Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-05-21
DAVID KING OVER
JUDAH AND ISRAEL
Entered jerusalem After the
Judges Had Failed to Conquer
and Saul Had Passed 1t By
CITY OF WONDERFUL HISTORY
S. S.Lesson For May q Is David
King Over Judah and Israel, II
Sam, 2:l-7 5:l-5
(By William T. Ellis)

great name emerges in the pres
ent study. 1t is not the name OF
David the outlaw, whom we now ind
coming to the throne for which his
many vicissitudes had prepared him,
but the name of that ancient city
which is in our own day figuring IN
creasingly in the news dispatches.
Perhaps it has never occurred to
the reader that there ever was time
when Jerusalem definitely ascended 10
its primacy among historic cities. We
vaguely think of 1t as being like It's
earlier king, the mysterious Melchize-
dek, a timeless name. Certainly Je-
rusalem, which is our spelling of the
old name .borne by the city before ever
the Israelites entered Canaan, was
might yfortress centuries before writ
ten history began to deal with it.
With the possible exception of
Constantinople, is there any other
city on earth which has anything
like the romantic and historic and
religious associations of the city of
David, which is still sacred shrine
for the three great monothe1stc
faiths-Judaism, Christianity and Mo-
hammed edanism. Joshua and his hosts
had been unable to wrest the city
from the Jebusites. The Judges had
never conquered it, and Saul had
passed 1t by. Perched on a great rock,
surrounded on three sides by ravines,
the city was so impregnable that the
Jebusites boasted that the blind and
lame could defend 1t. Certainly the
Philistines and the Amalekites and
the Israelites had all dashed against
it in vain.
Invaded Through the Water Courses
One day, a few years ago, when,
visiting Jerusalem l was walking
through the ravines that still sur
round it, and 1 saw that the British
excavators, whose carefully guarded
diggings were the talk of the coun-
tryside, had excavated clear down,
through. the overlay of the crowded
centuries. to a deep aqueduct cut in
the solid rock. This many archaeo-
logical friends told me, was Jebu-
site creation, and it probably was
visible in the time of David.
We only know that when David
at length came to his kingship over
the united nation, and had to choose
a neutral capital which, could not be
credited either to judah or Israel he
conquered Jerusalem, making en-
trance through the subterranean wa
ter courses. No man knows fully the
number and nature of these myster-
ious conduits and caverns which, in
a perfect network, underlie the sacred
rock. When once they are explored
there will probably be revelations to
astound the world.
All the boasts of the Jebusites
were set at naught when David and
his host conquered the city, which
to this day is associated with his
name. At the present time the pos
session of Jerusalem is factor in
international diplomacy More per-
sons are interested in this woIad cap
IN a6 i'm
ton or London, or Berlin, or Paris,
or Petrograd or Picking. 1t is a cap
ital of human hearts. It's greatest
primacy is due to the awful fact that
it was in Jerusalem that David's
Greater Son erected His universal
throne, which was cross.
The Ways and WiIes of an Outlaw
Before ever he won Jerusalem,
however, David had undergone
dark and discouraged period in his
life. Driven out from the Israelites
by the Unsuitable jealousy of Saul, he
had at last taken refuge in the city
of Gath, where he became a vassel
of King Achish. The driving out of
David from the nation that needed
him so sorely recalls an equal blunder
in our own time on the part of the
Christian Church. There is no deny
men, especially among the laity have
been crowded out of the church by
diversity of causes. There is no value
in laying the fault at the door of any
man or men, or any particular &C.
clesiastical system. The immediate
truth is that the church ought to move
to secure the return to her member
ship and to her service, for their own
sakes, and for hers, of these strong
men who have become leaders in the
world; but who no longer turn to the
church for fellowship, inspiration and
comfort The movement in Ireland
for the return of her emigrants is wise
and timely, but it is neither so oppor-
tune nor so necessary as kindred
Back to- the Church" movement.
Like David, many who have been
forced out of the church because 1t
did not give them a field for the ex-
ercise of the abilities which they
knew to be theirs from God, have
sluinped in their morals, even as did
David while among the Philistines.
He deceived Achish by pretend ding to
war against the Israelites. when all
the time he was making forays only
against the Amalekites. He lived in
a tissue of falsehood and misrepre-