extraordinary man had arrived at years of maturity, he saw a young female of the Philistines at Timnath, of whom he became enamoured; and his intreaties subdued the reluctance of her parents to consent to a matrimonial connexion with one of the Israelitish nation. As he went to demand her in marriage, he displayed that undaunted resolution, and that prodigious strength, which afterwards enabled him to perform exploits to which there is no parallel in history. A young lion came roaring upon him from a thicket; but though unarmed, he seized the ferocious monster and tore it as though it had been a kid. Soon afterwards, as he again proceeded to Timnath to celebrate his marriage, he turned aside to look upon the dead lion; he found that a swarm of bees had settled in the carcass, and that in this strange situation they had produced their honey, of which Samson partook, and then proceeded on his way. The marriage was soon afterwards performed; the inhabitants of Timnath provided thirty young men to become the companions of Samson, and the nuptial feast was celebrated. As the entertainment proceeded, Samson proposed to them a riddle, "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." And he made the agreement, that if before the expiration of seven days, they ascertained its meaning, he would present to each of them a change of raiment; but if they failed, they were to bestow upon him the same number of garments. Perceiving that they were likely to lose their cause, the young men insidiously interested Samsou's wife in their favour. By her blandishments and her tears, she extorted the secret from Samson, and immediately communicated it to her countrymen. Samson discovered the treachery, he indignantly repaired to Ashkelon, slew thirty of the Philistines, presented their garments to the young men as the payment of his obligation, retired from Timnath, and returned again to the house of his father. Discovering afterwards, that his wife had been given to one of the young men who had feasted with him, and being still further insulted by the offer of her sister in her stead, he became, the inveterate and determined enemy of

the Philistines. By fastening firebrands to the tails of three hundred wild animals, most probably Jackalls, he consumed the standing crops of his enemies. The Philistines understood that Samson had thus annoyed them from revenge on account of the violation of his marriage contract at Timnath; they therefore punished this breach of faith by committing his wife and father-in-law to the flames. But the exasperation of Samson was by no means assuaged by this attempt to propitiate him; he destroyed great numbers of the Philistines, and then retreated for shelter to an elevated rock in the country of Judah. When the Philistines ascertained the place of his retreat, they came with a great army; they desolated the country; and so pusillanimous were its inhabitants, that they agreed to betray Samson to get rid of the invaders. But in vain were all their attempts to obtain possession of his person, until at length he suffered himself to be bound and to be conducted to the camp of the Philistines, who no sooner saw him, as they thought, securely fettered, than with loud shouts of joy they came to fall upon him. But Samson burst asunder the cords with which he was bound, like flax in the flame; the premature triumph of his enemies was transformed into terror; with the jaw-bone of an ass, a thousand of them were slain; and a single man became the conqueror of an army. Ready to die with thirst after this stupendous exertion of strength, and finding no water, he called upon God, and a rock called Machtesh, or cheek-bone, a name which had previously been imposed upon it, and which Samson afterwards designated Lehi, or jaw-bone, from the instrument of his victory, opened, water issued from the cleft, Samson was refreshed, and his vigour returned.

Conclude the history of Samson.

Some time after this great achievement, Samson went to Gaza, a city of the Philistines; and having there seen a harlot, or a woman who kept an house of entertainment, he turned in to lodge with her. The Philistines were soon apprised of his arrival, and took every possible precaution to secure him. But Samson, in the dead of the night, arose, carried away the two

gates of the city, with the gate-posts, bar, and chain, took them to a hill near Hebron, and thus escaped from the snare of his enemies. His licentiousness afterwards proved his ruin. Having formed a connexion with an abandoned woman who lived in the valley of Sorek, and whose name was Delilah, the Philistines offered her a great bribe to discover the source, and to effect the destruction, of his Herculean strength. He amused her for some time with pretexts, but at length, wearied with her continual importunity, he explained to her the token of his character as a Nazarite. When he lost his dedication to God, he was soon reduced to the weakness of an ordinary man. When his hair was treacherously cut off while he slumbered, his strength departed, he was seized by the Philistines, they bound him, they reduced him to a state of blindness, they inflicted upon him every cruel indignity which their malignant cruelty could invent, and they compelled him to perform the meanest functions of the most miserable slave. But as the hair of Sampson grew, his strength returned. The lords of the Philistines assembled to return thanks to Dagon, their idol, for having delivered their formidable enemy into their power. While they were rejoicing and carousing in the temple of that deity, they sent for Samson that they might insult him with mockery and scorn. Samson came; he requested his conductors to lead him to the pillars which supported the edifice, that he might rest himself; he entreated the assistance of God; by a stupendous effort of strength, he hurled the pillars from their foundations; the whole temple, which was crowded in every part with spectators, instantly fell; Samson and three thousand of the Philistines were numbered with the dead. Thus he killed more of his enemies when he died, than he had done during the whole of his life.

A. C, 1117.

SECTION V.

THE SAME CONTINUED.

WHAT circumstance occurred after the death of Samson, which illustrated the idolatrous propensities of the Israelites?

SOON after the death of Samson, a circumstance occurred which strikingly exhibits the tendency of the Israelites, at this period, to depart from the instituted ordinances of God. A wealthy widow of Ephraim had lost a sum of money, amounting to eleven hundred shekels; and being highly irritated by her loss, she uttered some heavy maledictions against the thief. Whether her son, Micah, had stolen it himself, or whether he had recovered it from some of the robbers, does not appear; but he informed his mother, that he had the money in his possession. The mother blessed her son for the intelligence; she told him that it was dedicated to God; an ephod and teraphim were constructed; and a Levite was soon found to assume the office of domestic priest. The ephod and the teraphim were, however, soon furtively removed by a body of the tribe of Dan, on their way to the conquest of Lachish; the Levite was prevailed upon to accompany them; in the city which they took, the idol was set up; and there it continued until "the day of the captivity of the land.”

What other event occurred about the same time which deplorably proved the prevalent profligacy of manners?

About the same time an awfully calamitous event, which took place in the country of the tribe of Benjamin, proved, even to the Israelites themselves, how gross, and even dreadful, was the profligacy of manners which prevailed. A Levite being on a journey with a concubine, arrived in the city of Gibeah of Benjamin, where he was hospitably entertained by a resident in the place. The men of the city surrounded the house in the evening, determined unnaturally to violate the laws of God and man. By the production

of the concubine, they were partially diverted from their disgusting intention; but they so abominably abused the unhappy woman, that in the morning she was found a lifeless corpse at the door. The subsequent conduct of the Levite excited at once the horror and indignation of the Israelites. He divided the body of the woman into three parts, and sent a part to each of the tribes of the people. The congregation was collected, the narrative of the Levite was given, and the whole assembly came to a determination to punish most severely the perpetrators of the atrocious outrage. The people demanded of the Benjaminites the ruffian murderers, that they might suffer the punishment due to their crime. They haughtily refused. The war immediately commenced. Twice the Israelites were defeated before the comparatively insignificant number of the children of Benjamin. But on the third occasion, Gibeah was taken by a stratagem, and with the exception of six hundred men who fled to the rock Rimmon, the tribe of Benjamin was extirpated. But when vengeance was satiated, repentance followed. By the promiscuous slaughter, the national strength was impaired, and one of the lights of Israel was almost extinguished. The Israelites bewailed their error; and because they had sworn never to give their daughters to the children of Benjamin, they knew not how to remedy the evil. But when the people were numbered, it was found that the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead had not obeyed the summons to the general muster in arms. They were devoted to destruction, four hundred virgins however were spared, and were presented to the surviving children of Benjamin. The daughters of Shiloh taken by force at a festival, supplied the deficiency; the inheritance of Benjamin was restored to its legitimate possessors; and in the course of years the tribe again appeared upon the theatre of action, and became celebrated for valorous achievement and obedience to the laws.

Who was Eli?

While Samson was engaged in his heroic resistance against the encroachments and tyramy of the Philistines, EL, of the race of Ithamar, who sustained the

H