And Samuel blessed him and talked with him alone. And the spirit of the Lord entered into the heart of David and was with him from that day forward. And Jesse and all his sons accompanied Samuel to the sacrifice that morning and to the feast.

On the morrow David went back to the fields to his sheep, and Samuel himself, his mind burdened with sadness and yet at peace in that his mission had been fulfilled, returned to Ramah.

No word of this reached the ears of the king. But there came a day when Saul fell again grievously sick of the malady that had afflicted his mind in the last few years of his life. Pestered with evil thoughts that he had no power to master or divert, he spent his days in anguish and lost to all sense of those around him. And in memory he dwelt continually on the hour when alone in his tent, rich with plunder of the Amalekites, he had fallen on his knees in supplication before Samuel, and the prophet had foretold that his kingdom would not continue and that he had been rejected of the Lord. No true peace had been his since then. In his pride he had striven in vain against the thought that the well-spring of the divine which had once refreshed his spirit was now parched up for ever. The dreadful doubt assailed him that he was abandoned of God.

All things that in health pleased and satisfied him had become bitter as ashes in his mouth. He was haunted by terrors of the unknown and by vacant forebodings. He lay in his tent, parched with fever, hating the light, rejecting all human company, and pining for death to ease him of his misery. He found no rest by day or quiet sleep by night.

As soon as his heavy eyelids closed in slumber, evil and hideous dreams thronged into his mind, and he would awake in a frenzy of fear seeking in vain for help and refuge. Even in the full brightness of morning he would be seized by sudden terror, and with fixed and starting eyes, like a watchman on his tower in the dark of winter, would cry out in a wild hollow voice as though he were pursued by an enemy or a dreadful apparition were come to share his solitude.

His attendants and physicians sought by every means in their power to relieve his malady and to restore him to health; but in vain. Their skill was of no avail to aid him. And when all other remedies had proved vain, they bethought themselves of music, since music has a strange power to soothe a troubled mind and to charm away afflicting thoughts.

When next there came a respite in his sickness, and with mind a little quietened, he was able to grasp the import of what was said to him, his physicians spoke of this. It was no bodily ailment, they told him, from which he pined, spent though he was and sick to death; it must be that some spirit not of this earth but of the divine was troubling him. And they assured him that if only its evil influence could be banished out of his mind, he would be well.

‘Let now my lord,’ said one of them, ‘command his servants that they seek out a musician who has skill in the playing of the harp. And it shall be when this dread horror of soul come upon thee again, and thou hear the strains of his music, it will soothe and comfort thee, and will banish this evil spirit and thou shalt sleep and be refreshed.’

Saul heard them in patience, his head sunken between his shoulders, his eyes hollow and lightless, and he bade them provide him with such a man without delay and bring him to his bedside. His physicians left him. They made inquiry of the king’s servants, and one of them told that there was a lad, the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who was skilled in music and in the playing of the harp.

‘I myself know him well,’ he said, ‘for I am of Bethlehem. I have sate beside him in the wild, listening enravished while he played and sang; and the birds mute to hear him! Even though he has no more knowledge of the world than what comes of keeping his father’s sheep, he is of a rare courage and prudence, and of a fair and beautiful countenance. He is one that can be trusted to keep silence, and the Lord is with him.’