Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers. William Hale White

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СКАЧАТЬ earth would be given up to the abominations of the Canaanites. The Lord had brought us out of Egypt, and through the desert. He had appeared to us on Sinai, and had given us His commandments, by which alone we could live. He had revealed unto us that we should be pure, and separate ourselves from the filth around us. He had roused up Moses, and Joshua, and the Judges, all of whom strove to preserve and ever build higher and stronger the wall which was to protect us, so that the sacred Law and the service of the one God might continue. Israel was but a handful in the midst of Philistines and Amalekites, nations which worshipped Baal with fornication and all kinds of uncleanness, and Israel was ever at the point of mingling with them. Then it would have been forgotten as they will be forgotten; but if it will only abide in the Law, as given in thunder and lightning in the wilderness, it will be great, when, except for their struggles with Israel, the recollection of Amalekite and Philistine shall have perished.

      I often was alone amidst a people which had well nigh all gone astray, but I remembered the voice which I heard in the Temple when I was a child. I sought the Most High day and night, and He came very close to me, and it became clearer and clearer to me that all things were as nothing compared with the Law, and that everything was to be set aside for its sake. Alone, I say, I testified on His behalf, but He kept me. Neither women nor wine have I ever known when men were given over to women and wine: His Vision has filled me, dedicate to Him ere I was born.

      The Lord chastised Israel through their enemies, and I besought the people to turn away from the Philistine gods and their iniquities. I gathered them together in Mizpeh: the Philistines heard of it, and came down upon Mizpeh, thinking that now they could wipe us out from the face of the earth. Kings have had their captains, but I had none, and was not a man of war; the people were in a panic; their lascivious idolatry of Baal had destroyed their strength, and the enemy lay opposite us. That night I did not sleep, but went to the Lord in prayer. If I had had nothing but my own strength which I could trust I should have fainted, for what could I, unlearned in battle, do against such an army, and with no soldiers save a frightened mob, which knew that it deserved God's wrath. I wrestled with the Most High as Jacob wrestled, and I implored Him to remember His promise to our fathers. I called to mind that day by the borders of the sea, when His angel which went before the camp of the Israelites removed and went behind them, and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face and stood behind them, and how the waters were a wall on the right hand and on the left, and in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians. I called to mind the night when Gideon and his three hundred stood round the Midianites, and the Lord set every man's sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host. I called to mind the voice which spoke to me when as a child I lay on my bed in the Lord's House. As I communed and wrestled, the tent was filled with light, brighter than that of the sun at noon. No word was spoken, but I knew it was the light of Him whom to see is death, but whose light is life. All fear departed, and as the glory slowly waned, sleep overcame me—sleep like that of an infant; and when the morning dawned, and I opened the doors of my tent and watched the sun rise, I was strong with the strength of ten thousand men, and rejoiced, although the Philistines were like the sand on the seashore for multitude. I caused the trumpet to sound, and brought Israel together. On the hill there in Mizpeh, in sight of the people who stood round trembling, I builded an altar and slew a lamb, and offered it as a sacrifice to Him who had appeared unto me. I prayed again, for as the smoke of the burnt-offering rose in the clear air, the Philistines came up the hill to battle with us, and the people cried, and were on the point of fleeing this way and that way, to be pursued and slain. I commanded them to be still. The Philistines drew nearer and nearer, and I prayed ever more and more earnestly. The smoke of the offering was beginning to die down, and yet I prayed. The fire was well nigh out to the last spark, and for a moment I doubted, forgetful of the vision, for the music of the army of Dagon could now be heard. Suddenly the fire flamed up on high from the grey ashes, as if a heap of the driest wood of summer had been thrown on it, and I saw a little cloud gather on the other side of the Philistine hosts, and I knew that my prayer was answered. The flame dropped instantly, but the cloud spread itself even as I looked, and the wind arose, and hither and thither across the cloud flashed the lightning. Onward it came till it rested over the Philistines, and then it broke and descended on them, and they were shut out from us in thick darkness. The thunder of the Lord crashed and rolled, and we saw His lightnings pierce down like swords. Silent we stood, and presently the cloud lifted, and the Philistines, who, a few minutes before, marched against us in order, were a confused mass, struggling hither and thither, and many of them were lying dead on the ground. Then, with one accord, Israel shouted, and ran and smote the Philistines until they came under Bethcar. I went not with them; but when they had all departed, I took a stone and set it up between Mizpeh and Shen, and wrote on it Ebenezer, for hitherto had the Lord helped us—the Lord, I say, and never a man, as it was the Lord and never a man who has helped us since we left Egypt.

      After that defeat the Philistines troubled us no more, and the cities which they had taken from us were restored; but when I became old, the people grew restless, and desired a change. The Lord, to humble me, and prevent boasting by His servant, had afflicted me with two sons, who obeyed not His commandments; and the people put forward these two sons, who were judges under me, as a reason why a king should be given them. If, however, my sons did injustice, I was still alive to whom appeal could be made, and why should a king, because he was a king, be better? The Lord had brought us out of Egypt, and had ruled us through His ministers. We had no court, with women and with splendour; and those who won our battles lived like those whom they led. Our gold and our silver were saved for the House of the Lord, which was His, and for all of us. The office of king was foreign to us: it was heathen and hateful to me. None more earnestly than I worshipped the Lord, and submitted myself to His direction, and imposed His will even to death upon the people. But that a man, because he was called king, should rule, and send the people hither and thither for his own ends, and slaughter them, was horrible to me. I sought the Lord in prayer to know how I should meet this request, and He counselled me to yield.

      I assembled the people together, and rehearsed unto them all that had been done for them without the help of a king. I foretold to them that the king would be for himself, and not for them—that he would press their sons and daughters into his service; but the people would not listen to me. The Lord had said unto me that they had not rejected me, but rejected Him that He should not reign over them, as they had ever done since the day when they were brought up out of Egypt. I cared not, however, for their rejection of me, but because it was He who was rejected. I thought over it night and day, and it well nigh broke my heart.

      Those who had hitherto been placed over us had not been chosen because they were the sons of the rich, or of those who were chosen before them. Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Jephthah, were all of them select of the Lord from the people. Nay, even a woman had been taken to judge Israel—Deborah the prophetess, who dwelt under the palm-tree here between Ramah and Bethel. It was Deborah who sent for Barak to lead the host against Sisera, and Barak said to her that if she went he would go, but if she went not he would not go, so mighty was her presence. Sisera gathered together his army and all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron; but Deborah spoke a word in the ears of Barak, when he was afraid, and Sisera was discomfited with all his chariots and his host. He fled, and it was a woman, Jael, the wife of Heber, who slew him—for ever honoured be her name. In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byeways; the rulers ceased in Israel; the people chose new gods; there was war in the gates; there was no shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel until Deborah arose. The family of Gideon also was the poorest in Manasseh, and yet it was to him that the angel was sent, and he subdued the Midianites and the children of the East. This hitherto had been the Lord's way with us; and now we were to abandon Him for a king, whose children, because they were king's children, were to be our commanders. It well nigh broke my heart, I say. The glory of the Tabernacle was henceforth to be dim, overshadowed by the pomp of a monarch. I could not endure it, and again I went to the Lord, and besought Him to turn the people or visit them with the thunder and lightning of Mizpeh, that they might repent of their iniquity and live. But He would not speak to them beyond what He had spoken through СКАЧАТЬ