Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by JAMES DUNLAP, TREAS., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. STEREOTYPED BY JESPER HARDING & SON, INQUIRER BUILDING, SOUTH THIRD STREET, PHILA. INTRODUCTION. In this little volume I have a definite end in view. I candidly acknowledge that, with me, the reality of Bible histories is an indispensable condition to faith in the doctrines and precepts of Christianity. It is my purpose therefore, so far as the subject seems to come properly within the reach of these pages, to consider the history of Samson as a true history, explain its meaning, and apply its principles. Unless biblical memoirs are strictly true-a record of things as they were, and of facts as they did occur-if the men named are nations or myths, and not individuals—if the miracles wrought by Moses and Samson are mere natural phenomena or figures of speech; then I have no confidence that the doctrines of the Bible are from God. I am well aware that some do not like the subject I have chosen -they would prefer Joseph or Daniel as a hero. Others are ready to pronounce the effort as useless-and some consider it as an idle attempt to collect evidence," on a subject that does not admit of proof; and others will charge me with maintaining most uncritical, ignorant, unphilosophical, baseless assumptions in regard to the histories of the Bible, and the literal interpretation of the scriptures. But as Keil in his preface to Joshua expresses it, I am persuaded that "The great want of the Church, at the present day, is a clear comprehension of the meaning of the Old Testament, in its fulness and purity, in order that the God of Israel may again be universally recognized as the eternal God, whose faithfulness is unchangeable, the one living and true God, who performed all that he did to Israel for our instruction and salvation, having chosen Abraham and his seed to be his people, to preserve his revelations, that from him the whole world might receive salvation, and in him all the families of the earth be blessed." 1 * (5) |