General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1896 Original Publisher: Andrew Elliott Subjects: Juvenile Nonfiction / Religion / Biblical Stories Religion / Biblical Studies / General Religion / Biblical Biography / Old Testament Religion / Biblical Studies / Old Testament Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. THE ANOINTING OF SAUL (1 Sam. ix. 26 – x. 16.)
Some must be great. Great offices will have Great talents: and God gives to every man The virtue, temper, understanding, taste, That lifts him into life, and lets him fall Just in the niche he was ordained to fill. – Cowper. SAMUEL probably did not protract his conversation with Saul on the house-top to a late hour, both on account of his guest’s toilsome wandering, and his purposed early start on his homeward journey; but the excitement, which the startling incidents of the day could hardly fail to have produced, may have kept Saul awake long after Samuel had retired to rest. As he lay on the roof under the bright starry heavens, and mused on the honour of being Samuel’s guest and Samuel’s successor, the sudden and marvellous change in his circumstances and prospects may have led him to doubt whether he was really awake, and to imagine that all was but a pleasantdream. But by-and-by the exhaustion of the body overcame the excitement of the mind, and put him into a deep sleep, which seems to have been unbroken, until Samuel cried to him about the dawn,
Up, that I may send thee away. As they were going down at the end of the city, in a spot favourable for privacy, Samuel told Saul to bid his servant pass on before them, but to stand still himself, as he was about to make known to him the word of the…