Hophni and Phineas, the sons of Eli, the High Priest. The Philistines fought against Israel; the Ark of God was taken from the tabernacle into the battle-field. It was captured by the enemy. Hophni and Phineas were killed; Eli died. The glory departed from Israel. The holy place at Shiloh, where the tabernacle had long stood, was overthrown. Everything was in desolation and confusion. This was the fearful time for which Samuel was raised up. He was the last of the judges. All the days of his life he judged Israel, never receiving a bribe to blind his eyes. When he was old and gray-headed, he called the children of Israel together at Gilgal, and said: "I have walked before you from my childhood till this day. Behold, here I am; witness against me before the Lord and before his anointed. Whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed?" And the people answered: "Thou hast not defrauded us nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken aught of any man's hand." It was this Samuel who gave them victory over the Philistines. They looked on his prayers to God as their best protection. He was more than a prophet. He founded schools of prophets, and trained up young ministers as evangelists, who went up and down the land calling the people to God. And he was more than all this. Samuel was the king-maker of Israel. He anointed Saul as first king, and then, when Saul was yet alive, he anointed David, and not Jonathan, Saul's son, as the rightful successor. His words did not fall to the ground. The people knew, and Saul knew, and David knew that what Samuel said was the will of God. And when Samuel died all Israel came together to lament over him. This man left a great name in all the afterhistory of the nation.

It is wonderful that you and many

millions of other children in all parts of the world should have been so eagerly poring over the life of a little boy born more than three thousand and fifty years ago among a rude people. Why are you doing it? Let

me answer.

1. These Bible stories are fresh every time you come to them. Those who have studied them through the greatest number of years, love them best, and find most in them. Hannah's motherly piety is a sweet fountain still bubbling up in every Christian household of the globe. The story of Samuel's holy life in the tabernacle of Shiloh is still a garden of roses from which, after three thousand years, each of you may pick a fresh and fragrant bouquet.

The great work of Samuel's life was to lift up and prepare the people of Israel for the kingdom of David, and David the king was a type of Christ the King, and David the prophet wrote in his Psalms of the Messiah who was to sit upon His throne for ever. Now the story of Samuel leads on to Christ, and God grant that it may lead many of you to the Christ at whose altars this holy child so faithfully ministered.

The place of his birth was a village called Ramah, not far north-east of Jerusalem, which was then a city held by the heathen Jeborites.

It was a dark and dismal time in the history of God's people when Samuel was born. The children of Israel did not occupy all the promised land. Heathen nations held part of it, and vexed, and destroyed, and robbed the scattered tribes.

And yet think of at least two very fortunate and favourable things there were about his beautiful childhood. In the first place he had a good father and mother. Elkanah, his father, we know but little about, but we know three things that are very creditable to

him. First, he was a kind husband. We read of Elkanah saying to Hannah, when she was in bitter sorrow, "Why is thy heart grieved? Am I not better to thee than ten sons?" Secondly, he was a pious Israelite. We see him going from Ramah to Shiloh with his whole family, children and servants, to offer his gifts to God. Thirdly, we see Elkanah consenting, with his wife, to give up Samuel to the service of the Lord.

But if the boy's father was good, what shall we say of his mother. She was a praying mother, opening her heart to God in silent prayer, in the bitterness of her soul, standing at the gate of the tabernacle. When God gave her a son she called his name Samuel," asked of God." And she was not a selfish mother. She did not say of the boy God gave to her, "He is mine." She gave him over to God's peculiar service. Many Christian fathers and mothers fail, in these days, to understand the fact that their children are gifts from the Heavenly Father to be consecrated back to the Giver. And then remember that Hannah gave up her child at an age when it is hardest for a mother to be parted from her darling. Samuel was probably three years old when he was taken to Shiloh to serve in the tabernacle, and how the mother's arms must have longed to hold him! If you know anything on earth more lovely than a three year's child, I have yet to see it. Then I suppose you think she wept as Samuel was taken into the tent. But we read of Hannah that she prayed, and then burst forth in a song of thanksgiving so wonderful that when the heart of Mary, the mother of Jesus, was full of gladness, she spoke almost the same words. From her lips came, as Dean Stanley says, "The first mention of the Messiah."

When you fully give up to God the thing you most cling to-your will, it may be, the having your own way, or your heart's best love, or anything else, then God often puts into your mouth a song of gladness.

2. Samuel was fortunate in being brought up in the tabernacle with its holy places, holy memories, and holy services. He was set apart to a holy life. He was not entirely separated from his family. At least once a year he saw them, and once a year his mother brought to him an ephod or linen mantle, lovingly wrought by her own hands. It was very common in old times for women, even in the highest ranks, to make clothes for those whom they loved. We are told that Augustus, the Emperor of Rome, wore garments made for him by his wife, sister or daughter. I have no doubt that Samuel's heart was always devoted to his mother. Samuel probably went back to his earliest home in Ramah. But from the age of three till his manhood he lived in God's house-the great tent or tabernacle which had been put up by Moses in the wilderness. He had before him all this while the relic or memorial of the desert life of the children of Israel, reminding him of God's goodness and mercy to his fathers.

It was in such a place that Samuel waited upon Eli, the High Priest, who doubtless faithfully taught him the law and opened to his mind the meaning of the services, and feasts, and sacrifices which priests and people observed. God must have come very near to the soul of this holy child in these memorials and in these associations. His heart was made ready to hear the call of God, and the voice of God came at last to the young prophet who had been chosen for a great work. In the early morning, before he rose to put out the lights, the voice, as you re

member, came to him three times, and he thought it was the call of the High Priest, to whom he went, saying, "Here am I, for thou didst call me." Then Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child. And Samuel went and lay down, and when the call came again he answered, " Speak, for thy servant heareth." And the Lord revealed to Samuel that the house of Eli was to be sorely punished because of the wickedness of Eli's sons, whose father had not restrained them. And when morning came and Eli demanded of Samuel the Lord's word, he told him bravely and truly every whit, hiding nothing. Then it is said that all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be the prophet of the Lord.

We learn from all this that God's call may come to children; that He may and does speak to those who are in life's fresh morning. It is not by the sound of thunder that God speaks as He did in Sinai. It is not by voice that you can hear as in the days when He was revealing Himself to men, but in the still small voice of conscience, in the silent and often unheeded breathing of His Holy Spirit in your hearts when you lie awake and wonder and dream and think and pray, God may he turning your minds to do something which you have never done before. It may be to seek after Christ, Who is very near, to take your stand before others as a Christian, to give your life to some special service. Oh, be attentive to every call of God and be very obedient.

Beginning a Christian life early is God's way for us. There is nothing unnatural about it. It doesn't mean that these children are to be little saints, free from all faults, perfect in word and in action. It means that they are to be healthy, active, happy boys and girls, young men and women,

learning and unlearning, making mistakes and yet making progress, growing more and more into God's favor. It is said several times of the child Samuel, it is said of the child John the Baptist, and of the child Jesus, that they grew. "Why of course they did," you say. But the Bible teaches by it that we do not become mature and perfect at once. To become religious," it has been wisely said, "does not make a prodigy of a boy or girl. It is not a hot-bed process." The Bible, in the beautiful picture of Samuel's childhood, describes a boy who was like a tree, but one planted in the courts of God where it grew into beauty and power. God grant that you all may love His house and His service.

"The older I grow," said one of my former teachers, "the more Christianity fascinates, amazes, and satisfies me." The more this wise man learned and felt and saw, the more he believed that God's ways and plans are the best. Now there is one part of God's plan which, as I grow older, I admire and revere more and more. It is this, that the soul of the child should be so impressed, and trained, and developed in good, and in love to God and man, that it will be kept pure and true, and not need to be wrenched violently from bad courses and habits back into obedience and holiness. Many young people seem to think that the best thing for them to do is to live for the world's pleasures, to live selfish lives, even to know something by actual experiment of sin. But after a while they expect to turn about and settle down and get on good terms with God and please Him and get ready for heaven. That is the meanest and most perilous course any one can mark out for himself. It is the meanest because it hardens the heart to the tenderest appeals of God. What

called " treasure cities" which the Hebrews built for Pharoah were depots for the storing of the increase of the land. Such experiences as the seven years' famine in the days of Joseph would have taught the Egyptians the importance of maintaining such depots, where the surplus produce of fruitful years might be laid up for years of straitness. Keeping this in mind, then, that this Pithom was one of these "store cities," what a singular interest attaches to the account of the discoveries of M. Naville, as given in the following words in the Jewish Chronicle: "So far as the excavations have gone, they have laid bare the remains of a building of quite unique character, both as to its material and its architectural peculiarities. Receptacle after receptacle, bin after bin, have been laid bare, evidently intended to preserve large stores of food or other perishable articles."

But this is not all. The narrative in Exodus v. tells us that at first the officers set over the toiling Hebrews had given them straw wherewith to make their bricks; that after Moses threatened Pharoah with judgment from God, he forbade the task-masters of the people any more to give them straw; that they were scattered over the land to gather stubble instead of straw; were beaten because they were not able to furnish the full tale of bricks as before; that they went to Pharoah to complain, but were told : "Go now and work; for there shall

no straw be given you; yet ye shall deliver the full tale of bricks." Plainly the impossible could not be done; and evidently, if the building was to go on, the lack of straw must appear in the bricks. Turning now to the narrative of these discoveries, what a singular confirmation of the minute accuracy of all these details in the Exodus narrative do we have in the

statement of Mr. Poole, who has himself visited these uncovered store houses of Pithom, that they 66 are built of bricks, made sometimes with and sometimes without straw."

A single point in addition may be mentioned, that the vexed question of the location of Succoth-the first stopping place of the Hebrews on their departure (Ex. xii., 37)—has by these excavations been settled. They have revealed the fact that Succoth was simply another-the secular-as Pithom, the house of (the god) Thom, was the sacred-name of one and the self-same city, a fact in full accord with old Egyptian usage.

Comment on this is scarcely needed. To suppose that a narrative again, as so often before, shown to be so minutely accurate was written centuries afterwards is absurd. Only one theory accounts for the facts: that the writer of the narrative was personally acquainted with them all-a man, in short, who had gone through these experiences. And if such a man, who then but Moses? We have long felt that probably the best and most conclusive answer to the modern critics who dispute the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch was to be found in the comparison of the results of recent researches in Egypt with the Pentateuchal narrative. We believe that the result will be to evince to every candid mind that any theory which placed the authorship of the Pentateuch at any time other than that to which all tradition and external testimony have from the earliest date assigned it is only to be held preposterous. A popular essay of this kind, by some thoroughly competent person, would in the judgment of the writer, be just now most timely.

PROFESSOR S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.