a truly courageous man, yet he feared the vicious, splenetic, and desperate Saul. God however, who has sent him to anoint David, devised an expedient of safety. This journey to Bethlehem was one of great importance, for he annointed Israel's greatest king, and the most illustrious ancestor of the world's Redeemer. Once after this Saul was in close proximity to Samuel, under somewhat singular circumstances. David fled from Saul's wrath and took shelter among the sons of the prophets in Ramah. The enraged king sent messengers to bring him back, but when they got among the prophets they forgot their errand, and prophesied and praised God. Saul sent several sets of soldiers, but the contagion siezed them all. At last he undertook himself to recover the runaway; but, lo, he is seized with the prophetic ecstasy, and he joined the exercises of the students and godly men, till it got wing as a proverb, "Is Saul also among the prophets?"

This is perhaps the most fitting place to speak of the prophetic aspects of Samuel's character and life. There is no direct mention of a prophet before the time of Moses. It is true that the name is given to Abraham; Jacob, too, once had the true prophetic spirit. Moses was a prophet, a type of the last and greatest Prophet-the Teacher sent from God. Miriam and Deborah were prophetesses. But all these were only occasional in states of prophetic elevation. In Samuel's day, and down through succeeding ages, the prophetic office was an institution in the Jewish Church. The institution appears more frequently in the kingdom of Israel than in Judah, arising no doubt from the fact that the regular priesthood never became wholly corrupt and degenerate for any length of time; while in Israel the prophets were often the only regular ministers of God's word. Elijah and Elisha wrought their wonders in Israel. Samuel is universally regarded as the founder of the order of the prophets. The word prophet indicates that the prophetic speaker was swayed to and fro by impulses originating not in himself, and of which he was not entirely master. He was mentally elevated, gifted with extraordinary clearness and enlargement of understanding, with strong emotions and prescience. The root of the word signifies a boiling, or bubbling over, or like a fountain bursting forth. The active meaning of the term is one who pours forth excited utterances, with sometimes a shade of raving. Hence the word in the East has got to be synonimous with madman. The prophet, then, is one who speaks or sings, under Divine impulse, of things beforehand. He speaks in behalf of another. He is a foreteller and a forthteller.* Thus "Aaron shall

See Dr. Pye Smith's "Messianic Interpretation of Isaiah;" Dean Stanley's "Jewish Church," Lec. xix. and xx.; and Kitto's "Cyclopædia," art. Prophecy.

Z

be thy prophet"-shall speak what thou shalt bid him. Those who describe a prophet as a predictor or foreteller only, or even mainly, lose sight of the meaning and biblical use of the term. It is granted that prophets were seers or predictors. Samuel was such -as speaking of that which was to be;-to be in a few days or years, or it may be ages on, or to the end of time. They told how to recover a few sheep or asses, but they also fore-told of the fate of empires and the future destiny of men. They stood on some Pisgah's height, with vision miraculously extended, while the crowd were in the plains below. But they were mainly revealers and expounders of God's will; which will was communicated to them in dreams, visions, by Urim and Thummim, and not seldom with audible voice. They were, when most prophetic, in supra-sensuous states, in ecstasies-filled with the Spirit. Having thus received God's will, they turned to the people and made known to them all that God commanded. They delivered their message in song, discourses, or symbolic act, as when Isaiah was bid walk naked-that is, with his outer garments off, and barefoot for a sign upon Egypt and Ethiopia.

This institution was founded by Samuel. He collected and banded together men endued with the prophetic spirit. He stood appointed over the sons of the prophets. The term schools as we use it does not convey a correct idea of these ancient institutions. The idea of a monastry is more appropriate. The prophets lived and ate together, the people frequently supplying their wants. See the interesting case in 2 Kings, iv, 38, 42. They assisted and educated each other, they prophesied and performed musical acts of praisesang hymns to instrumental music. Their dress was simple and their living plain. The number in their groups or companies varied, sometimes fifty and sometimes four hundred. In Samuel's day they resided in Ramah, then in Bethel, after that in Gilgal, then at Jericho, and at Jerusalem. Their influence upon the commonwealth was very great, and was healthy and beneficent. They preached truth and righteousness, reproved sin and rebuked the sinner, even in high places. They were often dowered with genius of a high order and were eminent in a literary point of view. One of the foremost of living thinkers* has written nobly of their influence upon the body politic. He says: "Under the protection, generally, though not always effectual, of their sacred character, the prophets were a power in the nation, often more than a match for kings and priests, and kept up in that little corner of the earth the antagonism of influences, which is the only real security for continued progress. These persons most eminent in genius and moral feeling could not only denounce and reprobate

*

J. Stuart Mill on "Representative Government," page 17. Peoples' edition.

with the direct authority of the Almighty, whatever appeared to them deserving of such treatment, but could give forth better and higher interpretations of national religion, which thenceforth became a part of religion."

Our greatest epic poet, when blind and aged, but whose inner vision was clarified to something approaching prophetic brightness, has in a noble passage in the "Paradise Regained," sung of the prophets in contrast to the orators and statesmen of the great states of antiquity. The tempted Jesus to his tempter thus:

"Their orators thou then extoll'st, as those
The top of eloquence. Statists indeed,
And lovers of their country, as may seem;
But herein to our prophets far beneath
As men divinely taught, and better teaching
The solid rules of civil government,
In their majestic, unaffected style
Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome.
In them is plainest taught and easiest learnt
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so,
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat;

These only with our law best form a king."*

The record of Samuel's death is touching in its very brevity, no affecting word-painting, no parade of fine writing; three words are all-" And Samuel died." But his death was felt by the entire nation, and the people paid him fitting homage at his interment. They might well lament; their counsellor andintercessor was gone; rich in those virtues that beautify human life, command respect and reverence, and light up the pages of history. He was ripe in years and truly venerable in character. In his birthplace he found his tomb, and rests there till the trump of doom shall sound. Of his posthumous appearance in the drear recesses of the Cave of Endor we will not trust ourselves to speak further than this: the picture is one of the most affecting we know of. The despairing and forsaken monarch in the dark cavern, vainly seeking for that God and and his servant whom he had so contumaciously contemned and rejected. As we see him resorting to this unhallowed expedient, we cannot but pity him. Poor abject God-forsaken man! Did God send Samuel to Saul in that cave out of pity to warn him of his impending doom? Or was it a mere vision? Saul thought he saw Samuel. Was Samuel raised by this "woman, a mistress of Ob ?" Or was it a piece of gross imposture? Saul might be the easy dupe of the woman's ventriloquism and dexterity. Let those who have theories produce them-we have none.

We cannot desist writing without pointing a few "improvements," or practical lessons.

* "Paradise Regained." Book IV., 352.

I. The unspeakable advantage of early dedication to God. Hannah set God's mark upon the child as soon as he was born. The seal thus early put upon him was never effaced. His consecration in childhood, in infancy, was entire and unreserved, and was never desecrated. He was not his own, not his mother's, he was emphatically the Lord's. Is there not a great lack of this early -very early-dedication to God? Samuel was in after years what he was to no small extent through this early consecration. Let Christian parents realise the truth involved in this statement, and let them so live that they may claim God's promised blessing upon their children. Promises are made not only to children dying young, but to our boys and girls, young men and maidens. Let children. remember this consecration; the cherishing of this memory will act healthily upon them. God requires our infant and youthful days-our entire life. Samuel's was a life—a whole life-for God. Much, who can tell how much? depends upon these years, too frequently neglected. To the young we would say take care of these early years, the later ones will take care of themselves.

II. The vast importance of integrity as an element of character. Samuel's life was straight, not one of bends and turns. His was a straight course-he went right on, not asking which way the crowd or great few were going. He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. The words of our great bard might be applied to him:

"He holds no parley with unmanly fears,
Where duty bids he confidently steers;
Faces a thousand dangers at her call,

And trusting in his God surmounts them all."

There was a wholeness about his character. We know that the words whole, holy, health come from one rootword, which means soundness and homogenity. The truly sound man is a whole, healthy man. In common religious parlance the term holy is associated with Christian ordinances, but it has as much to do with the senate, school, office, shop, or firm, as with the sanctuary and the Sabbath-with driving a bargain as saying prayers. What is it that a man is gifted, pleasant, affectionate, affable, and piously inclined, if he lacks integrity and uprightness. How all his good qualities are obscured, neutralised, or vitiated by his tricks, chicanery, or crookedness. Let us remember the words of an eminent preacher, "The first lesson of Christian life is this-be true; and the second this-be true; and the third this-be true." More than two hundred years ago a great Dutchman called Samuel the Jewish Aristides. The Greeks immortalised Aristides as The Just, and well did he deserve the commendation. The Hebrew prophet and the Greek archeon or administrator were just as a habit of

soul. This was their abiding state of mind. But the Jew surpassed the Greek in the religious elements of his character. God was consciously with him, and he lived a life of piety and prayer. III. Samuel's power in prayer. He is ranked with Moses as an intercessor-standing before the Lord, calling upon his name. There is something awful in the boldness, freedom, almost familiarity, about his approaches to the Majesty of Heaven. He could ask what he would, and he never "cried " in vain. How many of the victories that have helped on the world have been obtained by prayer. We do not know how much the Church and the world have been indebted to the "wonderous power of faithful prayer." It has been, it is yet, an arm of great power, and a source of progress and strength. And bating the miraculous accidents of Samuel's praying, we may have equal. power with God. To those who can understand it, and rise to it, all the treasures of divinity are placed at your disposal. "Ask what ye will!" Sin not against the Lord by ceasing to pray.

Time fails us to point out Samuel's patriotism; his eminently wise and statesman-like rule; his labours as a tutor; his noble spirit-free from jealousy and revenge-and other traits of his character. We commend the study of this life and character. He lived long, and he lived well. Bishop Hall says: "He began his acquaintance with God in his long coats and continued to his grey hairs." Length of days was meted out to him by his rightly using every day. Bacon says that "Nature passes over many excesses which are owing to a man till he comes into years." And a greater than Bacon says, "He that breaketh through a hedge a serpent shall bite him." Sin against God, against the natural conditions of your existence, and you inevitably suffer. Religion makes human life a noble thing, sheds a lustre upon, and lends a dignity to it, stimulates us by the most powerful and sacred motives and places before us the most entrancing prospects. We should be inspired to raise our aspirations and bind ourselves with closer bonds to God's service. It is a solemn and noble thing to live right. We know it is a solemn thing to die, but more important is it to live now as God wills us, and as consists fully with our own weal. For God's will and our own weal must harmonise. In life there is nothing comparable to moral excellence. Bodily health is a precious boon, money may be good, knowledge, intellectual gifts and culture are all good; social comforts are desirable, position among our fellows much sought after, but above them all is the salvation of the soul-the heart purified, the conscience pacified, the light and life of God within, the life given to God and spent in manly Christian duties. This truly is the summum bonum. Yes, beyond question, this is the chief good of mortal man, to improve every moment, to profit by our privileges, to make the very best of