the wife's instinct led her straight to the mark: "she came and told her husband.'' He was her husband, her natural, legitimate, only counsellor and adviser. His was the ear into which to pour her strange confidence. What she knew, be ought to kno,v, and her conduct must be guided by his counsels. So she came at once and told her husband. But the lesson has peculiar force from the supposed office of the stranger. She .toolc him for "a man of God," and his very announcement of what was to happen hereafter invested him with a sacred and awful character, which was likely to affect powerfully the sensibilities of a woman. But not for one instant was "the man of God " allowed to stand between her and her husband. She had no secrets for the "man of. God" which were to be hidden from her husband, nor had the angel any counsel to give which her husband was not to know of. It was on the second time of his appearing as on the first: "she made haste, and ran, and showed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the man bath appeared unto me." It is a very forcible lesson to the effect that no pretence of spiritual authority can justify inter- ference with the laws of nature, which are the laws of God. If the mutual love and mutual confidence between man and wife in the holy estate of matrimony is the ordinance of God for the happiness of man, the secret influence of another man which is to override the influence of the husband is not, and cannot be, according to the will of God. If the wife is to obey her husband, no other man can of right exact a higher obedience; if she is to trust her husband, she may not keep secret from him what she reveals to others ; she may not receive counsel from others which is to he bid from him. The function of a confessor and spiritual director is incompatible with the Christian law of marriage, as it is with the "first commandment with pro- mise," when it stands between children and their parents .. Nor is Manoah's trust in his wife less conspicuous than her trust in him. Not a shadow of doubt as to the truth of her statement crossed his mind, not a shade of jealousy that the message came to her rather than to him. In the desire for further information his wisdom suggested prayer that the Lord would send again the man of God ; but the language of his prayer was beautifully expressive of the rmion that was betwixt them two. "Let the man of God come again rmto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child." And when the second time the angel appeared to the woman alone, he took it as the answer to his prayer. As she came quickly to him, so he quickly followed her. With manly courage he asked the questions which her feminine modesty had not dared to put, and appeared at once in his proper place, ordering and directing what was to be done with regard to the rites of hospitality and piety; and yet when his own fears were excited by having seen the angel of God, he sought counsel from his wife, and readily acquiesced in her pious trust in the mercy and loving-kindness of the Lord. And exactly the same perfect union between them appears many yeaIS afterwards, when Samson was grown up (eh. xiv. 2-5), so that the whole passage is a beautiful idyll of conjugal love and concord. They both fulfil their proper parts with the utmost simplicity and propriety; they both contribute to the common stock of wedded happiness what each had to contribute; neither of them had one word of reproach or bitterness to the other ; neither of them attempted to usurp the :ither's place, or sh_runk from occupying their own. And they have left for our study and imitation as beautiful an example of the mutual help and harmony of married life as is to be found in the whole range of Scripture. May it find its cormterpart in every Christian family in the land I
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vere. 2-5.-.A natitral des-ire and its gracious fulfilment. In the East it is a reproach to be childless, and the greatest anxiety is displayed by married people to have a son. In ancient times the possibility of becoming the mother of the promised Messiah was a hope which greatly influenced this, but it had its root in the natural longing to continue one's name and influence after death. This "will to live," which is so strong in the natural man, God sanctified by religious sanctions. It is ever a healthful and lawful desire when the "chief end" of man is respected. " Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay." 142 THE BOOK OF JUDGES. [CH, XIII. 1-26,