Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers

by William Hale White

My father, Elkanah, was one of the faithful in Israel, and he went up yearly to Shiloh; my mother, Hannah, was his beloved wife, though it was Peninnah who had given him children. I was born in answer to a prayer which my mother prayed in bitterness of soul, and she vowed that if she should have a man child he should be the Lord's all the days of his life; no razor should come upon his head, neither should he drink strong drink. My mother redeemed her vow, and I was taken to Shiloh, and there I ministered before the Lord. I lived in the midst of the iniquity which was wrought by the sons of Eli; but although a youth, the vow which my mother had made for me protected me. The Lord had then withdrawn Himself from Israel, and no word had been spoken to us by Him for years, save a message from a prophet who prophesied the fall of Eli and his house. Still I served, although He gave no sign of His presence, for my mother visited me continually, and she kept me strong and pure. One night, when I had lain down to sleep, I suddenly heard a voice, which I took to be the voice of Eli, and it called me by name. This it did thrice, and each time I went to Eli and asked him what he wished with me, but he had not called. When the voice had come again and again, I answered, "Speak; for Thy servant heareth," and then for the first time was I bidden to execute a command from the Lord; and I, Samuel, a boy, was ordered to tell Eli, the high priest from the Lord, whose minister he was, that a deed was about to be done which should make tingle the ears of every one who heard it, and that for the iniquity of his sons, and because he did not restrain them, no sacrifice should avail to protect him from judgment. Such was the message given to me; to me, Samuel the child, and thus was I honoured even then. I had never heard the voice before that night, and I lay awake till the morning, fearing to tell Eli what had been said to me, and I went out and opened the doors. But Eli sent for me, and when he saw me he perceived that the Lord had been with me, and he directed me to hide nothing from him of what had been said to me. I told him the vision every whit, and from that day forth I have been at the Lord's bidding, and have interpreted His will to Israel.

Although I had never heard the Lord's voice before, and it came with no sign nor miracle, I did not doubt that it was His, for there was that in it which proclaimed Him. Nevertheless I wondered what His judgment would be, and in what manner it would come to pass. Soon afterwards the Israelites went out to battle against the Philistines in Aphek, and were smitten with great slaughter. Then the elders of Israel, thinking that the Ark of the covenant would save them, sent to Shiloh and brought it thence, and when it came into the camp they all shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. Fools to believe that the Ark was anything if the Living God was not with it! When He was with it, and the men of Bethshemesh did but look at it, they died; but without Him it is nothing. The Israelites were greatly heartened when the Ark came, and the Philistines were afraid, believing, idolaters as they were, that God must be in it. But the Israelites were defeated; thirty thousand of them fell; the very Ark was taken; Hophni and Phinehas were also slain. When Eli heard the news he fell backward and died, and his daughter-in-law, who was in travail, died also. Thus was the word delivered to me fulfilled suddenly in one day, and for the sins of the priests even the Ark whereon were the cherubim was permitted to depart to the Philistines and keep company with Dagon. After that day, when Eli died and I looked into the empty sanctuary, could I hesitate to believe and obey the Lord's word?

The Lord had no mind that the Philistines, who were His scourge for the Israelites, should vaunt themselves over Him, or should believe that of their own strength they had prevailed. Wonderful is He! He takes the wicked to punish His people, and the wicked are but tools in His hand, and He uses them for His own designs. The Ark came to Ashdod, and was put in the house of Dagon; but when the men of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the Ark. They took Dagon and set him in his place again; and when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the Ark, and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold. Furthermore, the men of Ashdod were destroyed with a secret and dreadful disease. They thereupon determined to get rid of the Ark, and they sent it to Gath. When it came to Gath the pestilence fell upon the men of Gath also, and they sent it away to Ekron, and the pestilence fell also upon the men of Ekron. Then the wise men of the Philistines were called together, and they counselled that the Ark should be returned with a trespass-offering to Israel, and that it should be carried in a new cart by two milch kine on which there had come no yoke, and that their calves should be brought home from them. Then if the kine of their own accord took the cart to Bethshemesh, it would be known that it was the God of Israel who had plagued the land; but if they refused to go, then it might be chance which had done it. The Ark was placed in the cart, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon the kine. Remembering their calves, they nevertheless went straight along the road to Bethshemesh, lowing as they went, and turning not aside to the right hand or to the left, and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Bethshemesh. The men of Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley, and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the Ark, and rejoiced to see it, and the cart came into the field of Joshua the Bethshemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone, and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine as a burnt-offering. And the Levites took down the Ark, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of stone were, and put them on the great stone, and the men of Bethshemesh offered burnt offering and sacrifices. When the Philistines had seen all these things, and when they knew that the plague in their land was stayed, did they acknowledge the Lord God? How should they, seeing that they were not His elect?

The children of Israel continually turned aside to the lewd gods of the heathen, and at times it seemed as if the whole earth would be given up to the abominations of the Canaanites. The Lord had brought us out of Egypt, and through the desert. He had appeared to us on Sinai, and had given us His commandments, by which alone we could live. He had revealed unto us that we should be pure, and separate ourselves from the filth around us. He had roused up Moses, and Joshua, and the Judges, all of whom strove to preserve and ever build higher and stronger the wall which was to protect us, so that the sacred Law and the service of the one God might continue. Israel was but a handful in the midst of Philistines and Amalekites, nations which worshipped Baal with fornication and all kinds of uncleanness, and Israel was ever at the point of mingling with them. Then it would have been forgotten as they will be forgotten; but if it will only abide in the Law, as given in thunder and lightning in the wilderness, it will be great, when, except for their struggles with Israel, the recollection of Amalekite and Philistine shall have perished.

I often was alone amidst a people which had well nigh all gone astray, but I remembered the voice which I heard in the Temple when I was a child. I sought the Most High day and night, and He came very close to me, and it became clearer and clearer to me that all things were as nothing compared with the Law, and that everything was to be set aside for its sake. Alone, I say, I testified on His behalf, but He kept me. Neither women nor wine have I ever known when men were given over to women and wine: His Vision has filled me, dedicate to Him ere I was born.

The Lord chastised Israel through their enemies, and I besought the people to turn away from the Philistine gods and their iniquities. I gathered them together in Mizpeh: the Philistines heard of it, and came down upon Mizpeh, thinking that now they could wipe us out from the face of the earth. Kings have had their captains, but I had none, and was not a man of war; the people were in a panic; their lascivious idolatry of Baal had destroyed their strength, and the enemy lay opposite us. That night I did not sleep, but went to the Lord in prayer. If I had had nothing but my own strength which I could trust I should have fainted, for what could I, unlearned in battle, do against such an army, and with no soldiers save a frightened mob, which knew that it deserved God's wrath. I wrestled with the Most High as Jacob wrestled, and I implored Him to remember His promise to our fathers. I called to mind that day by the borders of the sea, when His angel which went before the camp of the Israelites removed and went behind them, and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face and stood behind them, and how the waters were a wall on the right hand and on the left, and in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians. I called to mind the night when Gideon and his three hundred stood round the Midianites, and the Lord set every man's sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host. I called to mind the voice which spoke to me when as a child I lay on my bed in the Lord's House. As I communed and wrestled, the tent was filled with light, brighter than that of the sun at noon. No word was spoken, but I knew it was the light of Him whom to see is death, but whose light is life. All fear departed, and as the glory slowly waned, sleep overcame me—sleep like that of an infant; and when the morning dawned, and I opened the doors of my tent and watched the sun rise, I was strong with the strength of ten thousand men, and rejoiced, although the Philistines were like the sand on the seashore for multitude. I caused the trumpet to sound, and brought Israel together. On the hill there in Mizpeh, in sight of the people who stood round trembling, I builded an altar and slew a lamb, and offered it as a sacrifice to Him who had appeared unto me. I prayed again, for as the smoke of the burnt-offering rose in the clear air, the Philistines came up the hill to battle with us, and the people cried, and were on the point of fleeing this way and that way, to be pursued and slain. I commanded them to be still. The Philistines drew nearer and nearer, and I prayed ever more and more earnestly. The smoke of the offering was beginning to die down, and yet I prayed. The fire was well nigh out to the last spark, and for a moment I doubted, forgetful of the vision, for the music of the army of Dagon could now be heard. Suddenly the fire flamed up on high from the grey ashes, as if a heap of the driest wood of summer had been thrown on it, and I saw a little cloud gather on the other side of the Philistine hosts, and I knew that my prayer was answered. The flame dropped instantly, but the cloud spread itself even as I looked, and the wind arose, and hither and thither across the cloud flashed the lightning. Onward it came till it rested over the Philistines, and then it broke and descended on them, and they were shut out from us in thick darkness. The thunder of the Lord crashed and rolled, and we saw His lightnings pierce down like swords. Silent we stood, and presently the cloud lifted, and the Philistines, who, a few minutes before, marched against us in order, were a confused mass, struggling hither and thither, and many of them were lying dead on the ground. Then, with one accord, Israel shouted, and ran and smote the Philistines until they came under Bethcar. I went not with them; but when they had all departed, I took a stone and set it up between Mizpeh and Shen, and wrote on it Ebenezer, for hitherto had the Lord helped us—the Lord, I say, and never a man, as it was the Lord and never a man who has helped us since we left Egypt.

After that defeat the Philistines troubled us no more, and the cities which they had taken from us were restored; but when I became old, the people grew restless, and desired a change. The Lord, to humble me, and prevent boasting by His servant, had afflicted me with two sons, who obeyed not His commandments; and the people put forward these two sons, who were judges under me, as a reason why a king should be given them. If, however, my sons did injustice, I was still alive to whom appeal could be made, and why should a king, because he was a king, be better? The Lord had brought us out of Egypt, and had ruled us through His ministers. We had no court, with women and with splendour; and those who won our battles lived like those whom they led. Our gold and our silver were saved for the House of the Lord, which was His, and for all of us. The office of king was foreign to us: it was heathen and hateful to me. None more earnestly than I worshipped the Lord, and submitted myself to His direction, and imposed His will even to death upon the people. But that a man, because he was called king, should rule, and send the people hither and thither for his own ends, and slaughter them, was horrible to me. I sought the Lord in prayer to know how I should meet this request, and He counselled me to yield.

I assembled the people together, and rehearsed unto them all that had been done for them without the help of a king. I foretold to them that the king would be for himself, and not for them—that he would press their sons and daughters into his service; but the people would not listen to me. The Lord had said unto me that they had not rejected me, but rejected Him that He should not reign over them, as they had ever done since the day when they were brought up out of Egypt. I cared not, however, for their rejection of me, but because it was He who was rejected. I thought over it night and day, and it well nigh broke my heart.

Those who had hitherto been placed over us had not been chosen because they were the sons of the rich, or of those who were chosen before them. Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Jephthah, were all of them select of the Lord from the people. Nay, even a woman had been taken to judge Israel—Deborah the prophetess, who dwelt under the palm-tree here between Ramah and Bethel. It was Deborah who sent for Barak to lead the host against Sisera, and Barak said to her that if she went he would go, but if she went not he would not go, so mighty was her presence. Sisera gathered together his army and all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron; but Deborah spoke a word in the ears of Barak, when he was afraid, and Sisera was discomfited with all his chariots and his host. He fled, and it was a woman, Jael, the wife of Heber, who slew him—for ever honoured be her name. In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byeways; the rulers ceased in Israel; the people chose new gods; there was war in the gates; there was no shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel until Deborah arose. The family of Gideon also was the poorest in Manasseh, and yet it was to him that the angel was sent, and he subdued the Midianites and the children of the East. This hitherto had been the Lord's way with us; and now we were to abandon Him for a king, whose children, because they were king's children, were to be our commanders. It well nigh broke my heart, I say. The glory of the Tabernacle was henceforth to be dim, overshadowed by the pomp of a monarch. I could not endure it, and again I went to the Lord, and besought Him to turn the people or visit them with the thunder and lightning of Mizpeh, that they might repent of their iniquity and live. But He would not speak to them beyond what He had spoken through me, and I returned and sent the assembly away, every man to his own city.

I called the people together in Mizpeh again, the place where they had seen the Lord save them Himself, and yet even there they would not yield. Then I prophesied against them, because they had cast aside Him who had delivered them out of all their adversities and tribulations; and I caused all their tribes to assemble before me. Saul the son of Kish was taken, and the fools shouted God save the king. I did my best for them. I wrote laws for them to protect them against him, and I put them in a book and laid them up in the sanctuary.