HECTOR going forth to fight Achilles, is invited by his mother to take the luscious wine: "To whom great Hector of the glancing helm: Cf Saturn may the voice of prayer ascend "But what avail'd this temperance, not complete And at another to let in the foe, Effeminately vanquished?" MILTON. The Secret of Samson's Strength. "AND THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD BEGAN TO MOVE HIM AT MIGHTILY UPON HIM AND THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD CAME . . AND HE WIST NOT THAT THE LORD WAS DEPARTED FROM HIM. . . AND WHAT SHALL I MORE SAY, FOR THE TIME WOULD FAIL ME TO TELL OF . . SAMSON WHO THROUGH FAITH WAXED MIGHTY IN WAR, AND TURNED TO FLIGHT ARMIES OF ALIENS."-Judges xiii. 25; xiv. 6; xvi. 20; Heb. xi. 32-34. “Tell me,” said the wily Traitress to Samson, the Israelite Chief, whom she had entangled in her toils, "Tell me, where thy great strength lieth"; for adroit as she was, she could not trace his immense and incalculable power to its real source, and though bribed by the silver, and goaded by the craft of the defeated and irritated Philistines, she failed, in her first and second attempts, to lay bare the secret of his irresistible strength. 98 SAMSON'S PHYSIQUE. Samson was not transparent to the vision of those who were nearest him. His true nature was a riddle they could not solve. His phenomenal prowess was not written in the lines of a vast and unwieldy body, or, as imagined by some, in the flowing locks of his hair. It was no mere matter of exceptional physique, of massive thews and sinews, of Titanic proportions visible to every eye. Although, we may well suppose "A mighty man was he, With large and sinewy hands, And the muscles of his brawny arms Were strong as iron bands." Yet he was no child of the giants, trusting to his stalwart form and ponderous lunge for his successes; no Goliath of Gath, standing more than ten feet high, wielding a spear like a weaver's beam, and by the monstrous hugeness of his frame inspiring dread of his blows; no Hebrew Hercules going through his twelve labours by the sheer force of thoroughly disciplined muscle. As Milton says, Samson was the "strongest of mortal men." "Whom unarmed No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast could withstand; Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid d; Ran on embattled armies clad in iron; And, weaponless himself, Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery Of brazen shield and spear,"† *Josephus represents Goliath as measuring seven feet ten inches, and says he was "truly an enormous man." Lushkin, "the Russian giant," is said to have stood eight feet five inches, and to have been the tallest man of modern times. + Samson Agonistes. SAMSON A "JUDGE." 99 but assuredly he does not owe his place in the Revelation of God to extraordinary brute force, gigantic build, and layer upon layer of compact flesh, or Delilah would have had no difficulty in accounting for his invincible power, and the Philistines would not have been bewildered by his terror-spreading achievements. There was more in him than met the eye, or the question would not have been repeated with such despairing urgency, "Tell me where thy great strength lieth? Did it spring from the dignity and exaltation of his lot? Samson was a 66 Judge" in Israel, the "Saviour" of his tribe, the Liberator of his people, an " uncrowned king"; one of those elect military and moral leaders, raised up in an era of gross barbarity and wide-spread lawlessness to repress irreligion and godlessness, subdue the foes of Israel, call the people back to truth, and goodness, and God, and prepare them for the acceptance of law and order at the hands of His earthly representative, a Divinely-given King. But Samson's strength lay no more in his position than in his body. He had to make his opportunity rather than to take it. greatness nor was it thrust upon him. He stood alone, without followers, save such as felt his personal magnetism and were eager to join the bands of a capable leader; without organisation, except what he himself could extemporize for his emergencies; and without influence, beyond that which was consequent upon his successive and sustained victories. Whatever, then, may have been the indebtedness of this popular hero, it is undeniable that his position in the tribe of Dan gave him no advantage what ever. He was not born to 100 THE ONE ANSWER OF Therefore, we repeat Delilah's enquiry and say-if neither in the limbs he used, nor in the place he filled, where then lay his great strength? THREE ANSWERS EXIST: One in the OLD TESTAMENT; one in the NEW TESTAMENT; and another in the NEWEST TESTAMENT of all. The first is in the few glimpses we get of Samson's long history in the four chapters devoted to his career in the book of Judges. The second is in the brief but distinguishing notice accorded him in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he is bracketed with Gideon and Barak, Jephthah and David, as one of those illustrious worthies who, "through faith, subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness." The third is in the current life of our own day, in the great personalties through whom the living God still works His will, and builds up "His house"; in the organs and instruments and institutions He employs for advancing His redeeming rule in the hearts of men and transforming the whole life of mankind. But these three are ONE in fact, though given at different dates and in different terms, and each serves to make the other more manifest and serviceable. I. The first response, with all the uniqueness and definiteness of inspiration, brings us face to face with God. The historian of the Judges, with characteristic simplicity and directness, brevity and force, traces Samson's power, by one single and swift step, to Jehovah, and credits his marvellous triumphs to the mighty and immediate movements of the Divine Spirit. His birth is a Divine incident |