Only one incident in the history of this people do I wish to set straight before the world at this writing—that is the story of Goliath. According to recently discovered cuneiform inscriptions it is found that the giant lived long enough to attend the funeral of David, so it is hardly likely that David slew him. David probably threw pebbles at the warrior, but the giant of course paid no attention to the boys that followed him—going along about his business just as any other dignified giant would have done. But David went home and told that he had killed the man—and the Israelites wishing to leave a proud record wrote the tale down as history. This story was interpolated into the Bible during the fore part of the Third Century. In David’s case summer and autumn quite fulfilled the promise of spring. That eleventh chapter of Second Samuel, showing how he stole Bath-Sheba and then killed Uriah, her husband, reveals the quality of the man. But it was left for his dying act to crown a craven career. With his last lingering breath—with the rattle of death in his throat—he gasped to his son, referring to a man who had never wronged him, “His hoar head bring thou down to the grave in blood!” With the utterance of these frightful words his soul passed out into the Unknown. In all that David wrote not a word can I find that hints at his belief in a future life—he simply never thought of it! and dying as a dog dies, he gnashed at Shimei, whose offense was that thirty-five years before he had told David a little wholesome truth. Shimei was a brave fellow and David dare not fight him, so he made a truce with him and swore an oath that he would never molest him, but dying he charged Solomon to search him out with a sword. This is recorded by the Inspired Writer in the ninth verse of the second chapter of First Kings. With forty-one distinct crimes to David’s charge, the killing of nine hundred thousand men and two hundred thousand women and children, the houghing of thousands of horses, all of which is set down in infallible Holy Writ, his record is very bluggy. In fact, his whole life’s pathway is streaked with infamy. David being a literary man of acknowledged merit, I have given him more attention than I would a plain, every-day king. And I now brand him as an all ’round rogue. I do this calmly, holding myself personally responsible, and fully prepared to plead justification and prove my case should the heirs or next-of-kin consider my language libellous. So far as I can ascertain, Dagon was eminently respectable. I cannot find a single stain on his record; while as for Jehovah, goodness me! If half that His Chosen People tell about him is true, he surely wasn’t very nice.