the laws of Moses, they were easily defeated by any invader.  The first duty of their general was to bring them back from their idolatries and backslidings to the service of God.  Under Joshua it only needed two great battles to conquer the whole land of Palestine.  So, reunited under David, a few campaigns made them victorious over the surrounding nations.

The early part of David’s life was a perpetual discipline in prudence.  He was continually beset with dangers.  He had to fly from the presence and ferocious jealousy of Saul again and again, and even to take refuge with the Philistines, who had reason enough to be his enemies.  He fled from Saul to Samuel, and took shelter under his protection.  Pursued to this retreat by the king, he had no resource but to throw himself on the mercy of the Philistines, and he went to Gath.  When he saw himself in danger there, he pretended to be insane; insanity being throughout the East a protection from injury.  His next step was to go to the cave Adullam, and to collect around him a body of partisans, with whom to protect himself.  Saul watched his opportunity, and when David had left the fastnesses of the mountain, and came into the city Keilah to defend it from the Philistines, Saul went down with a detachment of troops to besiege him, so that he had to fly again to the mountains.  Betrayed by the Ziphites, as he had been before betrayed by the men of Keilah, he went to another wilderness and escaped.  The king continued to pursue him whenever he could get any tidings of his position, and again David was obliged to take refuge among the Philistines.  But throughout this whole period he never permitted himself any hostile measures against Saul, his implacable enemy.  In this he showed great wisdom, for the result of such a course would have been a civil war, in which part of the nation would have taken sides with one and part with the other, and David never could have ascended the throne with the consent of the whole people.  But the consequence of his forbearance was, that when by the death of Saul the throne became vacant, David succeeded to it with scarcely any opposition.  His subsequent course showed always the same prudence.  He disarmed his enemies by kindness and clemency.  He understood the policy of making a bridge of gold for a flying enemy.  When Abner, the most influential man of his opponents, offered to submit to him, David received him with kindness and made him a friend.  And when Abner was treacherously killed by Joab, David publicly mourned for him, following the bier, and weeping at the grave.  The historian says concerning this:  “And all the people took notice of it and it pleased them:  as whatsoever the king