DELILAH THE DESTROYER.

"Praise ye Jehovah for the avenging of Israel,When the people willingly offered themselves.Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes.I will sing praise to Jehovah;I will praise Jehovah, God of Israel.Jehovah, when thou wentest out from Seir,When thou marchedst from Edom,The earth trembled and the heavens dropped,The clouds also poured down water."

The song now changes, to picture the miseries of an enslaved people, who were deprived of arms and weapons, and exposed at any hour and moment to the incursions of robbers and murderers:—

"In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath,In the days of Jael,The highways were unoccupied,And travelers walked through by-ways.The inhabitants ceased from the villages,Till I, Deborah, arose.I arose a mother in Israel.They went after strange gods;Then came the war to their gates.Was there then a shield or a spearAmong forty thousand in Israel?"

The theme then changes, to celebrate those whose patriotic bravery had redeemed their country:—

"My heart throbs to the governors of IsraelThat offered themselves willingly among the people.Bless ye Jehovah!Speak, ye that ride on white asses,Ye that sit in judgment, and ye that walk by the way,They that are delivered from the noise of archersIn the place of drawing water,There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of Jehovah,His righteous acts towards the inhabitants of the villages.Then shall the people go down to the gates.Awake! awake! Deborah,Awake! awake! utter a song!Arise, Barak, and lead captivity captive,Thou son of Abinoam!"

After this, another change: she reviews, with all a woman's fiery eloquence, the course which the tribes have taken in the contest, giving praise to the few courageous, self-sacrificing patriots, and casting arrows of satire and scorn on the cowardly and selfish. For then, as in our modern times, there were all sorts of men. There were those of the brave, imprudent, generous,"do-or-die" stamp, and there were the selfish conservatives, who only waited and talked. So she says:—

"It was but a small remnant that went forth against the mighty.The people of Jehovah went with me against the mighty.The march began with Ephraim,The root of the army was from him;With him didst thou come, Benjamin!Out of Machir came down the leaders;Out of Zebulun the marshals of forces;And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah.Issachar, the life-guard of Barak,Sprang like a hind into the battle-field!"

It appears that the tribe of Reuben had only been roused so far as totalkabout the matter. They had been brought up to the point of an animated discussion whether they should help or not. The poetess thus jeers at them:—

"By the brooks of Reuben there were great talkings and inquiries.Why abodest thou in thy sheepfolds, Reuben?Was it to hear the bleating of the flocks?By the brooks of Reuben were great talks [but nothing more].Gilead, too, abode beyond Jordan;And why did Dan remain in his ships?Asher stayed on the sea-shore and remained in his harbor.Zebulun and Naphtali risked their lives unto the deathIn the high places of the field of battle."

Now comes the description of the battle. It appears that a sudden and violent rain-storm and an inundation helped to rout the enemy and gain the victory; and the poetess breaks forth:—

"The kings came and fought;The kings of Canaan in Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo;They brought away no treasure.They fought; from heaven the stars in their coursesThey fought against Sisera.The river Kishon swept them down,That ancient river, Kishon.O my soul! walk forth with strength!Then was the rattling of hoofs of horses!They rushed back,—the horses of the mighty."

And now the solemn sound of a prophetic curse:—

"Curse ye Meroz, saith the angel of Jehovah,Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof,Because they came not to the help of Jehovah,To the help of Jehovah against the mighty!"

Then follows a burst of blessing on the woman who had slain the oppressor; in which we must remember, it is a woman driven to the last extreme of indignation at outrages practiced on her sex that thus rejoices. When the tiger who has slain helpless women and children is tracked to his lair, snared, and caught, a shout of exultation goes up; and there are men so cruel and brutal that even humanity rejoices in their destruction. There is something repulsive in the thought of the artifice and treachery that beguiled and betrayed the brigand chief. But woman cannot meet her destroyer in open, hand-to-hand conflict. She is thrown perforce on the weapons of physical weakness; and Deborah exults in the success of the artifice with all the warmth of her indignant soul.

"Blessed above women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite!Blessed shall she be above women in the tent!He asked water and she gave him milk;She brought forth butter in a lordly dish.She put her hand to the nail,Her right hand to the workman's hammer.With the hammer she smote Sisera,She smote off his head.When she had stricken through his temple,At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay prostrate.At her feet he bowed, he fell.Where he bowed, there he fell down dead!"

The outrages on wives, mothers, and little children, during twenty years of oppression, gives energy to this blessing on the woman who dared to deliver.

By an exquisite touch of the poetess, we are reminded what must have been the fate of all Judæan women except for this nail of Jael.

"The mother of Sisera looked out at a window.She cried through the lattice,Why delay the wheels of his chariot?Why tarries the rattle of his horse-hoofs?Her wise ladies answered: yea, she spake herself.Have they not won? Have they not divided the prey?To every man a virgin or two;To Sisera a prey of divers colors, of divers colors and gold embroidery,Meet for the necks of them that take the spoil."

In the reckoning of this haughty princess, a noble Judæan lady, with her gold embroideries and raiment of needle-work, is only an ornament meet for the neck of the conqueror,—a toy, to be paraded in triumph. The song now rises with one grand, solemn swell, like the roll of waves on the sea-shore:—

"So let all thine enemies perish, O Jehovah!But let them that love thee shine forth as the sun in his strength."

And as this song dies away, so passes all mention of Deborah. No other fragment of poetry or song from her has come down from her age to us. This one song, like a rare fragment of some deep-sea flower, broken off by a storm of waters, has floated up to tell of her. We shall see, as we follow down the line of history, that women of this lofty poetic inspiration were the natural product of the Jewish laws and institutions. They grew out of them, as certain flowers grow out of certain soils. To this class belonged Hannah, the mother of Samuel, and Huldah, the prophetess, and, in the fullness of time, Mary, the mother of Jesus, whoseMagnificatwas the earliest flower of the Christian era. Mary was prophetess and poet, the last and greatest of a long and noble line of women, in whom the finer feminine nature had been kindled into a divine medium of inspiration, and burst forth in poetry and song as in a natural language.

DelilahDelilah the Destroyer

Delilah the Destroyer

tThe pictures of womanhood in the Bible are not confined to subjects of the better class.

The pictures of womanhood in the Bible are not confined to subjects of the better class.

There is always a shadow to light; and shadows are deep, intense, in proportion as light is vivid. There is in bad women a terrible energy of evil which lies over against the angelic and prophetic power given to them, as Hell against Heaven.

In the long struggles of the Divine Lawgiver with the idolatrous tendencies of man, the evil as well as the good influence of woman is recognized. There are a few representations of loathsome vice and impurity left in the sacred records, to show how utterly and hopelessly corrupt the nations had become whom the Jews were commanded to exterminate. Incurable licentiousness and unnatural vice had destroyed the family state, transformed religious services into orgies of lust, and made woman a corrupter, instead of a saviour. The idolatrous temples and groves and high places against which the prophets continually thunder were scenes of abominable vice and demoralization.

No danger of the Jewish race is more insisted on in sacred history and literature than the bad power of bad women, and the weakness of men in their hands. Whenever idolatry is introduced among them it is always largely owing to the arts and devices of heathen women.

The story of Samson seems to have been specially arranged as a warning in this regard. It is a picture drawn in such exaggerated colors and proportions that it might strike the lowest mind and be understood by the dullest. As we have spoken of the period of the Judges as corresponding to the Dark Ages of Christianity, so the story of Samson corresponds in some points with the mediæval history of St. Christopher. In both is presentedthe idea of a rugged animal nature, the impersonation of physical strength, without much moral element, but seized on and used by a divine impulse for a beneficent purpose. Samson had strength, and he used it to keep alive this sacerdotal nation, this race from whom were to spring the future apostles and prophets and teachers of our Christianity.

Like some unknown plant of rare flower and fruit, cast out to struggle in ungenial soil, nipped, stunted, browsed down by cattle, trodden down by wild beasts, the Jewish race, in the times of the Book of Judges showed no capability of producing such men as Isaiah and Paul and John, much less Jesus. Yet, humanly speaking, in this stock, now struggling for bare national existence, and constantly in danger of being trampled out, was contained the capacity of unfolding, through Divine culture, such heavenly blossoms as Jesus and his apostles.

In fact, then, the Christian religion, with all its possibilities of hope and happiness for the human race, lay at this period germinant, in seed form, in a crushed and struggling race. Hence the history of Samson; hence the reason why he who possessed scarcely a moral element of character is spoken of as under the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord. A blind impulse inspired him to fight for the protection of his nation against the barbarous tribes that threatened their destruction, and with this impulse came rushing floods of preternatural strength. With the history of this inspired giant is entwined that of a woman whose name has come to stand as a generic term for a class,—Delilah! It is astonishing with what wonderful dramatic vigor a few verses create before us this woman so vividly and so perfectly that she has been recognized from age to age.

Delilah! not the frail sinner falling through too much love; not the weak, downtrodden woman, the prey of man's superior force; but the terrible creature, artful and powerful, who triumphs over man, and uses man's passions for her own ends, without an answering throb of passion. As the strength of Samson lies in his hair, so the strength of Delilah lies in her hardness of heart. If she could love, her power would depart from her. Love brings weakness and tears that make the hand tremble and theeye dim. But she who cannot love is guarded at all points;herhand never trembles, and no soft, fond weakness dims her eye so that she cannot see the exact spot where to strike. Delilah has her wants,—she wants money, she wants power,—and men are her instruments; she will make them her slaves to do her pleasure.

Samson, like the great class of men in whom physical strength predominates, appears to have been constitutionally good-natured and persuadable, with a heart particularly soft towards woman. He first falls in love with a Philistine woman whom he sees, surrendering almost without parley. His love is animal passion, with good-natured softness of temper; it is inconsiderate, insisting on immediate gratification. Though a Nazarite, vowed to the service of the Lord, yet happening to see this woman, he says forthwith: "I have seen a woman in Timnath, of the daughters of the Philistines; therefore get her for me for a wife. Then said his father and his mother, Is there never a woman of the daughters of thy people, that thou goest to take a Philistine woman to wife? But he said, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well."

She is got; and then we find the strong man, through his passion for her, becoming the victim of the Philistines. He puts out a riddle for them to guess. "And they said to Samson's wife, Entice thy husband that he may declare unto us the riddle. And Samson's wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people and hast not told me. And she wept before him seven days, and on the seventh day he told her." A picture this of what has been done in kings' palaces and poor men's hovels ever since,—man's strength was overcome and made the tool of woman's weakness.

We have now a record of the way this wife was taken from him, and of the war he declared against the Philistines, and of exploits which caused him to be regarded as the champion of his nation by the Hebrews, and as a terror by his enemies. He holds them in check, and defends his people, through acourse of years; and could he have ruled his own passions, he might have died victorious. The charms of a Philistine woman were stronger over the strong man than all the spears or swords of his enemies.

The rest of the story reads like an allegory, so exactly does it describe that unworthy subservience of man to his own passions, wherein bad women in all ages have fastened poisonous roots of power. The man is deceived and betrayed, with his eyes open, by a woman whom he does not respect, and who he can see is betraying him. The story is for all time. The temptress says: "How canst thou say, I love thee, when thy heart is not with me? Thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth. And it came to pass when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him so that his soul was vexed to death, that he told her all his heart." Then Delilah runs at once to her employers. "She sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, he hath told me all his heart. And she made him sleep upon her knees; and called for a man, and bade him shave off the seven locks, and his strength went from him. And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson, and he awoke and said, I will go out and shake myself, as at other times, and he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. But the Philistines took him, and put on him fetters of brass, and he did grind in their prison house."

Thus ignobly ends the career of a deliverer whose birth was promised to his parents by an angel, who was vowed to God, and had the gift of strength to redeem a nation. Under the wiles of an evil woman he lost all, and sunk lower than any slave into irredeemable servitude.

The legends of ancient history have their parallels. Hercules, the deliverer, made the scoff and slave of Omphale, and Antony, become the tool and scorn of Cleopatra, are but repetitions of the same story. Samson victorious, all-powerful, carrying the gates of Gaza on his back, the hope of his countrymen and the terror of his enemies; and Samson shorn, degraded, bound, eyeless, grinding in the prison-house of thosehe might have subdued,—such was the lesson given to the Jews of the power of the evil woman. And the story which has repeated itself from age to age, is repeating itself to-day. There are women on whose knees men sleep, to awaken shorn of manliness, to be seized, bound, blinded, and made to grind in unmanly servitude forever.

"She hath cast down many wounded,Yea, many strong men hath she slain;Her house is the way to Hell,Going down to the chambers of Death."

Jephthah's daughterJephtha's Daughter

Jephtha's Daughter

tThis story, which has furnished so many themes for the poet and artist, belongs, like that of Samson, to the stormy and unsettled period of Jewish history which is covered by the Book of Judges.

This story, which has furnished so many themes for the poet and artist, belongs, like that of Samson, to the stormy and unsettled period of Jewish history which is covered by the Book of Judges.

Jephtha, an illegitimate son, is cast out by his brethren, goes off into a kind of border-land, and becomes, in that turbulent period, a leader of a somewhat powerful tribe.

These times of the Judges remind us forcibly, in some respects, of the chivalric ages. There was the same opportunity for an individual to rise to power by personal valor, and become an organizer and leader in society. A brave man was a nucleus around whom gathered others less brave, seeking protection, and the individual in time became a chieftain. The bravery of Jephtha was so great, and his power and consideration became such, that when his native land was invaded by the Ammonites, he was sent for by a solemn assembly of his people, and appointed their chief. Jephtha appears, from the story, to have been a straightforward, brave, generous, God-fearing man.

The story of his vow is briefly told. "And Jephtha vowed a vow unto the Lord and said, If thou wilt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, then it shall be that whatsoever cometh first out of my door to meet me, when I return, shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it as a whole offering unto the Lord." The vow was recorded, a great victory was given, and the record says, "And Jephtha came to Mizpah, unto his house, and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels. She was his only child, and beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas! my daughter, thouhast brought me very low; for I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and cannot go back. And she said, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth to the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even the children of Ammon. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: Let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains to bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months, and she went with her companions and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow."

And what was that? The popular version generally has been that Jephtha killed his daughter, and offered her a burnt sacrifice. Josephus puts this interpretation upon it, saying that "he offered such an oblation as was neither conformable to the law nor acceptable to God; not weighing with himself what opinion the hearers would have of such a practice." A large and very learned and respectable body of commentators among the Jews, both ancient and modern, deny this interpretation, and, as appears to us, for the best of reasons.

Jephtha was a Jew, and human sacrifice was above all things abhorrent to the Jewish law and to the whole national feeling. There is full evidence, in other pictures of life and manners given in the Book of Judges, that in spite of the turbulence of the times, there were in the country many noble, God-fearing men and women who intelligently understood and practiced the wise and merciful system of Moses.

Granting that Jephtha, living in the heathen border-land, had mingled degrading superstitions with his faith, it seems improbable that such men as Boaz, the husband of Ruth, Elkanah, the husband of Hannah, Manoah and his wife, the parents of Samson, and the kind of people with whom they associated, could have accepted, as Judge of Israel, a man whom their laws would regard as guilty of such a crime. Besides, the Jewish law contained direct provisions for such vows. In three or fourplaces in the Jewish law, it is expressly stated that where a human being comes into the position of a whole offering to God, the life of that human being is not to be taken; and a process of substitution and redemption is pointed out. Thus the first-born of all animals and the first-born of all men were alike commanded to be made whole offerings to the Lord: the animals were slain and burnt, but the human being was redeemed. No one can deny that all these considerations establish a strong probability.

Finally, when historians and commentators are divided as to a fact, we are never far out of the way in taking that solution which is most honorable to our common human nature, and the most in accordance with our natural wishes. We suppose, therefore, that the daughter of Jephtha was simply taken from the ordinary life of woman, and made an offering to the Lord. She could be no man's wife; and with the feelings which were had in those days as to marriage, such a lot was to be lamented as the cutting off of all earthly hopes. It put an end to the house of Jephtha, as besides her he had no son or daughter, and it accounts for the language with which the account closes, "She knew not a man,"—a wholly unnecessary statement, if it be meant to say that she was killed. The more we reflect upon it, the more probable it seems that this is the right view of the matter.

The existence from early times among the Jews of an order of women who renounced the usual joys and privileges of the family state, to devote themselves to religious and charitable duties, is often asserted. Walter Scott, a learned authority as to antiquities, and one who seldom made a representation without examination, makes Rebecca, in Ivanhoe, declare to Rowena that from earliest times such an order of women had existed among her people, and to them she purposes to belong.

We cannot leave the subject without pausing to wonder at the exquisite manner in which the historian, whoever he was, has set before us a high and lovely ideal of womanhood in this Judæan girl. There is but a sentence, yet what calmness, what high-mindedness, what unselfish patriotism, are in the words! "My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth tothe Lord, do to me according to thy promise, forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance on thine enemies, the children of Ammon."

Whatever it was to which she so calmly acceded, it was to her the death of all earthly hope, calmly accepted in the very flush and morning tide of victory. How heroic the soul that could meet so sudden a reverse with so unmoved a spirit!

tThe story of Hannah is a purely domestic one, and is most valuable in unveiling the intimate and trustful life of faith that existed between the Jehovah revealed in the Old Testament and each separate soul, however retired and humble. It is not God the Lawgiver and King, but, if we may so speak, God in his private and confidential relations to the individual. The story opens briefly, after the fashion of the Bible, whose brevity in words is such a contrast to the tediousness of most professed sacred books.

The story of Hannah is a purely domestic one, and is most valuable in unveiling the intimate and trustful life of faith that existed between the Jehovah revealed in the Old Testament and each separate soul, however retired and humble. It is not God the Lawgiver and King, but, if we may so speak, God in his private and confidential relations to the individual. The story opens briefly, after the fashion of the Bible, whose brevity in words is such a contrast to the tediousness of most professed sacred books.

"There was a man," says the record, "named Elkanah, and he had two wives; and the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah, and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none." Hannah, from the story, appears to have had one of those intense natures, all nerve and sensibility, on which every trouble lies with double weight. The lack of children in an age when motherhood was considered the essential glory of woman, was to her the climax of anguish and mortification. Nor was there wanting the added burden of an unfriendly party to notice and to inflame the hidden wound by stinging commentaries; for we are told that "her adversary provoked her sore, to make her fret." And thus, year by year, as the family went up to the sacred feast at Shiloh, and other exultant mothers displayed their fair sons and daughters, the sacred feast was turned into gall for the unblest one, and we are told that Hannah "wept and did not eat." "Then said Elkanah unto her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? Am I not better to thee than ten sons?"

Hannah was one of a class of women in whom genius and a poetic nature are struggling with a vague intensity, givingthe keenest edge to desire and to disappointment. All Judæan women desire children, but Hannah had that vivid sense of nationality, that identification of self with the sublime future of her people, that made it bitter to be excluded from all share in those hopes and joys of motherhood from which the earth's deliverer was to spring. She desired a son, as poets desire song, as an expression of all that was heroic and unexpressed in herself, and as a tribute to the future glories of her people. A poet stricken with paralysis might suffer as she suffered. But it was a kind and degree of sorrow, the result of an exceptional nature, which few could comprehend. To some it would afford occasion only for vulgar jests. Even her husband, devoted as he was, wondered at rather than sympathised with it.

It appears that there rose at last one of those flood-tides of feeling when the soul cries out for relief, andmusthave a Helper; and Hannah bethought her of the words of Moses, "What nation is there that hath their Godso nighunto them as the Lord our God is unto us, for all that we call unto him for?" It is precisely for such sorrows—intimate, private, personal, and not to be comprehended fully by any earthly friend—that an All-seeing, loving Father is needed. And Hannah followed the teachings of her religion when she resolved to make a confidant of her God, and ask of him the blessing her soul fainted for. She chose the sacred feast at Shiloh for the interview with the gracious Helper; and, after the festival, remained alone in the holy place in an ecstasy of fervent prayer. The narrative says: "And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore. And she vowed a vow and said, O Lord of Hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but will give unto thine handmaid a man-child, then will I give him unto the Lord all the days of his life. And it came to pass as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah she spake in her heart, only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she had been drunken."

He—dear, kind-hearted, blundering old priest—reproved her with about as much tact as many similar, well-meaning, obtuse people use nowadays in the management of natures whose heights and depths they cannot comprehend. Hannah meekly answers: "No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not thy handmaid for a daughter of Belial, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace, the God of Israel grant thee thy petition thou hast asked of him. And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad."

This experience illustrates that kind of prevailing prayer that comes when the soul, roused to the full intensity of its being by the pressure of some anguish, pours itself out like a wave into the bosom of its God. The very outgush is a relief; there is healing in the very act of self-abandonment, as the whole soul casts itself on God. And though there be no present fulfillment, yet, in point of fact, peace and rest come to the spirit. Hannah had no voice of promise, no external sign, only the recorded promise of God to hear prayer; but the prayer brought relief. All the agony of desire passed away. Her countenance was no more sad. In due time, the visible answer came. Hannah was made the happy mother of a son, whom she called Samuel, or "Asked of God."

This year, when the family went up to Shiloh, Hannah remained with her infant; for she said to her husband, "I will not go up until the child be weaned; and then will I bring him that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide forever." The period of weaning was of a much later date among Jewish women than in modern times; and we may imagine the little Samuel three or four years old when his mother prepares, with all solemnity, to carry him and present him in the temple as her offering to God. "And when she had weaned him she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the Lord inShiloh; and the child was young. And they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli. And she said, O my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here praying unto the Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him. Therefore also have I lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. And she worshiped the Lord there."

And now the depths of this silent woman's soul break forth into a song of praise and thanksgiving. Hannah rises before us as the inspired poetess, and her song bears a striking resemblance in theme and in cast of thought to that of Mary the mother of Jesus, years after. Indeed, there is in the whole history of this sacred and consecrated child, a foreshadowing of that more celestial flower of Nazareth that should yet arise from the Judæan stock. This idea of a future Messiah and King permeated every pious soul in the nation, and gave a solemn intensity to the usual rejoicings of motherhood; for who knew whether the auspicious child might not spring from her lineage! We see, in the last verse of this poem, that Hannah's thoughts in her hour of joy fix themselves on the glorious future of the coming King and Anointed One as the climax of her joy.

It will be interesting to compare this song of Hannah with that of Mary, and notice how completely the ideas of the earlier mother had melted and transfused themselves into the heart of Mary. Years after, when the gathering forces of the Church and State were beginning to muster themselves against Martin Luther, and he stood as one man against a world, he took refuge in this song of the happy woman; printed it as a tract, with pointed commentaries, and spread it all over Europe; and in thousands of hamlets hearts were beating to the heroic words of the Judæan mother:—

"My heart rejoiceth in Jehovah,My horn is exalted in Jehovah;My speech shall flow out over my enemies,Because I rejoice in thy salvation.There is none holy as Jehovah:For there is none beside thee:Neither is there any rock like our God.Talk no more so exceeding proudly;Let not arrogance come out of thy mouth:For Jehovah is a God of knowledge,By him are actions weighed.The bows of mighty men are broken,But the weak are girded with strength.The rich have hired out for bread;But the hungry cease from want.The barren woman hath borne seven;The fruitful one hath grown feeble.Jehovah killeth and maketh alive;He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up.Jehovah maketh poor and maketh rich;He bringeth low, and lifteth up.He raiseth the poor out of the dust,He lifteth the beggar from the dunghill,To set them among princes,To make them inherit the throne of glory;For the pillars of the earth are Jehovah's,He hath set the world upon them.He will keep the feet of his saints,The wicked shall be silent in darkness;For by strength no man shall prevail.The adversaries of Jehovah shall be broken to pieces;Out of heaven shall he thunder upon them.Jehovah shall judge the ends of the earth;He shall give strength unto his King,And exalt the horn of his Anointed."

This song shows the fire, the depth, the fervency of the nature of this woman, capable of rising to the sublimest conceptions. It is the ecstasy of the triumph of conscious weakness in an omnipotent protector. Through her own experience, as it is with every true soul, she passes to the experience of universal humanity; in her Deliverer she sees the Deliverer and Helper of all the helpless and desolate; and thus, through the gate of personal experience, she comes to a wide sympathy with all who live. She loves her God, not mainly and only for what he is to her, but for what he is to all. How high and splendid were these conceptions and experiences that visited and hallowed the life of the simple and lowly Jewish woman in those rugged and unsettled periods, and what beautiful glimpses do we get of the good and honest-hearted people that lived at that time in Palestine, and went up yearly to worship at Shiloh!

After this we have a few more touches in this beautiful story. The little one remained in the temple; for it is said, "And Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod. Moreover, his mother made him a little coat and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice." How the little one was cared for the story does not say. In some passages of the Bible, we have intimations of an order of consecrated women who devoted themselves to the ministries of the temple, like Anna the prophetess, "who departed not from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayer, night and day." Doubtless from the hands of such were motherly ministries. One rejoices to hear that the Gracious Giver blessed this mother abundantly more than she asked or thought; for we are told that a family of three sons and two daughters were given to her.

We cannot forbear to add to this story that of the sacred little one, who grew fair as the sheltered lily in the house of God. Child of prayer, born in the very ardor and ecstasy of a soul uplifted to God, his very nature seemed heavenly, and the benignant Father early revealed himself to him, choosing him as a medium for divine messages. One of the most thrilling and poetic passages in the Bible describes the first call of the Divine One to the consecrated child. The lamps burning in the holy place; the little one lying down to sleep; the mysterious voice calling him; his innocent wonder, and the slow perception of old Eli of the true significance of the event,—all these form a beautiful introduction to the life of the last and most favored of those prophetic magistrates who interpreted to the Jewish people the will of God. Samuel was the last of the Judges,—the strongest, the purest, and most blameless,—the worthy son of such a mother.

RuthRuth

Ruth

tThe story of Ruth is a beautiful idyl of domestic life, opening to us in the barbarous period of theJudges. In reading some of the latter chapters of that book, one might almost think that the system of Moses had proved a failure, and that the nation was lapsing back into the savage state of the heathen world around them; just as, in reading the history of the raids and feuds of the Middle Ages, one might consider Christianity a failure. But in both cases there were nooks and dells embosomed in the wild roughness of unsettled society, where good and honest hearts put forth blossoms of immortal sweetness and perfume. This history of Ruth unveils to us pictures of the best people and the best sort of life that were formed by the laws and institutes of Moses,—a life pastoral, simple, sincere, reverential, and benevolent.

The story of Ruth is a beautiful idyl of domestic life, opening to us in the barbarous period of theJudges. In reading some of the latter chapters of that book, one might almost think that the system of Moses had proved a failure, and that the nation was lapsing back into the savage state of the heathen world around them; just as, in reading the history of the raids and feuds of the Middle Ages, one might consider Christianity a failure. But in both cases there were nooks and dells embosomed in the wild roughness of unsettled society, where good and honest hearts put forth blossoms of immortal sweetness and perfume. This history of Ruth unveils to us pictures of the best people and the best sort of life that were formed by the laws and institutes of Moses,—a life pastoral, simple, sincere, reverential, and benevolent.

The story is on this wise: A famine took place in the land of Judah, and a man named Elimelech went with his wife and two sons to sojourn in the land of Moab. The sons took each of them a wife of the daughters of Moab, and they dwelt there about ten years. After that, the man and both the sons died, and the mother, with her two widowed young daughters, prepared to return to her kindred. Here the scene of the little drama opens.

The mother, Naomi, comes to our view, a kind-hearted, commonplace woman, without any strong religious faith or possibility of heroic exaltation,—just one of those women who see the hard, literal side of a trial, ungilded by any faith or hope. We can fancy her discouraged and mournful air, and hear the melancholy croak in her voice as she talks to her daughters, when they profess their devotion to her, and their purpose to share her fortunes and go with her to the land of Israel.

"Turn again, my daughters; why will ye go with me? Are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say that I have hope to-night that I should have an husband, and bear sons, would ye tarry for them till they were grown? Would ye stay from having husbands? Nay, my daughters, it grieveth me for your sake that the hand of the Lord hath gone out against me."

This pre-eminently literal view of the situation seemed to strike one of the daughters as not to be gainsaid; for we read: "And they lifted up their voices and wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her."

All the world through, from that time to this, have been these two classes of friends. The one weep, and kiss, and leave us to our fate, and go to seek their own fortunes. There are plenty of that sort every day. But the other are one with us for life or death.

The literal-minded, sorrowful old woman has no thought of inspiring such devotion. Orpah, in her mind, has done the sensible and only thing in leaving her, and she says to Ruth: "Behold, thy sister has returned unto her people and unto her gods; return thou after thy sister-in-law."

We see in this verse how devoid of religious faith is the mother. In a matter-of-course tone she speaks of Orpah having gone back to her gods, and recommends Ruth to do the like. And now the fair, sweet Ruth breaks forth in an unconscious poetry of affection, which has been consecrated as the language of true love ever since: "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me."

Troth-plight of fondest lovers, marriage-vows straitest and most devoted, can have no love-language beyond this; it is the very crystallized and diamond essence of constancy anddevotion. It is thus that minds which have an unconscious power of enthusiasm surprise and dominate their literal fellow-pilgrims. It is as if some silent dun-colored bird had broken out into wondrous ecstasies of silver song. Naomi looked on her daughter, and the narrative says, "When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking to her." But Ruth is ignorant of the beauty of her own nature; for Love never knows herself or looks in a mirror to ask if she be fair; and though her superior moral and emotive strength prevail over the lower nature of the mother, it is with a sweet, unconscious, yielding obedience that she follows her.

When they came back to their kindred, the scene is touchingly described. In her youth the mother had been gay and radiant, as her name, Naomi, "pleasant," signifies. "And it came to pass that when they came in, all the village was moved about them, and they said: Is this Naomi? And she said: "Call me not Naomi, call me Marah [bitterness]; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me again empty. Why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?"

We see here a common phase of a low order of religion. Naomi does not rebel at the Divine decree. She thinks that she is bitterly dealt with, but that there is no use in complaining, because it is theAlmightythat has done it. It does not even occur to her that in going away from the land of true religion, and encouraging her sons to form marriages in a heathen land, she had done anything to make this affliction needful; and yet the whole story shows that but for this stroke the whole family would have settled down contentedly among the Moabites, and given up country and religion and God. There are many nowadays to whom just such afflictions are as needful, and to whom they seem as bitter and inexplicable.

The next scene shows us the barley-field of the rich proprietor,—"a mighty man, a man of wealth," the narrativecalls him. Young men and maidens, a goodly company, are reaping, binding, and gathering. In the shade are the parched corn and sour wine, and other provisions set forth for the noontide rest and repast.

The gracious proprietor, a noble-minded, gentle old man, now comes upon the scene. "And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to the reapers, The Lord be with you; and they answered, The Lord bless thee." The religious spirit of the master spread itself through all his hands, and the blessing that he breathes upon them was returned to him. The sacred simplicity of the scene is beyond praise.

He inquires of his men the history of this fair one who modestly follows the reapers, and, finding who she is, says: "Hearest thou, my daughter, go not to glean in any other field, but abide here with my maidens. Let thine eyes be upon the field that they reap, and go after them: have I not charged the young men not to touch thee? and when thou art athirst, go to the vessels and drink of that that the young men have drawn." Then she bowed herself and said: "Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldst take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?" And he said: "It hath been fully shown unto me all that thou hast done to thy mother-in-law since the death of thy husband; how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come to a people that thou knewest not heretofore. The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust."

We have afterwards the picture of the young gleaner made at home at the noontide repast, where the rich proprietor sat with his servants in parental equality,—"And she sat beside the reapers, and he did reach her parched corn, and she did eat and was sufficed."

There is a delicacy in the feeling inspired by the timid, modest stranger, which is expressed in the orders given by Boaz to the young men. "And it came to pass when she rose to glean, that Boaz commanded his young men, saying:Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not; and let fall also some handfuls of purpose for her, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not."

Gleaning, by the institutes of Moses, was one of the allotted privileges of the poor. It was a beautiful feature of that system that consideration for the poor was interwoven with all the acts of common life. The language of the laws of Moses reminded the rich that they were of one family with the poor. "Thou shalt not harden thy heart nor shut thy hand from thypoor brother. Thou shalt surely give to him, and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest, because for this the Lord thy God shall bless thee." "And when ye reap the harvest of your land thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of the field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest; and thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord." This provision for the unfortunate operated both ways. It taught consideration and thoughtfulness to the rich, and industry and self-respect to the poor. They were not humbled as paupers. They were not to be beggars, but gleaners, and a fair field for self-respecting labor was opened to them. In the spirit of these generous laws the rich proprietor veils his patronage of the humble maid. Ruth was to be abundantly helped, as it were, by a series of fortunate accidents.

We see in the character of Boaz the high-minded, chivalrous gentleman, devout in his religion Godward, and considerately thoughtful of his neighbor; especially mindful of the weak and helpless and unprotected. It was the working out, in one happy instance, of the ideal of manhood the system of Moses was designed to create.

And now the little romance goes on to a happy termination. The fair gleaner returns home artlessly triumphant with the avails of her day's toil, and tells her mother of the kind patronage she has received. At once, on hearing the name, the prudent mother recognizes the near kinsman of the family, bound, by the law of Moses and the custom of the land,to become the husband and protector of her daughter. In the eye of Jewish law and Jewish custom Ruth already belonged to Boaz, and had a right to claim the position and protection of a wife. The system of Moses solved the problem of woman by allotting to every woman a man as a protector. A widow had her son to stand for her; but if a widow were left without a son, then the nearest kinsman of the former husband was bound to take her to wife. The manner in which Naomi directs the simple-minded and obedient daughter to throw herself on the protection of her rich kinsman is so far removed from all our modern ideas of propriety that it cannot be judged by them. She is directed to seek the threshing-floor at night, to lie down at his feet, and draw over her his mantle; thus, in the symbolic language of the times, asserting her humble right to the protection of a wife. Ruth is shown to us as one of those artless, confiding natures that see no evil in what is purely and rightly intended. It is enough for her, a stranger, to understand that her mother, an honored Judæan matron, would command nothing which was not considered decorous and proper among her people. She obeys without a question. In the same spirit of sacred simplicity in which the action was performed it was received. There is a tender dignity and a chivalrous delicacy in the manner in which the bold yet humble advance is accepted.

"And Boaz awoke, and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who art thou? And she said, I am Ruth, thy handmaid. Spread thy skirt over me, for thou art my near kinsman. And he said, Blessed art thou of the Lord, my daughter, for thou hast shown more kindness at the end than in the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not the young men, poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do for thee all that thou requirest, for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman."

The very crucial test of gentlemanly delicacy and honor is the manner in which it knows how to receive an ingenuous and simple-hearted act of confidence. As in the fields Boaz did not ostentatiously urge alms upon the timid maiden, butsuffered her to have the pleasure of gleaning for herself, so now he treats this act by which she throws herself upon his protection as an honor done to him, for which he is bound to be grateful. He hastens to assure her that he is her debtor for the preference she shows him. That courtesy and chivalric feeling for woman which was so strong a feature in the character of Moses, and which is embodied in so many of his laws and institutes, comes out in this fine Hebrew gentleman as perfectly, but with more simplicity, than in the Sir Charles Grandison of the eighteenth century. And so, at last, the lovely stranger, Ruth the Moabitess, becomes the wife of the rich landed proprietor, with the universal consent of all the people. "And all the people that were in the gates and the elders said, We are witnesses. The Lord make this woman that is come into thy house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel."

From this marriage of the chivalrous, pious old man with the devoted and loving Ruth the Moabitess, sprang an auspicious lineage. The house of David, the holy maiden of Judæa and her son, whom all nations call blessed, were the illustrious seed of this wedding. In the scene at the birth of the first son of Ruth, we have a fine picture of the manners of those days. "And the women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel. And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life and a nourisher of thy old age: for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, and is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him. And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. And the women her neighbors gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed; he is the father of Jesse, the father of David."

In all this we see how strong is the impression which thelovingnature of Ruth makes in the narrative. From the union of this woman so tender and true, and this man so gracious and noble and chivalric, comes the great heart-poet of the world. No other songs have been so dear to mankind, socherished in the heart of high and low, rich and poor, in every nation and language, as these Psalms of David.

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