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the church palaver, priest discipline, and pious hypocrisy, selects a successor, without compunction, without ceremony, and David is anointed to reign instead of Saul. From this time forth to the end of his life Saul is constantly in hot water. He slinks to his home at Gibeah (1 Sam. xv, 34) like a whipped cur, rejected and excommunicated by the priest. Full of apprehension and fear, he blunders at every step he takes. The priestly influence is gone, and God has departed from him and is now with David. The crafty Samuel uses the expression, when others question the propriety of his action: “Men do not see as God seeth.” No! Men must have no will except the priest’s will. Harassed and maddened by priestly cunning, jealous and angered at David’s success in acts of heroism, Saul loses courage, as well as prestige with the people, to such an extent that David finds it not a difficult task to organize a small army of his own, carrying on a sort of desultory war on his own account.

Samuel dies, having governed his people twelve years himself, and jointly with Saul eighteen years. He was the greatest man, priest, and general since the times of Moses, a man of singular sagacity and courage, no doubt right royal and honest in his intentions and to his nation. Samuel did more to solidify the nation, and terrify neighboring nations, to infuse courage in his people and inspire them to acts of heroism, than any other of the judges, or any other man, during this period.

A curious incident is related of the manner in which Samuel came into the world. It is the first one of its kind in the Bible. Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, had no children, or as the Bible phrase has it, “The Lord had shut up her womb” (1 Sam. i, 5, 6). So she continued praying before the Lord, and Eli the priest marked her mouth (verse 12). She conceived and bore a son, and she named him Samuel. And Eli the priest adopted Samuel. “And the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest” (ii, 12). What the relations were between Hannah and Eli is not known, but that his own sons were not very righteous is testified to by the following passage (1 Sam. ii, 20): “Now Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel; and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.”

It was not an unusual thing, in the temples of the heathens, for women to accommodate the gods whenever they felt piously inclined; and also the priests lost no opportunity to gratify their saintly passions, or permit others to gratify theirs so long as it was to benefit the church.

Samuel’s father, or rather reputed father, did not belong to the priestly tribe. He was an Ephrathite. Eli his adopted father belonged to the priestly caste. I simply cite this story to show how completely human these holy Jehovaists were. Many crimes and disreputable acts were committed under the very shadow of the Lord. Yet Jehova was pleased with anything these priests delighted in.

Eli was a heavy man (iv, 18). Fat, which I suppose they meant, shows he was a good liver. He broke his neck by falling off his seat on hearing the ark was taken by the Philistines and Israel beaten.

When Samuel took the reins of government he was still young. He subdued the Philistines, regained the ark, and reorganized and consolidated the nation. He made Saul king and general, and a stream of prosperity followed; the choice was a good one, and Saul served his nation well so long as he was obedient to Samuel’s commands. Saul’s humanity got the better of him, he offended this stern, dictatorial priest, and lost his favor. David, his rival, was already chosen and in the field, on whom all Samuel’s influence and priestly glory was shed. Now God deserted Saul and his cause. Henceforth the Lord was with David.

Samuel was the first and only kingmaker; Saul and David were his handiwork. He was a priest, a soldier and a statesman of more than ordinary capacity and qualities, far superior to any of the judges that governed Israel during the last four centuries. He was stern and severe, but without blemish otherwise. He was, as far as we can learn from history, a relentless and cruel man towards his enemies. He was of immense will-power, resolute and energetic. He was honored to an extraordinary degree by the people for whom he accomplished so much. He left the nation at his death more firmly united than it had ever been—with an organized army, a stable government, and a well-filled treasury. It was Samuel that really raised the nation to the utmost hight that it ever attained, for he laid the foundation for Solomon’s glory, the zenith of Hebrew nationality.

It is he that closes the second period of national life, the people having attained under him its maximum standing as a nation, and the greatness which culminated in Solomon, and the only political unity as a nation that the Hebrews ever had.

A parallel may be drawn between the two periods. The Egyptian period: Four centuries or so pass without anything being done, until a man rises possessing the necessary qualifications to mold these people into a nation. The second period consists of a struggle with other nations, almost continuously, to exist. Necessities arise; men present themselves who seize the opportunity to fill up the want for the time being, until the coming of Samuel, the right man, at the right time, for the right place. He closes the second act of the Hebrews’ struggle for nationality by giving them a centralized form of government, and placing a king at their head to rule them.

All the transactions of his life were human, natural. His conduct was perfectly in harmony with the age he lived in. The nation as a whole had become a little more civilized, and had reached as high a point of intelligence as it ever attained—that is, as a nation.

Thus far we have not seen anything in their history that other nations had not to contend with. To attribute their acts, individually or as a nation, to any supernatural power, to God, Jehova, or the Lord, is preposterous. In their dealings, their fightings, their cruelty, their brutality, their superstition, and their ignorance, they were in no sense superior to any of the contemporaneous nations. They were no better in their conduct than their neighbors. The strongest had always the best of it; the conquered had to submit to slavery or be killed, women are captured and used, and the plunder is divided.

Notwithstanding the priestly rule of the Levites, the Hebrews are constantly relapsing into idolatry, brought back to the fold, and relapsing again.

The church was at this time used for all sorts of corrupt purposes. The Jehova that had been brought into the theological world with such an immense boom by Moses had expended a good deal of its original force.

The remembrance of that stupendous crisis of the Hebrew national existence was kept alive and the flames were fanned by priestly interest. The God after Moses, the Jehova, had shrunk into the Lord, and the ark was the representative of God. “The ark of God was taken,” … “when she heard tidings of the ark of God” (1 Sam. iv, etc.). And the success or failure of the Hebrews depended on the man who led them. With a weak man as general or leader they were beaten, with a strong man they won.

Other nations meanwhile had sprung into life, and become powerful, without Jehova—without the God of the Hebrews. They had, however, idols and images, which seemed to behave with far greater propriety than the God of Israel. So well did these mythological deities manage their affairs, that they almost swallowed up the whole Hebrew race.

Samuel, having established a kingdom, and crowned two kings, Saul and David, dies, leaving these two competitors in the field.

CHAPTER XII. GOD SAVE THE KING!

That was the shout, with the commencement of the new era, when the tallest man in the nation appeared in the midst of the people that had assembled at the call of Samuel (1 Sam. x, 24).

I will give a short chronology of this United Kingdom under three kings—Saul, David, and Solomon:

Saul is made king 1095 Dies 1055 Rules over Israel about 40 years David born 1085 Kills Goliath 1062 Reigns in Hebron 1055 King over Israel 1048 Dies 1016 Rules over Israel about 40 years Solomon is born 1036 Is crowned king 1015 Lays foundation of Temple 1012 Dedicates the Temple 1004 Worships idols 985 Dies 975 Rules over Israel about 40 years

These figures may not be accurate. They are as near as the dates can be had. Josephus gives the dates as follows:

Saul reigned with Samuel 18 years After the death of Samuel 22 years,, David lived 70 years,, Reigned in Hebron 7 yrs 6m Reigned,, in,, Jerusalem 33 years Solomon lived 94 years,, Having reigned 80 years,,

There is a discrepancy somewhere. Something is wrong in dates, like most other facts in the Bible.

David was twenty-three years old when he killed Goliath. Solomon was twenty-one years old when he was crowned king; according to Josephus, fourteen years of age.

We have no further interest in the dates of those men, but more in their acts and character. Being the rulers of God’s own chosen people—with Jehova for a pilot, protector, and guide—with the wooden Box, the ark, with all its mysterious secrets and its holy enchantments; priests, prophets, and sacrifices, with all their secret necromantic performances, these three men, with all their godly professions, were no better than they should have been, even for the age in which they lived.

They were brutal, gross, and licentious. Barbarous crimes were committed by them, with the sanction of their preposterous imaginary God—who is lauded at this present day to the very echo, but the most stupendous piece of folly that ever was palmed off on civilized humanity.

Saul, the first king, in exercising his terrible cruelty towards his enemies perhaps only followed the practices and customs of other nations. Why this bloodthirsty man caused 385 persons to be murdered; why he slaughtered all the inhabitants of Nob, men, women, and children, because Abimelech the priest supplied David with food, are some of those things that pulpit orators can best explain. The life of the priest was not sufficient to expiate the offense he had committed, but Saul had his whole family exterminated.

The ark was no longer available. Jehova had taken the juvenile David in hand. The priestly oracle refused to be consulted. He, Saul, had

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