ourselves; and blessed if outward appearances dimly typify a spiritual life, an unseen and undying probity of mind. Samson died a curious death. He prayed in his blindness that he might yet show himself a strong man. The Philistines would have sport: Samson would that the occasion of sport might be turned into an occasion of what appeared to him to be just vengeance. Said he: Let me touch the pillars of the house; lay my poor hands on the pillars of this unholy place. And the giant's hands were lifted and put upon the pillars, and Samson cried mightily towards the heavens and shook the pillars, and the house fell, and he himself died with innumerable others. It was a poor way out of the world. But judge nothing by the death scene. In many instances the death scene amounts to nothing. Many a man has gone to heaven straight from the act of suicide. Many a man has died into heaven about whom we are prudently silent, because of some little or great incident which has disturbed our judgment of his character. It is not enough to leave the last transaction to be completed in a few moments of words without sacrifice, of profession without possible realisation. And some may have died and gone to heaven about whom we have our secret fears. Let us entertain no such apprehensions about any man whose twenty years of life lies open for public judgment. Nothing was said at the last; nay, more, the poor man got wrong within the last year of his life: he slipped, he fell, he was laid up a long time; what happened then between him and his Lord we cannot tell; but we have before us an instance or two of such secret and unreported interviews. The man who saw his Lord and plunged into the water, and came to him, had a talk with Christ all alone, and after that he became the most fervent of the apostles. The man is not to be judged by what he did in the last week of his life. It is the life that God will judge-the tone, the purpose, the main idea of the life. What is life indeed but a main idea-a grand central thought and aspiration? We shall delude ourselves and do injustice to others by thinking of collateral circumstances, things on the surface, things that come and go. Many a man has stolen who is no thief. Many a man has been overcome by strong drink who is no drunkard. Many a man has been guilty of innumerable weaknesses who is a strong man in the soul and heart of him. That these generous constructions may be perverted is perfectly possible; but I would rather that wicked men should pervert them than that the men who need such encouragement should go away in despair. We cannot tell what the dogs will do, but the children must nevertheless be fed. If any man should leave this study of Samson saying that licence has been given to do this or that which is wrong, he but aggravates his profanity by a final falsehood. On the other hand, many a man must be cheered, or he will be overwhelmed in despair, and we shall never hear of him any more. What is the central purpose of your life? what is the main idea? Answer that in the right way, and God will be merciful to you. We have still to notice the most important point of all, which, in the mere matter of literal sequence, ought to have come earlier. Samson said he would go out and shake himself as at other times" and he wist not that the Lord was departed from him" (xvi. 20). All the outer man was there, but it was a temple without a God. The giant was as grand to look at as ever, but his soul was as a banqueting-hall deserted. And Samson knew it not that is the painful point-the unknown losses of life, the unconscious losses of life: power gone, and the man not aware of it, is there any irony so humbling, so awful to contemplate? We may be walking skeletons: we may be men without manliness; we may be houses untenanted: yet the eyes are where they always were, and just as bright, the voice is as vibrant as in olden time; and yet the divinity is dead. And for a man not to know it! We have had experience of this in other than merely religious directions. The writer that used to charm thinks he writes as well as ever, and only the readers are conscious that the genius is extinct: the right hand has forgotten its cunning; the writer does not know it; having filled his page, he says, That is as bright as ever: I never wrote with greater facility in my old age I have become young again;-he wist not that the spirit of genius had departed from him. So with the preacher. He supposes he preaches as energetically and as happily and usefully as ever; he says he longs for his work more than he ever did; and only the hearers are conscious that : the man has been outworn by all-claiming, all-dominating time. The statesman, too, has lost his wizardry: he cannot see afar off; yet he supposes himself to be as great as in his most lustrous prime. All these are common incidents, and are referred to simply to show that they point towards the most disastrous effect of all-that a man may have lost the Spirit of God, and not be aware of his loss. Others look on, and pity him. The prayer has lost its pleading tone; the tears which stream from his eyes are but common water; the upward look sees nothing but cloud; the universe has become a great blank space: the stars glitter, but say nothing; the summer comes, but creates no garden in his soul; and the man does not know it. Who dare tell him? This points towards a possible ghastly condition of affairs. The Church is as large as ever, but Ichabod is written upon its door. The old words are all said, one by one with formal pomp and accuracy, but they are only words—no longer bushes that burn and are not consumed. Again and again remember that the point is that the man did not know it. Had he known it, he would have been a better man; had he really felt that the Lord had gone out from him, he might have begun to cry at last like a child, if he could not pray like a priest. How is it with us? Put the question right into the very centre of the soul. We may have more words, more dogmas, more points of controversy, more little orthodox idols; but what are we in the heart, the spirit, the purpose of the mind? Seeing that this great danger is before us, there is one sweet prayer which every day should carry to heaven from our pleading soul. A child can pray it; an angel cannot add to it. That deep, high, grand, allinclusive prayer is "Take not thy Holy Spirit from me,"-take health, take friends, take happiness, take all the world values as good and necessary, but take not thy Holy Spirit from me! "Holy Spirit, dwell with me." PRAYER. ALMIGHTY GOD, our hope is in thy Son; other hope in very deed we have none. We have hewn out unto ourselves cisterns, but we have found them to be cisterns that could hold no water. So by this experience, so sad and deep, we have come to know that there is no help for man but in the living God, the Saviour of all, who will have all men to be saved. We lay down our arms of rebellion, we renounce our various inventions, and we now come to thee, empty-handed, full of sin in the heart, conscious of great and aggravated wickedness, and casting ourselves upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we say each for himself, God be merciful to me a sinner! We know thine answer; it is a reply of love: where sin abounds, grace shall much more abound; wherein we have grieved thee, we shall be mightily brought back again to thy side, to take part in thy praise, and to be active in thy service. May the time that is past more than suffice; may our inquiry be about the few days that remain; with earnestness, simplicity, fidelity, may we gird ourselves to the work that lies before us, and with all-burning zeal, most constant love, may we do thy will gladly, hoping only for a reward in thine own heaven. Help us in all our life. Its necessities are as numerous as its moments. Our life is one crying want. Let our life be turned into a sacred prayer, by being lifted upwards towards the allhospitable heavens, and no longer left to grope in the earth for that which can never be found there. As for our burdens, we shall forget them if thou dost increase our strength; our sins shall be cast behind thee, our duty shall be our delight, and our whole life a glowing and acceptable sacrifice. Guide men who are in perplexity; soothe the hearts that are overborne by daily distress; save from despair those who think they have tried every gate and beaten upon every door without success or reply save such from the agony and blackness of despair; at the very last do thou appear, a shining light, a delivering day, wherein men can see what lies about them, and address themselves to their tasks with the help of the sun. Be round about us in business; save us amid a thousand temptations; direct us along a road that is sown with traps, and gins, and snares; take hold of our hand every step of the journey, and in thine own good time bring us to rest, to death-to life. Amen. Judges xvii. [“A wholly disconnected narrative here follows, without any mark of time by which to indicate whether the events preceded or followed those narrated in the preceding chapter. The only point of contact with the preceding history of Samson is that we are still concerned with the tribe of Dan.-The Speaker's Commentary.] 1. And there was [before the days of Samson] a man of mount Ephraim, whose name was Micah [a contraction of Micayehû = who is like Jehovah]. 2. And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver [136] that were taken from thee, about which thou cursedst [thou didst adjure; see Matt. xxvi. 65], and spakest of also in mine ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it. [See Prov. xxviii. 24.] And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the Lord, my son. 3. And when he had restored the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated [consecrating, I consecrated] the silver unto the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it unto thee. 4. Yet [And] he restored the money unto his mother; and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver, and gave them to the founder [see Isaiah's opinion of founders, xlvi. 6-20], who made thereof a graven image and a molten image: and they were in the house of Micah. 5. And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated [installed] one of his sons, who became his priest. 6. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. [See this forbidden in Deut. xii. 8.] 7. And there was a young man out of Beth-lehem-judah of the family [tribe] of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there. [See Gen. xlix. 7.] 8. And the man departed out of the city from Beth-lchem-judah to sojourn where he could find a place: and he came to mount Ephraim to the house of Micah [probably having heard of Micah's chapel], as he journeyed. 9. And Micah said unto him, Whence comest thou? And he said unto him, I am a Levite of Beth-lchem-judah, and I go to sojourn where I may find a place. 10. And Micah said unto him, Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee ten shekels [the shekel weighed about half an ounce] of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and thy victuals. So the Levite went in. 11. And the Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man was unto him as one of his sons. 12. And Micah consecrated the Levite [which none might lawfully do but the high-priest]; and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah. 13. Then said Micah, Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest [see next chapter for the answer]. Tchapter. A SERIES OF SURPRISES HE book of Judges properly closes with the sixteenth What follows after the sixteenth chapter has been described as an appendix-two appendices, indeed, dealing with the case of two Levites. From the seventeenth chapter onward the matter was probably written long before other |