It is not till other food fails that the bear becomes carnivorous. But then, driven by hunger, it will even descend into the lower pastures and seize upon the goats and the sheep. This habit is referred to by the youthful David in 1 Samuel xvii. 33. King Saul was trying to dissuade him from matching himself against the gigantic Philistine; but David answered: "Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: and I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his hand.... Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God." And all the young people know the result. One smooth stone from the brook was placed in David’s sling, and yon huge mass of human arrogance was hurled to the ground. They who fight for Jehovah need never fear. A stone cast in His name becomes a thunderbolt. III.—ITS FEROCITY. "Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man rather than a fool in his folly" (Prov. xvii. 12). The whelps themselves are not ferocious. Indeed, they are remarkably stupid. They are as confident as they are weak, and do not even try to escape when the hunters come upon them. The young water-fowl by the river-side disappear in an instant if you happen to come upon them; but the cubs of the bear, with a stupid simplicity, just allow themselves to be caught and massacred. They remind one of the lamb mentioned by the poet:— "Pleased to the last they crop the flowery food, And lick the hand just raised to shed their blood."