Article April 14, 1917 Issue

The King's Armor

AMY C. FARISS

In reading the Scripture account of David's methods of arming to meet the foe, the writer gained great encouragement from the simplicity of this kind of warfare. Fear-filled mortals in looking upon the field of battle instinctively reach out to seize upon anything and everything which they believe has protected others. Too often they are unmindful of the fact that these others have earned and tested their own armor and can with confidence rely upon it.

According to the narrative of David and Goliath, Saul was willing to lend his armor to David,—his helmet of brass, his coat of mail. These had served the king well when he had used them, but when David "assayed to go" they were to him simply so much encumbrance. "I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them," he said, and put them off. Then "he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine."

In bringing the lesson down to our every day needs, might not many of us find the foe more quickly vanquished if we should put to practical use the little we know of Principle, be it nothing more than a few pebbles gathered from the shore of our spiritual experience, instead of rushing off to borrow the king's armor,—in other words, if we sought to array ourselves in the understanding which others have proved impregnable. In time we shall grow till we can use with effect these protective declarations of Truth, when we understand them and have made them our own; but for one's immediate need they may be of no more use than the king's armor was to David. In Science and Health we read: "Unimproved opportunities will rebuke us when we attempt to claim the benefits of an experience we have not made our own, try to reap the harvest we have not sown, and wish to enter unlawfully into the labors of others" (p. 238).

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