THE BOYHOOD OF SAMUEL.
BY THE REV. BRADFORD K. PEIRCE, D.D.
A long time ago—more than three thousand years—a little boy was born to a loving mother. She was a Jewess, and in those days it was the custom to be called by only one name. Her name was Hannah, or Anna. She lived with the father of her little boy in a mountain village six or eight miles north of the city of Jerusalem.
Hannah was a tender-hearted woman, and as good as she was gentle. She longed to have a little boy who might grow up and be trained to be a teacher of the true God among the people around her, who were very ignorant and wicked in those days. So she prayed, and God heard her prayer. Upon the birth of the little fellow she named him Samuel, which means Asked of God. So happy and grateful to God was this Jewish mother that she wrote a wonderful song, which has been preserved all these years, and may be still read in the Bible.
When her boy was two or three years old she carried him to the place where the people of the country met to worship God, where was the great tent called the Tabernacle, with its different coverings, of which we are told in the second book of the Bible, and where the priest of God and those that assisted him lived. Here she left him, with many warm kisses and tears, that he might be taught by these religious men, and be fitted to become in after-years a prophet or teacher of the true God. His school had no vacations; but once a year regularly his mother came to see him, bringing him a new, rich mantle as a gift of love, and a proper robe for one who assisted in public worship, although a child, to wear.
Every one saw that he was a remarkable boy. The old priest loved him as a son. The blessed God in heaven also loves children, and knows how to express His love to them so that they will understand it. He sometimes intimates to them, when He is about to call them to some great work, that they are by-and-by to become His ministers. Many a little fellow as young as Samuel has felt in his mind, he hardly knew how or why, that he would some time be a preacher of the Gospel.
When Samuel was about twelve years of age this wonderful thing happened to him. He had a little room by himself within the great tent where the people worshipped. The aged priest, whose name was Eli, had another quite near to him. In the night, while the lamps were still burning in the Tabernacle, and he had fallen asleep on his bed, he was suddenly awaked by a voice calling him by name. He supposed, of course, it was Eli calling, and he hurried to the old man's chamber, saying, as he entered, "Here am I."
"I did not call you," said Eli; "go, lie down again."
He had hardly dropped into slumber once more, when the same voice awaked him again: "Samuel, Samuel," it said.