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MIRIAM'S SCHOOLING AND OTHER PAPERS
by
MARK RUTHERFORD
Edited by His Friend, Reuben Shapcott.
London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner, & Co., Ltd.
1890
TO STEPHEN WILLSHER.
I dedicate this result of my editorial labours to you, because you
were dear to our friend who is dead, and are almost the only person now
alive, save myself, who knew him at the time these papers were written.
A word of explanation is necessary with regard to the picture at the
beginning of the book. You will remember that Rutherford had in his
possession a seal, which originally belonged to some early ancestor.
It was engraved with a device to illustrate a sentence from Lilly. The
meaning given to the sentence was not exactly Livy's, but still it may
very well be a little extended, and there is no doubt that the Roman
would not have objected. This seal, as you know, was much valued by
Rutherford, and was curiously connected with certain events in his life
which happened when Miriam was at school. Nevertheless, it cannot
anywhere be found. It has been described, however, to Mr. Walter
Crane, and he has reproduced it with singular accuracy. It struck me,
that although it has no direct relation with anything in the volume, it
might be independently interesting, especially considering the part the
motto played in Rutherford's history.
R. S.
CONTENTS.
GIDEON
SAMUEL
SAUL
MIRIAM'S SCHOOLING
MICHAEL TREVANION
GIDEON.
_The story which Jotham told his children on the day before his death
concerning the achievements of his father Gideon--His comments and
those of Time thereon._
I am an old man, and I desire before I die to tell you more fully the
achievements of your grandfather. Strange that this day much that I
had forgotten comes back to me clearly.
During his youth the children of the East possessed the land for seven
years because we had done evil. We were driven to lodge in the caves
of the mountains, so terrible was the oppression. If we sowed corn,
the harvest was not ours, for the enemy came over Jordan with the
Midianites and the Amalekites and left nothing for us, taking away all
our cattle and beasts of burden. We cried unto God, and He sent a
prophet to us, who told us that our trouble came upon us because of our
sins, but otherwise he did nothing to help us. One day your
grandfather was threshing wheat, not near the threshing-floor, for the
Midianites watched the threshing-floors to see if any corn was brought
there, but close to the wine-press. It was at Ophrah in Manasseh, the
home of his father. While he threshed, thinking upon all his troubles
and the troubles of his country, not knowing if he could hide enough
corn to save himself and his household from hunger and death, the angel
of the Lord descended and sat under the oak. He may have been there
for some time before my father was aware of him, for my father was busy
with his threshing, and his heart was sore. At last he turned and saw
the angel bright and terrible, and before he could speak the angel said
to him, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour." My father,
as I have said, was threshing by the wine-press, on his guard even
there lest he should be robbed or slain, and it seemed strange to him
that the angel should say the Lord was with him. So strange did it
seem, that even before he fell down to worship, he turned and asked the
seraph why, if the Lord was with him, all this mischief had befallen
them, and where were all the miracles which the Lord wrought to save
His people from the land of Egypt. For there had been neither sign nor
wonder for many years--nothing to show that the Lord cared for us more
than He did for the heathen. My father had thought much over all the
deeds which the Lord had done for Israel; he had thought over the
passage of the sea when Israel could not find any way open before them,
and the very waves which were to overwhelm them rose like a wall and
became their safeguard. But he himself had seen nothing of this kind,
and he almost doubted if the tales were true, and if times had not
always been as they were then, all events happening alike to all, and
hardly believing that God had ever appeared to man.
The angel did not answer him, but looked him in the face, and said, "Go
in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the
Midianites: have not I sent thee?" My grandfather, Joash, was one of
the poorest men of his tribe, and as for my father, nobody had ever
thought anything of him, nor had he thought anything of himself. _He_,
a solitary labourer, unknown, with no friends, no arms; he to do what
the princes could not do! he to lead these frightened slaves against
soldiers who were as the sand for numbers! It was not to be believed,
and yet--there sat the angel. It was broad noon; in the shade of the
oak his light was like that of the sun. It was not a dream of the
night, and he could not be mistaken. Nay, the angel's voice was more
sharp and clear than the voice in which we speak to one another--a
voice like the command of a king who must not be disobeyed. Yet he
comforted my father. "Surely I will be with thee," he added, "and thou
shalt smite the Midianites as one man." If the Lord was to be with
him, my father need not have hesitated, but in truth he did not care
for the duty which was thrust upon him. He would have been glad to do
anything for his country which was within his power, but he did not
feel equal to the task of leading it against its oppressors, nor did he
covet it. He would rather have endured in silence and died unknown
than take such a weight upon his shoulders, for he was not one of those
who desire power for power's sake. The apparition, too, was so sudden.
The angel was there with his divine face looking steadily at him, with
eyes so piercing that no secret in the inmost soul could remain hidden
from them, and the man upon whom they were turned could not even think
without being sure that his thought was known. Yet my father doubted,
and this dread of the task imposed on him increased his doubt. Yes; he
doubted an order given him at midday by a messenger sitting in front of
him flaming with heavenly colour. It might after all be a delusion.
He prayed, therefore, for a sign, and then as he prayed he thought he
might be smitten for his presumption. But the angel was tender to his
misgivings, and said he would wait for the offering which was to test
his authority. My father went into the house and brought out a kid and
unleavened bread, and presented it. The angel directed him to put the
flesh and the cake on the rock and pour out the broth. He did so, and
the angel then rose, and stretching out the staff that was in his hand,
touched the flesh and cakes. No sooner had he touched them
than--wonder of wonders!--a fire leapt up out of the rock; they were
consumed before his eyes, and the angel had departed. A great terror
overcame my father, for it had always been said that it was impossible
for man to look upon a Spirit from the Lord and live. He was left
alone, too, with the message, but without the Comforter, and he cried
unto God in despair, not knowing what to do. As he cried, a word was
spoken in his ear soft and sweet, like the voice of the aspen by the
brook; soft and sweet, and yet so sure: "Peace be unto thee; fear not:
thou shalt not die." Then he rose and built an altar, to mark the
sacred spot where God had talked with him and he had received his
divine commission. There it is to this day in Ophrah of the
Abiezrites. As you pass it, remember that where those stones now stand
the Most High conversed with him whose blood is in your veins.
As yet Gideon was without any direct orders, but that night he heard
again the same soft, sweet voice, and it commanded him to build another
altar upon the highest point of Ophrah, to throw down Baal's altar, and
upon the altar to the Holy One to sacrifice the second of the bullocks
belonging to Joash, the bullock of seven years old, burning it with the
wood of the great idol. The angel under the oak was before my father's
eyes, the soft, sweet voice, telling him he should not die, was in his
ears; but not even the Lord God can conquer our fears, and although my
father was a brave man and saved Israel, no man ever had worse sinkings
of heart than he. It was as if he had more courage and more fear than
his fellows. He did what the Lord said unto him, but he was afraid to
do it by day, for not only was his tribe against him, but his father's
house also. He took ten of his servants, and when the city awoke one
morning the altar of Baal was cast down, the altar to the Lord God
stood on the hill, and there lay on it the half-burnt logs of the image
of Baal. Our nation has never believed in Baal as it has believed in
the Lord God. How should it believe in Baal? Baal has done nothing
for it, but the Lord God brought us from Egypt through the desert, and
was the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. Nevertheless,
when the altar of Baal was cast down and the idol was destroyed the
people demanded the death of Gideon, and you know that at this day,
though Baal is a false god, and in their hearts they confess it, they
would murder us if we said anything against him: they went therefore to
Joash and told him to bring forth his son that they might slay him.
These, my children, were not the Midianites nor the Amalekites, but our
own nation. At the very time when the heathen were upon us we turned
from the Lord to Baal, and sought to destroy the man who could have
rescued us. Thus we have ever done, and we are surely a race accursed.
But Joash secretly contemned Baal, although until now he had not
ventured to say anything against him. It made him bold to see how his
son and his servants had over-thrown the altar and burnt the idol which
lay there charred and unresisting. He stood up before the altar, and
facing the mob which howled at him; asked them why they should take
upon themselves to plead for Baal: "If he be a god, let him plead for
himself, because one hath cast down his altar." The charred logs never
stirred; there was no sound in the sky; Joash was not struck dead; Baal
was proved to be nothing. That was a sight to see that morning: the
ashes smouldering in the sunlight, the raging crowd, Gideon and his
fellows behind Joash, and Joash calling on Baal to avenge himself if he
was a god as his worshippers pretended. Ah, if that had been Jehovah's
altar! When Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord, fire
came down from the Lord and devoured them. When Miriam spoke against
His servant she became a leper; and when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
blasphemed, they were swallowed up in the pit. But Baal could not move
a breath of heaven on his behalf. What kind of a god is he? A god who
cannot punish those who insult him is but a word.
As for Gideon, he grew in strength. Nothing happened to him because he
had thus dared Baal. He went about his work daily; no judgment fell on
him, and nobody dared to meddle with him.
Soon afterwards the Midianites and Amalekites, who had withdrawn for a
while, overspread the land again, and pitched in the valley of Jezreel.
Gideon having suffered nothing for his insult to Baal, had become
bolder. Moreover, his tribe, the Abiezrites, had seen that he had
suffered nothing. Thus it came to pass that when the Spirit of the
Lord came upon him; and he blew a trumpet, all Abiezer followed him.
Not only so; he sent messengers through Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and
Naphtali, and they came up to meet him, the very people who a few
months before would have stoned him. They thronged after him, and now
professed themselves believers in Jehovah. They were not hypocrites.
They really believed now, after a fashion, that Baal could not help
them. Their fault was that they believed one thing one day and another
thing the next. That has always been the fault of the people. Your
grandfather did not despise them for their instability. So far as they
were not stable to Baal it was good, and he pitied them as they flocked
to his standard, hoping that he could deliver them. He blew the
trumpet, and at the simple blast of that trumpet in each village and
town the nation seemed to rise as one man, such strength was there in
its tones. These men had been idolaters, and it might have been
thought that to turn them all would have taken years of persuasion; but
no, at the simple sound of the trumpet the religion of Baal vanished.
Gideon was now at the head of a great host; he had been favoured with
visions from the Most High; the angel of the Lord had appeared to him;
he had burnt the image; and yet now, when the army was round him, fear
fell upon him again, and he doubted if he could save Israel, or if God
would keep His promise. So it always was with him, as I have already
said. He therefore prayed for another sign, and the Lord did not
rebuke him, as a man would have done if his promise had been
mistrusted. Gideon's test was strange; he did not pray that he might
see the angel again, for the thoughts that came into his mind were
always strange, not like those of other men, and were unaccountable
even to himself. That night the fleece of wool on the ground was wet
and the earth was dry. He prayed yet again, and still God was tender
to him, for He knows the weakness of the creatures He has made. This
time the fleece was dry and the earth was wet, and Gideon thereupon
rose up early with all the host, and moved towards the host of Midian,
till he came in sight of them as they lay in the valley by the hill of
Moreh.
But the Lord would not have so many to do His work, and most of them
were afraid and useless. He therefore commanded Gideon to send away
all who were frightened, and ten thousand only were left. These ten
thousand were still too many, for most of them were impatient, not able
to restrain themselves, and likely to fail, either through fear or
foolhardiness, in the stratagem the Lord designed. He therefore
commanded Gideon, when they were all thirsty, to bring them down to the
water. Nine thousand seven hundred were in such a hurry to reach it
that they dropped on their knees to drink, but three hundred were
collected and patient, and were content to lift their hands to their
mouths. The three hundred were kept and the rest sent home. That
night God, the ever merciful, had promised Gideon to deliver the
Midianites into His servant's hands, and had confirmed His promise by
miracle, but nevertheless He directed Gideon to go down to the camp, so
that he might hear a man's dream and its interpretation, and be further
strengthened in his faith. Gideon went down and listened at a tent
door; and when the dream was told, how a cake of barley bread tumbled
into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent and smote it that it
fell, all fear departed, and he rose up and went back to the three
hundred, and cried to them, "Arise; for the Lord hath delivered into
your hand the host of Midian."
Forthwith he divided his three hundred into three bands, and each man
took an empty pitcher and placed a torch inside it. In the dead of the
night they marched to the camp, this little three hundred, and placed
themselves round it. Then Gideon broke his pitcher and showed his
torch, and all the others did likewise, and shouted, "The sword of the
Lord, and of Gideon."
The host cried and fled, for a terror from the Lord descended on them,
and turned their own swords against them. When they were defeated all
Israel went out after them, and there was great slaughter, and Oreb and
Zeeb, two princes of Midian, were slain.
As soon as the victory was achieved, and while he was yet in pursuit,
the men of Ephraim turned upon him and abused him because he had not
taken them with him to fight the battle against the Midianites, but
never had they lifted a finger to save themselves before Gideon
appeared. When, however, he had caught and destroyed Zebah and
Zalmunna, the two Midianitish kings, and had chastised Succoth and
beaten down the tower of Penuel, Israel came to him and asked him to
rule over them, but he would not. He cared not to be king. He
remembered with what difficulty he had believed the angel and the
promise, the sickly faintness which had overcome him on that night
before the Midianitish overthrow. Whatever he had done had not been
his doing, but the Lord's; and how did he know that the Lord's help
would continue? The thought of being king, and of having a set office,
perhaps without the Lord's assistance, was too much for him. He was
right in his refusal. He was one of those men who can do much if left
to themselves, and if they are supported by the Most High, but who
shrink and tremble when something is expected from them. "The Lord
shall be your King," he said. He trusted that God would speak to the
nation as He had spoken to him, and without any leader would guide them
aright. That is not the Lord's way. But though Gideon would not be
king, he desired some honour, and he asked that he might have the
ear-rings of the Midianites who had fallen. Therewith he made an
image, a thing forbidden. It stood in his house, a record of what the
Lord had done for him; and yet this very record became a snare, and
Israel fell to worshipping it, and Jehovah was displaced by the
testimony of His own love for us.
Your grandfather is now dead. Abimelech reigns in his place, and has
slain all the children of Gideon save myself. Israel has returned to
Baal; its strength has departed; before long we shall be subdued under
the Philistines. Excepting in our own house, there are none that have
not gone a-whoring after Baal; the memory of the battle by the hill
Moreh is clean forgotten; and soon the memory of my father will also
disappear, and it will be as if he had never lived. To think that the
vision of the angel in Ophrah and the night in the valley of Jezreel
should end in nothing!
* * * * * *
That night Jotham died.
_Fourteen Hundred Tears Later_.
"The time would fail me to tell of Gideon, . . . who through
faith . . . out of weakness was made strong, waxed valiant in fight,
turned to flight the armies of the aliens."--_Epistle to the Hebrews_.
_Three Thousand Years Later_.
"'The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon,' answered Balfour as he parried
and returned the blow."--_Old Mortality_.
SAMUEL.
_Samuel immediately before his death spoke thus at Bamah:--_
I am now old, and before many days are past I shall be gathered to my
fathers. Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord: Whose
ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded?
whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to
blind mine eyes therewith, and I will restore it you. How could it be
that I could be other than that which I have been, seeing that from my
childhood upwards I have been the chosen of the Lord, the instrument to
do His bidding?
There are none of you who remember the evil days of Eli. Many times
before then your fathers went astray after false gods, but when Eli was
high priest the Tabernacle itself was profaned by his sons, the sons of
Belial; for they robbed the people of their meat which they brought for
the sacrifice, so that men abhorred the offering, and they lay with
loose women at the door of the Tabernacle, after the manner of those
who worship the gods of the heathen. To turn aside from the Lord and
serve these gods is wickedness, but to serve them in the presence of
the Ark, and to defile the sanctuary itself, was an abomination worse
than any in Ashdod or Gaza. The Lord might assuredly have left Israel
to the Philistines, but He desired that there should be a people
preserved to do honour to His name, and He called me, called me even as
a child, and to Him have I been dedicate. What I have said and done
has not been mine but His, and if any have any fault to find, they must
find it with Him and not with me.
My father, Elkanah, was one of the faithful in Israel, and he went up
yearly to Shiloh; my mother, Hannah, was his beloved wife, though it
was Peninnah who had given him children. I was born in answer to a
prayer which my mother prayed in bitterness of soul, and she vowed that
if she should have a man child he should be the Lord's all the days of
his life; no razor should come upon his head, neither should he drink
strong drink. My mother redeemed her vow, and I was taken to Shiloh,
and there I ministered before the Lord. I lived in the midst of the
iniquity which was wrought by the sons of Eli; but although a youth,
the vow which my mother had made for me protected me. The Lord had
then withdrawn Himself from Israel, and no word had been spoken to us
by Him for years, save a message from a prophet who prophesied the fall
of Eli and his house. Still I served, although He gave no sign of His
presence, for my mother visited me continually, and she kept me strong
and pure. One night, when I had lain down to sleep, I suddenly heard a
voice, which I took to be the voice of Eli, and it called me by name.
This it did thrice, and each time I went to Eli and asked him what he
wished with me, but he had not called. When the voice had come again
and again, I answered, "Speak; for Thy servant heareth," and then for
the first time was I bidden to execute a command from the Lord; and I,
Samuel, a boy, was ordered to tell Eli, the high priest from the Lord,
whose minister he was, that a deed was about to be done which should
make tingle the ears of every one who heard it, and that for the
iniquity of his sons, and because he did not restrain them, no
sacrifice should avail to protect him from judgment. Such was the
message given to me; to me, Samuel the child, and thus was I honoured
even then. I had never heard the voice before that night, and I lay
awake till the morning, fearing to tell Eli what had been said to me,
and I went out and opened the doors. But Eli sent for me, and when he
saw me he perceived that the Lord had been with me, and he directed me
to hide nothing from him of what had been said to me. I told him the
vision every whit, and from that day forth I have been at the Lord's
bidding, and have interpreted His will to Israel.
Although I had never heard the Lord's voice before, and it came with no
sign nor miracle, I did not doubt that it was His, for there was that
in it which proclaimed Him. Nevertheless I wondered what His judgment
would be, and in what manner it would come to pass. Soon afterwards
the Israelites went out to battle against the Philistines in Aphek, and
were smitten with great slaughter. Then the elders of Israel, thinking
that the Ark of the covenant would save them, sent to Shiloh and
brought it thence, and when it came into the camp they all shouted with
a great shout, so that the earth rang again. Fools to believe that the
Ark was anything if the Living God was not with it! When He was with
it, and the men of Bethshemesh did but look at it, they died; but
without Him it is nothing. The Israelites were greatly heartened when
the Ark came, and the Philistines were afraid, believing, idolaters as
they were, that God must be in it. But the Israelites were defeated;
thirty thousand of them fell; the very Ark was taken; Hophni and
Phinehas were also slain. When Eli heard the news he fell backward and
died, and his daughter-in-law, who was in travail, died also. Thus was
the word delivered to me fulfilled suddenly in one day, and for the
sins of the priests even the Ark whereon were the cherubim was
permitted to depart to the Philistines and keep company with Dagon.
After that day, when Eli died and I looked into the empty sanctuary,
could I hesitate to believe and obey the Lord's word?
The Lord had no mind that the Philistines, who were His scourge for the
Israelites, should vaunt themselves over Him, or should believe that of
their own strength they had prevailed. Wonderful is He! He takes the
wicked to punish His people, and the wicked are but tools in His hand,
and He uses them for His own designs. The Ark came to Ashdod, and was
put in the house of Dagon; but when the men of Ashdod arose early on
the morrow, behold Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before
the Ark. They took Dagon and set him in his place again; and when they
arose early on the morrow morning, behold Dagon was fallen upon his
face to the ground before the Ark, and the head of Dagon and both the
palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold. Furthermore, the
men of Ashdod were destroyed with a secret and dreadful disease. They
thereupon determined to get rid of the Ark, and they sent it to Gath.
When it came to Gath the pestilence fell upon the men of Gath also, and
they sent it away to Ekron, and the pestilence fell also upon the men
of Ekron. Then the wise men of the Philistines were called together,
and they counselled that the Ark should be returned with a
trespass-offering to Israel, and that it should be carried in a new
cart by two milch kine on which there had come no yoke, and that their
calves should be brought home from them. Then if the kine of their own
accord took the cart to Bethshemesh, it would be known that it was the
God of Israel who had plagued the land; but if they refused to go, then
it might be chance which had done it. The Ark was placed in the cart,
and the Spirit of the Lord came upon the kine. Remembering their
calves, they nevertheless went straight along the road to Bethshemesh,
lowing as they went, and turning not aside to the right hand or to the
left, and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border
of Bethshemesh. The men of Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat
harvest in the valley, and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the Ark,
and rejoiced to see it, and the cart came into the field of Joshua the
Bethshemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone, and they
clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine as a burnt-offering.
And the Levites took down the Ark, and the coffer that was with it,
wherein the jewels of stone were, and put them on the great stone, and
the men of Bethshemesh offered burnt offering and sacrifices. When the
Philistines had seen all these things, and when they knew that the
plague in their land was stayed, did they acknowledge the Lord God?
How should they, seeing that they were not His elect?
The children of Israel continually turned aside to the lewd gods of the
heathen, and at times it seemed as if the whole earth would be given up
to the abominations of the Canaanites. The Lord had brought us out of
Egypt, and through the desert. He had appeared to us on Sinai, and had
given us His commandments, by which alone we could live. He had
revealed unto us that we should be pure, and separate ourselves from
the filth around us. He had roused up Moses, and Joshua, and the
Judges, all of whom strove to preserve and ever build higher and
stronger the wall which was to protect us, so that the sacred Law and
the service of the one God might continue. Israel was but a handful in
the midst of Philistines and Amalekites, nations which worshipped Baal
with fornication and all kinds of uncleanness, and Israel was ever at
the point of mingling with them. Then it would have been forgotten as
they will be forgotten; but if it will only abide in the Law, as given
in thunder and lightning in the wilderness, it will be great, when,
except for their struggles with Israel, the recollection of Amalekite
and Philistine shall have perished.
I often was alone amidst a people which had well nigh all gone astray,
but I remembered the voice which I heard in the Temple when I was a
child. I sought the Most High day and night, and He came very close to
me, and it became clearer and clearer to me that all things were as
nothing compared with the Law, and that everything was to be set aside
for its sake. Alone, I say, I testified on His behalf, but He kept me.
Neither women nor wine have I ever known when men were given over to
women and wine: His Vision has filled me, dedicate to Him ere I was
born.
The Lord chastised Israel through their enemies, and I besought the
people to turn away from the Philistine gods and their iniquities. I
gathered them together in Mizpeh: the Philistines heard of it, and came
down upon Mizpeh, thinking that now they could wipe us out from the
face of the earth. Kings have had their captains, but I had none, and
was not a man of war; the people were in a panic; their lascivious
idolatry of Baal had destroyed their strength, and the enemy lay
opposite us. That night I did not sleep, but went to the Lord in
prayer. If I had had nothing but my own strength which I could trust I
should have fainted, for what could I, unlearned in battle, do against
such an army, and with no soldiers save a frightened mob, which knew
that it deserved God's wrath. I wrestled with the Most High as Jacob
wrestled, and I implored Him to remember His promise to our fathers. I
called to mind that day by the borders of the sea, when His angel which
went before the camp of the Israelites removed and went behind them,
and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face and stood
behind them, and how the waters were a wall on the right hand and on
the left, and in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the
Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the
host of the Egyptians. I called to mind the night when Gideon and his
three hundred stood round the Midianites, and the Lord set every man's
sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host. I called to
mind the voice which spoke to me when as a child I lay on my bed in the
Lord's House. As I communed and wrestled, the tent was filled with
light, brighter than that of the sun at noon. No word was spoken, but
I knew it was the light of Him whom to see is death, but whose light is
life. All fear departed, and as the glory slowly waned, sleep overcame
me--sleep like that of an infant; and when the morning dawned, and I
opened the doors of my tent and watched the sun rise, I was strong with
the strength of ten thousand men, and rejoiced, although the
Philistines were like the sand on the seashore for multitude. I caused
the trumpet to sound, and brought Israel together. On the hill there
in Mizpeh, in sight of the people who stood round trembling, I builded
an altar and slew a lamb, and offered it as a sacrifice to Him who had
appeared unto me. I prayed again, for as the smoke of the
burnt-offering rose in the clear air, the Philistines came up the hill
to battle with us, and the people cried, and were on the point of
fleeing this way and that way, to be pursued and slain. I commanded
them to be still. The Philistines drew nearer and nearer, and I prayed
ever more and more earnestly. The smoke of the offering was beginning
to die down, and yet I prayed. The fire was well nigh out to the last
spark, and for a moment I doubted, forgetful of the vision, for the
music of the army of Dagon could now be heard. Suddenly the fire
flamed up on high from the grey ashes, as if a heap of the driest wood
of summer had been thrown on it, and I saw a little cloud gather on the
other side of the Philistine hosts, and I knew that my prayer was
answered. The flame dropped instantly, but the cloud spread itself
even as I looked, and the wind arose, and hither and thither across the
cloud flashed the lightning. Onward it came till it rested over the
Philistines, and then it broke and descended on them, and they were
shut out from us in thick darkness. The thunder of the Lord crashed
and rolled, and we saw His lightnings pierce down like swords. Silent
we stood, and presently the cloud lifted, and the Philistines, who, a
few minutes before, marched against us in order, were a confused mass,
struggling hither and thither, and many of them were lying dead on the
ground. Then, with one accord, Israel shouted, and ran and smote the
Philistines until they came under Bethcar. I went not with them; but
when they had all departed, I took a stone and set it up between Mizpeh
and Shen, and wrote on it Ebenezer, for hitherto had the Lord helped
us--the Lord, I say, and never a man, as it was the Lord and never a
man who has helped us since we left Egypt.
After that defeat the Philistines troubled us no more, and the cities
which they had taken from us were restored; but when I became old, the
people grew restless, and desired a change. The Lord, to humble me,
and prevent boasting by His servant, had afflicted me with two sons,
who obeyed not His commandments; and the people put forward these two
sons, who were judges under me, as a reason why a king should be given
them. If, however, my sons did injustice, I was still alive to whom
appeal could be made, and why should a king, because he was a king, be
better? The Lord had brought us out of Egypt, and had ruled us through
His ministers. We had no court, with women and with splendour; and
those who won our battles lived like those whom they led. Our gold and
our silver were saved for the House of the Lord, which was His, and for
all of us. The office of king was foreign to us: it was heathen and
hateful to me. None more earnestly than I worshipped the Lord, and
submitted myself to His direction, and imposed His will even to death
upon the people. But that a man, because he was called king, should
rule, and send the people hither and thither for his own ends, and
slaughter them, was horrible to me. I sought the Lord in prayer to
know how I should meet this request, and He counselled me to yield.
I assembled the people together, and rehearsed unto them all that had
been done for them without the help of a king. I foretold to them that
the king would be for himself, and not for them--that he would press
their sons and daughters into his service; but the people would not
listen to me. The Lord had said unto me that they had not rejected me,
but rejected Him that He should not reign over them, as they had ever
done since the day when they were brought up out of Egypt. I cared
not, however, for their rejection of me, but because it was He who was
rejected. I thought over it night and day, and it well nigh broke my
heart.
Those who had hitherto been placed over us had not been chosen because
they were the sons of the rich, or of those who were chosen before
them. Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Jephthah, were all of them select of the
Lord from the people. Nay, even a woman had been taken to judge
Israel--Deborah the prophetess, who dwelt under the palm-tree here
between Ramah and Bethel. It was Deborah who sent for Barak to lead
the host against Sisera, and Barak said to her that if she went he
would go, but if she went not he would not go, so mighty was her
presence. Sisera gathered together his army and all his chariots, nine
hundred chariots of iron; but Deborah spoke a word in the ears of
Barak, when he was afraid, and Sisera was discomfited with all his
chariots and his host. He fled, and it was a woman, Jael, the wife of
Heber, who slew him--for ever honoured be her name. In the days of
Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were
unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byeways; the rulers
ceased in Israel; the people chose new gods; there was war in the
gates; there was no shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel
until Deborah arose. The family of Gideon also was the poorest in
Manasseh, and yet it was to him that the angel was sent, and he subdued
the Midianites and the children of the East. This hitherto had been
the Lord's way with us; and now we were to abandon Him for a king,
whose children, because they were king's children, were to be our
commanders. It well nigh broke my heart, I say. The glory of the
Tabernacle was henceforth to be dim, overshadowed by the pomp of a
monarch. I could not endure it, and again I went to the Lord, and
besought Him to turn the people or visit them with the thunder and
lightning of Mizpeh, that they might repent of their iniquity and live.
But He would not speak to them beyond what He had spoken through me,
and I returned and sent the assembly away, every man to his own city.
I called the people together in Mizpeh again, the place where they had
seen the Lord save them Himself, and yet even there they would not
yield. Then I prophesied against them, because they had cast aside Him
who had delivered them out of all their adversities and tribulations;
and I caused all their tribes to assemble before me. Saul the son of
Kish was taken, and the fools shouted God save the king. I did my best
for them. I wrote laws for them to protect them against him, and I put
them in a book and laid them up in the sanctuary.
Henceforth I was in a measure more solitary than before. Saul was a
brave man, and led the people to war, and they were pleased with his
success, but he was not single in his service of the Lord, and he had
for a wife a Horite, one Rizpah, who worshipped false gods. He
believed he could make Israel a nation by battles, and he saw not what
I saw--that the one thing necessary for our salvation was to keep
ourselves pure and separate. The people complained that the Law was a
burden, but it was their safeguard: it was the Law which marked them
off from the heathen, who were doomed to fall by their sins. I toiled
daily to preserve the Law, and to insist upon the observance of its
ceremonies, knowing full well that if the people let them go, they
would let go the commandments from Sinai; would let go the sobriety and
the chastity of their bodies; would mix in the worship of Baal, and be
lost. Saul was no observer of ceremonies, and considered them naught,
the idiot, who forgot that they were ordained of God, with whom there
is no small nor great, and that through them the people are taught.
More solitary than ever I was, I say; but I sought the Lord more than
ever, and kept closer to me the memory of the Voice which first called
me. If Israel is to live, it will not be because Saul overcame the
Amalekites and Philistines, but because the Lamp of God in my hands has
not been extinguished. When the Philistines came against us at
Michmash, Saul was in Gilgal, and I went to meet him there. Because I
came not at the time appointed, he, the impious one, took upon himself
to offer the sacrifice, pleading that the people were leaving him, and
that the Philistines were encamped against him. He forgot the thunder
and lightning at Mizpeh, and that it was his duty to obey the least
word of the Lord, whatever might happen. It was a surer way to save
Israel than to teach it by the king's example that the ordinances of
the Lord could be set aside because it was convenient. I cared not for
myself: how can he who is His messenger care for aught save His honour?
But I saw by this act of Saul what was in him--that it was an example
of his heart--that if he could conquer the Philistines he cared not for
the Law. His victories without the Law would have melted away like
snow in summer. They would have been as the victories of Philistines
over Amalekites, or Amalekites over Philistines. It was one of the
first things he did after becoming king, and the Spirit of the Lord
came upon me, and I denounced him, and was directed to seek a successor
outside his house. If the kingdom had remained in the house of Saul,
Israel would have become a heathen tribe, and it was not for this that
God called it out of Egypt and led it through the Red Sea.
I was commanded to send Saul against the Amalekites. What Amalek did
to us when we came out of Egypt had been written down, and the
direction concerning him. He met us by the way, and smote the hindmost
of us, even all that were feeble, when we were faint and weary; and it
had been said to our fathers that when we had rest from our enemies
round about us, we were to blot out the remembrance of Amalek from
under heaven--"_Thou shalt not forget it_" was the word delivered to
us. I had the record of the battle in Rephidim when Joshua discomfited
Amalek, not in his own strength, but in the strength of the uplifted
arms of the aged Moses, the man of God. His arms, withered and feeble,
defeated Amalek that day. Does not the altar still stand,
Jehovah-nissi, to testify that we should war with Amalek from
generation to generation? Furthermore, Amalek feared not God, but
worshipped strange gods with abominable rites, after which the sons and
daughters of Israel lusted. It was the Lord's desire that we should
root up Amalek, as a man roots up a weed, and fears to leave a thread
of it in the ground, lest it should again grow.
Saul was willing to arm himself against the Amalekites, and to do his
best to defeat them after the manner of a king, and to bring them into
subjection; but he saw not with my eyes, and knew not what a Law of the
Lord was. Therein have I stood apart from Saul and his friends and
this nation. They also were not ignorant of the Law, but they thought
it could be observed like the laws of men, not understanding that it is
binding to the last jot and tittle, and that if a man fails at the last
jot or tittle, he fails altogether.
Saul smote the Amalekites, and everything that was vile and refuse he
utterly destroyed with the edge of the sword, but he spared Agag and
the best of the spoil; and when he came to meet me, he saluted me, and
said he had performed the commandment of the Lord. His commandments
are not thus to be performed, and I asked him what meant then the
bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen. He had reserved
them, he said, as a sacrifice. I asked him whether the Lord had as
great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice
of the Lord, I told him that to obey is better than sacrifice, and to
hearken than the fat of rams; and I denounced him there, and foretold
that his kingdom should be given to a neighbour better than he. He was
then greatly afraid, for although he feared not the Lord, and was brave
before his enemies, he was at times much given to secret terror, and he
besought me to stay with him and pardon him. But I would not, and when
I had worshipped, I ordered Agag to be brought before me. He came
trembling and asking for mercy, but I hewed him in pieces. Mercy?
Mercy to whom? Would it have been mercy to Israel to let him live and
become a leader of the Amalekites against us? Moreover, a clear
command had been given me, and was set plainly before me, as a candle
in front of me in darkness, to which I was to walk, swerving not a
hair's breadth, that the Amalekite was to be destroyed utterly; and
always when the Light was before me I strove to reach it, never looking
this way nor that way. Before Saul also the Light was set, but he went
aside, thinking he could come to it if he bent his path and compassed
other things, not knowing that the track is very narrow, and that if we
diverge therefrom and take our eyes off the Light we are lost. Who was
Agag, that I should show any tenderness to him, a foul worshipper of
false gods? I rejoiced when he lay bound for the knife in the agony of
death, and his blood was a sacrifice with which God was well pleased.
David now waits until Saul's death, for the king is still a strength in
Israel. I fear that David will dishonour himself with grievous sin,
for he is a lover of women, and a man of words and of song: treacherous
is he also at times. But he belongs to us; he fears the Lord and His
prophets and priests; he may go a-whoring, but it will not be after
Baal; he will war against the heathen, and will not show mercy to them.
Now I am about to die, and to descend into the darkness whither my
fathers, and Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses have gone before me. I
bless the Lord that I have lived, for I have preserved the knowledge of
Him and His Law. My life ends, but the Lord liveth, all honour and
glory to His sacred name.
SAUL.
_Rizpah, the Horite, in her old age, talks of Saul to the wife of
Armoni, her son_.
This is the day on which your husband's father fell on the mountains of
Gilboa. Though I was no Israelite, but born in the desert, I was his
beloved before he became king. I am eighty years old now, but the
blood moves in me, and I grow warm as I think of him. There was not a
goodlier person than he--from his shoulders and upwards he was higher
than any of the people. Why did the Lord choose him? He never coveted
that honour, and he suffered because there was laid on him that which
he did not seek. Yet the Lord was right, for there was not one in all
Israel so royal as he, and it was he who redeemed it and made it a
nation. Samuel had grown old--he was always a priest rather than a
captain--and his sons, whom he made judges, turned aside after lucre,
took bribes, and perverted judgment. The people were weary of their
oppression and the hand of the Amalekites and the Philistines were very
heavy on the land. They therefore prayed for a king, and the thing
displeased Samuel, and he tried to turn them from it. But they refused
to listen to him, and when they came together at Mizpeh, Saul was the
man upon whom the lot fell. Again, I say, he desired not to be king.
He had hidden himself on that day, but he could not be hidden, and he
was dragged forth to glory and to ruin. I was there: I heard the
shouts as they cried God save the king. I saw him no more that day,
for the tumult was great, and there was much for him to do. But that
evening he came back to me at Gibeah; he, my Saul, came to me as
anointed king. O that night! never to be forgotten, were I to live a
thousand years, when I held the king in my arms! Never--no, not even
on the night when I first became his--had I known such delight. I have
seen more misery than has fallen to the lot of any woman in this land,
and it has not passed over me senseless. I am not one of those who can
go through misfortune untouched, as a drop of oil can rise through
water. I have taken it all in, felt it all, to the last sting there
was in it; and yet now, when I call to mind the night after he was
crowned, and its rapture of an hour--the strength and the eagerness of
his love: the strength, the eagerness, and the pride of mine--I say it
is good that I have lived. The next morning I saw him with his valiant
men--the men whose heart God had touched; how he set them in order, and
how they followed him--him higher than any of them, from the shoulders
upwards; and I said to myself, he is mine, the king is mine, that body
of his is mine, and I am his.
Tell you all about him? How can I? But I will tell you a little--what
I have told you again and again before--so that you may tell it to your
children, and the name of Saul may never be forgotten.
After he was chosen, the children of Belial said, How shall this man
save us? But he held his peace, for he foresaw what was at hand,
Nahash the Ammonite came up and encamped against Jabesh-gilead; and
when the men of Jabesh-gilead offered to become his slaves if he would
but make a covenant with them, he consented, but upon this condition,
that they should thrust out their right eyes. Such thralls had the
children of Israel become whom Saul had to save, that Nahash dared to
put this upon them in mockery. They sent messengers to Gibeah, where
Saul was--not to him, but to tell the people there; and Saul heard the
message as he drove the herd out of the field after work, for he was
still at his farm, his day not yet having come. When he listened to
the story of the men of Jabesh-gilead, the Spirit of God came upon him;
and he took a yoke of his oxen and hewed them in pieces, and sent them
throughout all the coasts of Israel, saying, Whosoever cometh not after
Saul, and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen. The fear of
the Lord fell on the people, such strength was there in Saul's command,
and they came out with one consent. He numbered his men, divided them
into three bands, marched all night from Bezek, fell upon the Ammonites
in the morning watch, and so slaughtered and scattered them that two of
them were not left together. Where now were the men of Belial who had
mocked him? The people cried out that they might be brought forth and
put to death; but Saul, ever noble and great of heart, forbade it.
"Not a man," he said, "shall be put to death this day, for to-day the
Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel."