The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-07-01
From the Kansas City Star.

N ANlD, who wrote poems that ha ye
 endured long after his battles are
 forgotten and his kingdom crum- bled into dust, grew up as a sheep herder. He spent long, lazy days in the hills. watching the clouds that rode in the blue sky, hearing the voice of the wind in the tall grass, seeing the eagle wheeling far up overhead. For weeks, months at a tune, he lived in the open and he grew very learned in knowledge of the out -of- doors; he knew how the beasts came down to the streams to drink in the dusk, and he knew the dolorous song of wolves in the dawn, and a great deal more which you never learn except by seeing.
 The love and knowledge of these things is an enduring passion, and it never left David. More than once he must have found solace in a sunset and delight in the hills when there was not much else in the world that was comforting-when for instance, his early benefactor and later enemy, King Saul, was hot in pur- suit, breathing out cruelty" How do we know all this? Why, we know it by
 
 through them.
 When I consider thy heavens" David writes, "the work of thy fingers the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained: what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of Man, that thou visitest him?"
 In the sunlight, the rains, the new grass and the enduring hills, the psalmist finds his god. He finds him, too, in the storm. solemn and awe-inspiring.
 Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken because he was wroth.
 There went up a smoke out of his nos- trils and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
 'He bowed the heavens also and came down, and darkness was under his feet.
 And he rode upon a cherub and did fly; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.
 He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
 "The Lord also thundered in the heavens. and the Highest gave his voice; hailstones and coals of fre.'
 You catch an echo of his boyhood' S days in that best known of his songs, the Twenty third Psalm: He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters
 The gathering clouds, it is evident, never failed to make an impression upon David Frequent are such bits as these: "To him that rideth upon the heavens of heavens which were of old; To, he doth send out his voice and that a mighty voice.
 "Ascribe ye strength unto God; his ex- cellency is over Israel, and his strength Lis in the clouds"
 And again:
 "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the god of glory thundereth; the Lord is upon many waters. "The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
 The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon"
 Then, in a gentler vein, the poet sings
  blessings of a fruit season: Thou visitest the earth and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water; thou pre- parest them corn when thou hast so pro- vided for it.
 ! Thou waterest the\ ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it soft with showers | thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness. "They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness and the little hills rejoice on every side.
 1 "The pastures arc clothed with flocks | the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing , l No one but a son of the soil mar who had grown up with the winds oi God singing through his heart. sunset and i dawn lending him something of theil glory and their calm, and bringing him | belief beyond the spacious reasoning oi schools, could have sung as David sang It has the bigness of the out-of-doors about it. grave beauty, wisdom, subtle comforting. There are examples of it by the score-but take at a venture Psaln civ:
 "He watereth the hills from his cham bers: the earth is satisfied with the frui of thy works.
 '.He causeth the grass to grow for thu cattle, and herb for the service of man that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
 And wine that maketh glad the hear of man, and oil to make his face to shine