[The three selections which fill up the rest of this little volume are
given as specimens of the distinctively Christian poems of our author.
The first gives us Christ in the Old Testament; the second, Christ in
the New; the third, Christianity in its essential truth and practical
application. As only a portion of “Saul” can be given, a few words will
be necessary to prepare the reader unacquainted with the whole for
taking up the thread at the 14th stanza, from which, in the selection,
the poem is continued uninterruptedly to the end.]
Young David is telling over to himself (see “my voice to my heart,” in
stanza 14) the story of his mission to Saul, when, as an inspired
poet-musician, he charmed the evil spirit away from him. Stanza 16,
consisting of one line, is the hinge of the entire poem; for David has
just reached the point where, after several unsuccessful, or very
partially successful, attempts—first, by playing one and another and
another tune, which might awaken some chord in the apathetic spirit of
the king, and then by singing, accompanied by the harp, first, of the
joy of life, then of the splendid results of a royal life like Saul’s in
the great future of the world—he at last, the truth coming upon him,
strikes the high key where full relief is found. As he approaches this
crisis in the tale, he cannot go on without an earnest invocation for
help to tell what he had been so wonderfully led to sing:—