“Little Samuel loved God. Very young children can love God. They need not wait to do that until they have grown large, or until they have learned a great deal.
“At last Samuel became old enough to live away from his mother; so she took him up to the tabernacle at Shiloh. The tabernacle was the church in which the Jews worshiped. In the tabernacle lived a very good old man. His name was Eli. It was Eli who was to take care of Samuel.
“I suppose Hannah led her little boy by the hand, except when the way was rough, or when he became tired of walking, and then perhaps she carried him. And maybe when it became hot Samuel might want to take his little nap under some of the shady trees that grew on their way. As he slept, I think, his mother sat beside him, and almost cried to think that he was to be with her no longer; for although she was willing that he should go to be a priest of the Lord, yet it was hard for her to part with her only one. Perhaps, as she looked at Samuel sleeping under the shadowing tree, she softly said, ‘O, my darling boy, how I shall miss you when I return home! Your little feet will not run after me when I go out to pick fresh flowers. When I go to bring water from the spring you will not skip beside me, and no little dimpled hands will try to raise the pitcher for me then. My house will be so lonely without my precious boy! I shall dream of you in the night, and think that you are near; but, when I try to touch you, no little hand will be there to take hold of mine; and when I wake in the morning I shall never hear my Samuel’s sweet voice saying, ‘Peace be with you, my mother.’
“But though Hannah may have thought thus while she looked at her sleeping boy, she never once felt that she wanted to take back her vow. She loved God so well that she was glad that she had anything as lovely as her Samuel to give him.
“Thus I might weep, Alfred, if you were one day to go from us, as a missionary, to distant lands; but I think that I should still be willing, and even thankful, that you were called by God to such a high and holy office.”
CHAPTER VII
THE FAREWELL—THE RETURN HOME.
And true it was that angels still
Good little Samuel led;