Part 20 (1/2)

'What a barbarous scene! horrible it must be confessed; but I know some more horrible still pa.s.s before eyes in our day. Suppose that Samuel had brought Agag to Ramatah; that there he had confined him in a dungeon at the bottom of a cistern; that he had come {143} every day with an attendant to make him undergo various tortures, to burn his feet--his hands, to stretch him upon a wooden horse, to dislocate him, etc. etc.; all this with honied terms, saying that it was all for his good; would not the lot of the victim have been a thousand times more dreadful? Ah!

much better the open cruelty of the Hebrew priest, compared with the charity of the priests and monks which bless Rome! Yet the European Governments authorise and suffer such abominations! But did Samuel commit such an act without motive--without a projected object? That would not be in conformity to his deep and calculating character. We will examine these motives.

'For ten or twelve years Saul, by his victories, did not cease to flourish and strengthen his credit in the minds of all the nation.

Samuel, finding himself eclipsed, took occasion to flatter the vindictive pa.s.sion of the Hebrews against the Amalekites. The victory of Saul, and taking king Agag in disobedience to the command of G.o.d, who had ordered the extermination of the Amalekites, furnished Samuel with a pretence for striking the audacious blow of anointing a subst.i.tute to rival Saul. He thought it necessary to strike terror into their minds by a preliminary imposing step, which would make Saul dread the falling upon him of some new celestial anathema. It is certain that this manoeuvre of Samuel succeeded, since Saul did not dare to use any act of violence against him.

'In considering the action of Samuel in a general point of view, political and moral, it presents an astonis.h.i.+ng union of pride, audacity, cruelty, and hypocrisy; a little orphan upstart, to decree from his caprice the extermination of a whole nation, even to the last living being! to insult--to abuse a king covered with laurels, become legitimate by his victories, and by the a.s.sent of the nation grateful for the peace and respect which he had procured for them! a priest to trouble this whole nation by a change of the prince, by the intrusion of a new elect of his choice. Here is found the first germ of that political division of the Hebrews which, suppressed under David and Solomon, broke out under the imprudent Rheoboam, and prepared the fall of the nation by rending it into two kingdoms.

'We see here the fruits of that divine or visionary power imprudently allowed by a people, stupified by superst.i.tion, to a king, otherwise worthy of esteem, but feeble-minded. We see an impostor, who dared to call himself the sent of G.o.d, the representative of G.o.d, finally, G.o.d himself (for such is the transition of ideas which will not fail to occur when the first is tolerated), turning all this to his profit.

The plain historian achieves, without knowing it, the tracing of the portrait and character of Samuel, in saying, ”Samuel did not see Saul any more; but lamented his misfortune that G.o.d had rejected him.”'

*Chapter xvi., v. 2. Here the Lord directs Samuel to tell a lie, yet in Proverbs, chap, xii., v. 22, we are told that lying lips are an abomination unto the Lord.

Verse 4. Our version says the elders 'trembled,' the Douay says {144} they 'wondered,' and the Breeches Bible says they were 'astonished.'

Verse 7. The choice of Saul, whose height was so great (_vide_ chap, x., v. 23), being an unfortunate one, this time the selection is made on totally different principles.

Verse 14. 'An evil spirit from the Lord.' If read literally, these words would occasion, in the minds of pious theists, grave doubts as to how an evil spirit could come from an infinitely pure and good G.o.d; but Hugh Farmer, in his essay on Demoniacs, says that Saul's disorder was a deep melancholy, and that this appears by the mode of cure--i.e., music, a proper method of exhilirating the animal spirits.