“' Wherefore goest thou with me? '
Said the king disown'd—
Said the king deposed, rejected,
Disenthroned.”
LIZZIE was only a little girl, perhaps not more than seven or eight years old, but all through her life she remembered an evening on which she stood by her father's side, looking at a picture and listening with great interest to a story he was telling her.
The picture was one of an old castle standing in a deer park. The walls of the castle were very strong, and though the windows were too small to let in much light, the thickness of those ivy-covered walls was pierced by a number of long, narrow slits, or, as they were sometimes called, loopholes, telling how the castle had been built when England was far from a quiet, peaceful country. War had raged round those gray old walls, and showers of arrows had been shot through those loopholes by those within the castle on their enemies outside.
The story Lizzie was listening to was really a page of English history, and though our little friend was too young to understand or remember it all at the time, it made a deep impression upon her mind.
A hundred years before the time of our story the castle had belonged, her father told her, to his grandfather's brother, a young nobleman, who was much loved by the people among whom he lived. He was a brave soldier, and, better still, his poor neighbors and servants found in him a true friend and kind master.
He was rich, and might have been very happy if he could have forgotten that one whom he loved very much, a prince of the house of Stuart, was in exile, or, to make my story so simple that even little Millie can understand it, had been obliged to go away from his own country and live quite a poor man among strangers.
When the young nobleman, who was an earl, thought of the prince who had been his best friend, it made him so unhappy that he left his beautiful home and joined some friends who were trying to bring the prince back; and when he found they could not do as they wished, he proved his love by going to prison and even to death for the sake of the one whom he owned as his lord and master, for after being imprisoned for a time in the Tower of London, he was executed as a traitor on Tower Hill in the year 1716, and the grand old castle with its well-wooded park became the property of the king who then reigned in England.
Why have I told you this story, dear ones? Because it will, I hope, bring to your minds and hearts, as it has to mine, a Bible story of the time when King David was a wanderer, an exile from his royal palace, from his kingly throne. (2 Sam. 15:19, 2019Then said the king to Ittai the Gittite, Wherefore goest thou also with us? return to thy place, and abide with the king: for thou art a stranger, and also an exile. 20Whereas thou camest but yesterday, should I this day make thee go up and down with us? seeing I go whither I may, return thou, and take back thy brethren: mercy and truth be with thee. (2 Samuel 15:19‑20).) He must have felt very sad and lonely; but for him, even in those dark days, there were bright spots in the love of a few faithful friends, who shared his wanderings, not because they expected him to give them anything, but just because they loved him and wanted to be near him. And when the time for David's return to his palace came, we know that the friends who had been true to him in the days of his sorrow and rejection were honored and rewarded.
We have often heard that David was in many ways a type or shadow picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, and if we really know and love Him as our very own Savior, we shall want to know how we can please and honor Him. By owning Him as our Lord and Master, and seeking grace to confess Him day by day at home or in school.
I knew a Christian girl, whom I will call Ellen, who, on going to service for the first time, found she would have to share her room with a fellow-servant. As soon as she had unpacked her box she laid her Bible on the dressing-table, and before going to bed at night sat down to read a few verses, and then knelt in prayer.
Her fellow-servant, who was not a Christian, noticed all these things, and made up her mind to, as she said, "shake all her Bible-reading and praying out of her," so for quite a long time she behaved in a very rude and unkind way to Ellen, and if the Holy Spirit had not very often reminded Ellen that she served a rejected Lord, I am sure the young believer would have been discouraged; but the Master she served gave her grace to be gentle and patient, and when her fellow-servant found that though Ellen did not leave off praying or reading her Bible she was always ready to do little kindnesses or to help her with her work, she gave up her unkind ways and would sometimes even ask Ellen to read a chapter to her, and so then "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Rom. 10:1717So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17).)