This was "the _living_ Jehovah" whom David now sought in the forest-depths of Gilead. He goes out to that solitude to meditate and pray. But it is no dream of earthly conquest that occupies him. Deeper thoughts have taken possession of his soul than the loss of a kingdom and the forfeiture of a crown! A fiercer battle engrosses his spirit than any mortal conflict. "Let me have God," he seems to say, "as the strength of my heart and my portion for ever, and I heed not other portions besides." At another time that lover of nature would have caught inspiration from the glories of the impressive sanctuary around. He would have sung of the water-brooks at his side, the trees bending in adoration, the rocky gorges through which Jordan fretted his tortuous way, the everlasting hills of Hermon and Lebanon,--the silent guardians of the scene,--"the wild beasts of the forest creeping forth" and "seeking their meat from God." But now he has but one thought--one longing--"THOU _art more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey_." (Ps. lxxvi. 4.) None was more dependent on the realised consciousness of the Divine favour than he. His Psalms seem to utter the language of one who lived in God's presence, and to whom the withdrawal of that endearing intercourse and communion would be death indeed. His expressions, in these holy breathings of his soul to the Father of spirits, seem like those of one loving friend to another. God, the abstraction of the Philosopher, has no place in his creed. He speaks of "the Lord thinking upon him," "putting his tears into His bottle," "guiding him with His eye," "His right hand upholding him," he himself "rejoicing under the shadow of His wings;" and as if he almost beheld some visible, tangible form, such as Peter gazed upon when the question was put to him on the shore of Gennesaret, "Lovest thou me?" we hear this warm, impulsive Peter of Old Testament times thus avowing his personal attachment--"_I will love thee, O Lord my strength;_" "_I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications;_" "_The Lord_ LIVETH_; and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted_." Reader, do you know what it is thus to exult in God as a _living God_? Not to think of Him as some mysterious Essence, who, by an Almighty fiat, impressed on matter certain general laws, and, retiring into the solitude of His own being, left these to work out their own processes. But is there joy to you in the thought of God ever nigh, compassing your path and your lying down? Do you know of ONE, brighter than the brightest radiance of the visible sun, visiting your chamber with the first waking beam of the morning; an eye of infinite tenderness and compassion following you throughout the day; a hand of infinite love guiding you, shielding you from danger, and guarding you from temptation--the "Keeper of Israel," who "neither slumbers nor sleeps?"