This map represents Palestine in the time of Our Lord. We have the whole broad Sea-board on the Great or. Mediterranean Sea. There stands out Mount Carmel with its bold front, here is the Port of Caesarea, and here lower down the famous Port of Joppa. Samaria is very distinctly mariced with its holy mountain of Gerisim and by a careful attention to this locality it may be seen why in certain journeys of Our Lord to Jerusalem He must needs go through Samaria

CHAPTER VI.

THE LAST OF THE JUDGES.-FROM B.C. 1171 TO B.C. 1095. Birth of Samuel and Consecration to the Service of the Sanctuary-The sin of Eli's Sons-Samuel's Ministry-A Prophecy Against Eli's House-The Israelites Overcome by the Philistines-The Ark brought into the Battle and Captured by the Enemy-The Sons of Eli killed-Death of Eli on hearing the evil NewsTroubles which fell on the Philistines who held the Ark; its RestorationSamuel judgeth Israel—The People demand a King—Samuel dissuadeth them in vain-Saul chosen.

SAMUEL, the last of the Judges, was born about the year of the world 2839, at Ramathaim-Zophim. The place so designated was more usually known as Ramah, and there can be but little question as to its being the same Ramah which afterwards became the ordinary residence of Samuel, and where he died and was buried. The position of this Ramah was early lost sight of even by tradition, and in later times it has been confounded with the Ramah of Benjamin, from which it is quite distinct. It appears that this ancient Ramah was situated in the land of Zuph, a canton or district of Mount Ephraim. It derived its name from Zuph, the great-great-grandfather of Elkanah, the father of Samuel. This Zuph was the head of the Levitical family of Zuphim, a descendant of that ambitious Korah whose dreadful doom has already been related.

Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, had been childless through her married life until Samuel was born. She, in the joy and gladness of her heart, immediately devoted him to the service of the sanctuary, with the full consent of his father.

But the condition of the priesthood, of those who ministered in the sanctuary, was lamentable in the extreme. Eli, the high priest, who was a sort of temporal as well as spiritual governor, the agent of the great theocracy, was himself full of good intentions; but the conduct of his sons, also priests, was most atrocious. They gave themselves over to "filthy lucre," and

other things more filthy still. And Eli, like a foolish and overindulgent parent, forgot, or chose to forget, the responsibility which rested upon him, and he offered no restraint. Moses would have smitten those evil-doers; stern Roman senators. would have sent them swift to death; but Priest Eli was softnatured, wavering; loving God much, and the people much, but loving his sons more. These young priests, taking advantage of their position, were both insolent and tyrannical. They had in them what nearly all men have who undertake professionally to declare the will of heaven-a supreme sense of self-confidence, an annoying habit of self-assertion, and a miserable greed of gain.

Eli was old: it is the only excuse which can be offered; his sons evidently set him at nought; his appeals and remonstrances, when they were guilty of the most abominable crimes, were so gently put that Hophni and Phinheas laughed in the sleeves of their priests' vestments. An earnest, steadfast man stood up to complain and warn. Plainly he told Eli that high Heaven would never permit this wickedness and absurdity to go on; that there would and must be a dreadful day of reckoning; that another more consistent and liberal priest should be introduced, and that Eli's descendants should be so miserably degraded as to come. to the new hierarchy for a piece of silver, saying "put me into one of the priests' offices that I may eat a piece of bread."

In the first book of Samuel we read, "the priests' custom with the people was, that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a flesh-hook of three teeth, in his hand; and he stuck it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot; all that the flesh-hook took up the priest took for himself. Also before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw. And if any man said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take up as much as thy soul desireth; then he would answer, Nay; but thou shalt give it me now; and if not I will take it by force." Here the seething of the flesh evidently refers to the peace-offerings. The

priest's rightful, or rather legal, share was the shoulder and breast of lamb, the rest belonged to the offerer, who could either feast his friends or give to the poor; but Hophni and Phinehas took exactly what they pleased, which was not only an injustice, but a gross insult. With regard to the second demand, namely, that the meat should be given raw to the priest, the matter was Levitically still worse. Legally, the sacrifice could not be disposed of before the fat had been burnt on the altar. To do this the meat had to be divided, and the best portions were selected for the altar; besides, it was expressly enjoined that what should be given to the priests should be boiled-probably on this account, that in all heathen sacrifices the priests ate only of the roast. However this may be, there can be no doubt that the demands of the priesthood were illegal, extortionate, and offensive. The government of Israel was at that time thoroughly theocratic in design-it was what John Knox sighed for-a God's Kingdom in this world; but the premier was half imbecile and the executive grossly corrupt. This was the state of things when Samuel, at twelve years of age, came to take his part in the religious ministrations of Shiloh.

Samuel was employed in such parts of the ritualistic service of the sanctuary as he was capable of performing. Our Cardinal Wolsey held high Church dignity when commoner lads were being bound apprentice. We have no reason or warrant for suspecting such precocity belonged to Samuel. But while he was still a child, he received, under most remarkable circumtsances, an intimation of the punishment which should fall on Eli and his sons. Josephus tells us that the Creator spoke to him one night, saying, "Learn what miseries are coming upon the Israelites—such, indeed, as words cannot declare, or faith believe; for the sons of Eli shall die on one day, and the priesthood shall be transferred into the family of Eleazar; for Eli hath loved his sons more than he hath loved my worship."

In the morning Samuel very unwillingly related to Eli what he had heard; and now, says Josephus, "the glory of Samuel increased more and more," [meaning in the course of years] "it being found by experience that whatsoever he prophesied came

II

to pass accordingly." We have no prophets in these days. Those who profess to read the solemn future read it askew, like the Pater-noster, backwards, and are generally put to the blush, if they have not forgotten how to blush, by the ridiculous failure of their predictions; but it appears to have been very different in the old time. There had been Seers before the time of Samuel. In the General Epistle of Jude we are told that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, was a prophet; but in the speech or exhortation which the Apostle Peter gave to the people after he had cured the lame man, the prophets are counted from Samuel, making this remarkable man not only last of the Judges, but first of the generally acknowledged Prophets.

Now, although the Israelites had obtained nominally, and to a large extent actually, the land promised to their fathers, the old dwellers in that land were by no means completely routed out. The nation of the Philistines was still very powerful, and when Samuel was a young man, perhaps about three or four and twenty, they made war upon the Israelites, and put the city of Aphek in a state of siege. The exact position of Aphek is much disputed, some critics inclining to the northern frontier, on the western declivity of the central mountains of the country, and others between the central mountains and the Dead Sea.

The very day after the Philistines had arrived and settled down before Aphek, the Israelites ventured battle, and were routed by their enemies. Terrified by their discomfiture, they sent in haste to the Senate and the High Priest, begging that the ark of God might be brought into the camp, confidently expecting that this would ensure victory. This unhappy idea was no doubt suggested to the Israelites by the practice of the heathen nations, who were accustomed to carry their idols with them when they went to war. Eli was at that time too old to execute his office, and his son Phinehas officiated as high priest; the consent of the Senate was given to the removal of the ark, and the sons of Eli and others with them bore it down into the camp. When the Israelites saw it, they shouted with joy, and the Philistines were troubled. "God," said they, "has come into the camp!" It is worthy of notice that none of the heathen