(1) Divine help is conditioned on prayer. " And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray for you unto the Lord. . . . And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that he will save us out of
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the hand of the Philistines. And Samuel took a sucking lamb and offered it for a whole burnt offering unto the Lord; and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him."
0 Thou who dwell'st between the cherubim, Bow down Thine ear, and hear my sad complaint, Bow down Thine eye, and see my deep distress; Save, Father, that Thy children and the world May know that Thou and only Thou art God. In every gone-by trouble Thou hast heard, Thou hast upheld, till now ! Across the waste, The dreary wilderness of trodden years, Paith can full many an Ebenezer see. Pillars erected to commemorate The answered prayer, the great deliverance known. I plead no merit, Lord ; no worthiness ; I plead Thy Name, Thy promise; yea, I look To Thee in Thy true temple, confident That while the prayer of faith is lisped without. Our great Melchizedek will incense give From His gold censer in the sanctuary, Perfumed by which my prayer acceptably Will reach the presence of the Lord of Hosts.^
(2) Divine help is further conditioned on self-help. God helps those who help themselves. He works in living men and women. "We must use the grace we have if we want more. We must walk in the light that shines to-day if we want more light to-morrow. Our Lord healed the withered hand after the man had " stretched it forth." The blind man had to " wash in the pool of Siloam " before he received his sight. If there is one man God cannot help it is the man who sits with folded arms waiting for something to turn up. "Things work together for good." God works in us, and we are to " work out our own salvation."
(3) Divine help is also conditioned on whole-hearted conse- cration to God. " And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying. If ye do return unto the Lord with all your heart, then put away the strange gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only ; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines."
* Ebenezer Palmer.
I SAMUEL VII. 12 281
Lord, oft I come imto Thy door,
But when Thou openest it to me, Back to the dark I shrink once more.
Away from light and Thee.
Lord, oft some gift of Thee I pray;
Thou givest bread of finest wheat; Empty I turn upon my way,
Counting a stone more sweet.
Thou bidst me speed; then sit I still;
Thou bidst me stay; then do I go; Lord, make me Thine in deed and will,
And ever keep me so ! ^
IL
Memoeials of Help.
" Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpah and Shen."
1. This stone in Celtic would be called a cromlech. From the earliest times men have reared stones; for instance, the stones of Stonehenge, and the great and lonely cromlechs that you meet with, both in the far East and in the far West. These stones reared by men in the distant past indi- cate their littleness and their greatness. They indicate their littleness, because they are conscious that their time on earth is brief, and that they will soon be forgotten ; and they, therefore, desire to link the memory of their life, their joy, their victory, or their devotion, with some permanent memorial which in after years will record where they suffered and conquered and prayed. Thus man, knowing that he has but a short time to live, tries to defy the ravages of time, and, in erecting the cromlech, confesses his transience. Yet the cromlech witnesses to the greatness of man — that man is able to invest with such associa- tions a stone that was before uninteresting. A mere block of granite or limestone becomes ever after interesting, because one man sinned, suffered, repented, conquered, prayed.
^ What do I think of souvenirs ? I like them much, provided they are not costly. Yet I know not whether I do not like even ' Lizette Woodworth Reese.
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more to dispense with symbols altogether. For they gather round them, by constant use, new associations, by which the old are obliterated, the precious and hallowed first ones. All things worn or often seen are liable to this. The old habit of erecting an altar of stones to commemorate any signal event was different. It was revisited only at the interval of years, and infallibly brought back the old feeling with which it had stood in connection once. But 'ornaments, and such things, collect accretions of daily incidents which they suggest, and the symbol does not naturally, but only arbitrarily, recall the person or idea intended to be consecrated by it. I have an insuperable objection to presents — almost a monomania ; I am happier without receiving.^
IT What a wonderful tribute it is to the greatness of human life that it can associate with a stone undying memories. It is the power of associating human life with Nature that makes these lands in which we live so fascinating. Why is it that Americans cross the Atlantic, and come again and again, and spend months and almost years, in our country ? They have broader and richer territories yonder, nobler rivers, more magnificent and splendid ranges of mountains than they ever find in Great Britain. But here the race was cradled, and as the train rushes through our tiny island there is hardly a single point of view anywhere which is not interesting because of associations of human life that cluster around the mouldering walls of the ancient abbeys and cathedrals.^