Thus we may believe, dear afflicted brethren, that ye have indeed cause to rejoice in tribulation; that poverty, bereavement, depression, pain, through Him who led the way on the path of suffering, will all be found to enhance the joy and the glory of Heaven. Perhaps the depth of the pit of woe may bear some proportion to the height of the monument to God's love, for which its very mire and clay will furnish materials in a future state of bliss. Therefore sorrow not as those without hope; nay, let your hope become brighter through your very sorrow, like the rainbow on the cataract which owes its beauty to the waters which seem in their furious washings to seek to sweep it away.
[XIX.]
Dagon's Stump.
CONQUERORS are wont to hang up trophies of victories, the arms the standards won from the enemy; it is as such a trophy that this mutilated, unsightly idol, or rather fragment of an idol, is preserved in the Scripture collection, a witness to the power of the God of salvation, by whom at length all idols shall be utterly abolished, when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea.
The Philistines had won a great victory at Ebenezer; their foes had fled before them: there had been a very great slaughter; thirty thousand of the warriors of Israel had fallen on that fatal day, and a terrible wail of woe had risen from the dwellings of Shiloh. The rejoicings of the victors were the more exultant from the fears which had beset them before the fight began. The worshippers of Dagon had a dread of the power of the God of the Hebrews. The Ark of the Covenant had, before the battle, been brought into the camp of Israel, and had been welcomed there as a pledge of certain victory. All Israel had shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again; and the sound of that exulting cheer had reached the camp of the Philistines, and spread there a feeling of foreboding and alarm. The Philistines had been afraid, and they had said, "God is come into the camp! Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and fight!"
Thus with something like the courage of despair had the Philistines entered on the conflict. Victory seems to have taken them by surprise, and the more unexpected, the more welcome must it have been. Glorious tidings were borne to Askelon, loud were the rejoicings in Gath; Israel had been signally defeated, the Ark of the Lord had been taken, the Hebrew priests had fallen while vainly defending it. There was wild exultation in England after a Cressy, or an Agincourt, but there was an element in the triumph of the Philistines which was wanting to swell the joy of our ancestors; the victory of Ebenezer was not merely success in a hard-fought battle between rival hosts or races—it was deemed the triumph of Dagon, the fish-god, over the God of Israel. It was into the temple of Dagon that the Ark of the Covenant was exultingly brought, the noblest trophy of victory, a token of the conquering might of him whom the Philistines worshipped.
But God then, as ever, over-ruled the brief triumph of His enemies to His own glory. When the priests of Ashdod arose early in the morning, to their horror they beheld their idol prostrate on the earth before the Ark of the Lord. Surely this might have proved to them the folly of bowing down to that which had fallen before the symbol of God's presence. But the evident helplessness of Dagon seems to have made no change in the infatuation of his priests. They set him in his place again; he was still the god of the Philistines!
Yet more signally was the worthlessness of the idol to be proved in the sight of his priests. When they arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen on his face to the ground before the Ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump (or fishy part) of Dagon was left.