ligion, are all subordinate. The wife sits alone all the day, while the husband "seeks goodly pearls." Sons grow up without the eye of a father, and the daughter misses the firm, strong hand that should "be the guide of her youth." Buried beneath ledgers and piles of stocks, the husband and father allows to lie neglected and unheeded the noblest treasure mortals can receive-a woman's pure love: so strong that she would follow the man of her choice in poverty and disgrace to the ends of the earth. But, trampled down in the search for gold, jostled off the path in the chase for the phantom gain, clothed in purple and covered with diamonds, she would give them all for the early and quiet home, with the early and the true love. "This kind goeth out only by prayer."

XIX. THE VALE OF ELAH; OR, HOME PREPARATION FOR LIFE'S DUTIES.

"I would not have the restless will

That hurries to and fro,

Seeking for some great thing to do,
Or secret thing to know;

I would be dealt with as a child,
And guided where to go."

"What shall I do to gain eternal life?

Discharge aright

The simple dues with which each day is rife?

Yea, with thy might.

Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise

Will life be shed;

While he who ever acts as conscience cries

Shall live, though dead."

ABOUT three miles from Bethlehem lies the Vale of Elah, celebrated for the encounter between David and Goliath. It is on the Jaffa road, and will always be a point of great interest from the lessons that conflict teaches. The foes of Israel gave the people no peace. She had no standing army. To the patriotism of the tribes and families the government looked for aid to conquer the foe and expel the invader from the land. Jesse was an old man, but a true patriot. The real fire burned in his bosom, and he gave all he had to give to his country, three able-bodied sons, and kept at home only the lad David, who could, in the common estimation, be of no possible service to the army.

Jesse longed to know how the battle was going. He called David from the flocks, and sent him out to the Vale of Elah. Not empty-handed did he send him. Beside a present to his sons, he sent a gift to the commandant of the thousand among which were his own children. He was thus thoughtful, that the captain, remembered by the old man at home, might be careful of the lads under his care, and be kind to them. David came to the trench, and saw a sight that stirred his young blood. The host was going forth to fight, and shouted for the battle. Israel and the Philistines had put the battle in array, army against army. David left his carriage, ran into the camp, and saluted his brethren. As he talked with them, there came out a champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the army of the Philistines. He was a man of gigantic stature, being over nine feet high, and of great strength. His helmet of brass, his coat of mail, his greaves of brass, his target of brass, his staff, and his spear's head of iron would have crushed any other man to the earth. He stalked up and down before the people, in sight and hearing of all, as the champion of the Philistines. He dared any man, from Saul downward, to a personal combat with him, proposing to save the effusion of blood, and by the fighting of two men to decide the fortunes of the day. He stood and cried unto the armies of Israel: "Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? Am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants;

but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us." This challenge he repeated, day by day, morning and evening, for forty days. Saul and all Israel heard these boasting words with dismay and fear. They withered beneath his taunting, and looked upward for help when Goliath defied the armies of Israel, and said: “Give me a man, that we may fight together." David, a ruddy lad, in the simple garb of a shepherd's boy, bareheaded and barefooted, heard the taunt of this champion, and his spirit was stirred within him. "Not a man in all Israel able to cope with this Philistine? Not one man able to take away the reproach from Judah? Not one to trust in God and kill this boaster, who defies God and his hosts?" While all the warriors, pale with fear, fled from Goliath, David stood his ground and offered himself to vanquish the boaster. The arrival in the camp of the young stripling spread through the ranks, and carried interest everywhere. The proposal of the heroic lad was made known to Saul. And to the monarch he said: "Thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine." "Thou art but a youth," said the king, “and he a man of war from his youth." Not in his own strength did David propose this combat. God, who had so signally and oft delivered his people, put the purpose into his heart, and to his name David ascribed all the glory. While keeping his father's sheep, he had delivered his flock out of the mouth of a lion and a bear. And said David: "The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw the bear, will deliver me out of the hand of this uncir

of

cumcised Philistine. As the lion and the bear shall he be, seeing he hath defied the name of the living God."

Behold the champion of Israel! A lad fresh from the sheepfold, with no weapon but a sling, and a shepherd's bag containing a few stones-but bold, daring, athletic. His courage had been proved. The story of the lion and the bear was known in all Israel. He held the courage and faith of the olden times, when armies fled at the uplifted hands of a man of God. He went forward as if the pillar of cloud and fire guided him, and horsemen and chariots of fire filled the mountain. No wonder Goliath received him with derision. No wonder he disdained his youth, his ruddy and fair countenance. When he looked on his own array and weapons of war, his strength and his military power, he felt insulted at being confronted by a half-clad lad, green from the sheepfold, with no apparent weapon but a shepherd's crook. He cried out, in indignation: "Am I a dog, that you come to drive me away with staves?" And he cursed David by his gods, and boasted that the beasts of the field and the birds of the air should feast on his unprotected body. To all this bravado David returned a reply far beyond his years, and worthy of the ablest captains of the world. "I come to thee," he said, "in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand. I will smite thee, and take thy head from thee. I will give the carcasses of the hosts of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air and unto the beasts of the