LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

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      EAN 4064066164003

Table of Contents

       GIDEON.

       SAMUEL.

       SAUL.

       MIRIAM'S SCHOOLING.

       MICHAEL TREVANION.

      GIDEON

      SAMUEL

      SAUL

      MIRIAM'S SCHOOLING

      MICHAEL TREVANION

      GIDEON.

       Table of Contents

       The story which Jotham told his children on the day before his death concerning the achievements of his father Gideon—His comments and those of Time thereon.

      I am an old man, and I desire before I die to tell you more fully the achievements of your grandfather. Strange that this day much that I had forgotten comes back to me clearly.

      During his youth the children of the East possessed the land for seven years because we had done evil. We were driven to lodge in the caves of the mountains, so terrible was the oppression. If we sowed corn, the harvest was not ours, for the enemy came over Jordan with the Midianites and the Amalekites and left nothing for us, taking away all our cattle and beasts of burden. We cried unto God, and He sent a prophet to us, who told us that our trouble came upon us because of our sins, but otherwise he did nothing to help us. One day your grandfather was threshing wheat, not near the threshing-floor, for the Midianites watched the threshing-floors to see if any corn was brought there, but close to the wine-press. It was at Ophrah in Manasseh, the home of his father. While he threshed, thinking upon all his troubles and the troubles of his country, not knowing if he could hide enough corn to save himself and his household from hunger and death, the angel of the Lord descended and sat under the oak. He may have been there for some time before my father was aware of him, for my father was busy with his threshing, and his heart was sore. At last he turned and saw the angel bright and terrible, and before he could speak the angel said to him, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour." My father, as I have said, was threshing by the wine-press, on his guard even there lest he should be robbed or slain, and it seemed strange to him that the angel should say the Lord was with him. So strange did it seem, that even before he fell down to worship, he turned and asked the seraph why, if the Lord was with him, all this mischief had befallen them, and where were all the miracles which the Lord wrought to save His people from the land of Egypt. For there had been neither sign nor wonder for many years—nothing to show that the Lord cared for us more than He did for the heathen. My father had thought much over all the deeds which the Lord had done for Israel; he had thought over the passage of the sea when Israel could not find any way open before them, and the very waves which were to overwhelm them rose like a wall and became their safeguard. But he himself had seen nothing of this kind, and he almost doubted if the tales were true, and if times had not always been as they were then, all events happening alike to all, and hardly believing that God had ever appeared to man.

      The angel did not answer him, but looked him in the face, and said, "Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?" My grandfather, Joash, was one of the poorest men of his tribe, and as for my father, nobody had ever thought anything of him, nor had he thought anything of himself. He, a solitary labourer, unknown, with no friends, no arms; he to do what the princes could not do! he to lead these frightened slaves against soldiers who were as the sand for numbers! It was not to be believed, and yet—there sat the angel. It was broad noon; in the shade of the oak his light was like that of the sun. It was not a dream of the night, and he could not be mistaken. Nay, the angel's voice was more sharp and clear than the voice in which we speak to one another—a voice like the command of a king who must not be disobeyed. Yet he comforted my father. "Surely I will be with thee," he added, "and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man." If the Lord was to be with him, my father need not have hesitated, but in truth he did not care for the duty which was thrust upon him. He would have been glad to do anything for his country which was within his power, but he did not feel equal to the task of leading it against its oppressors, nor did he covet it. He would rather have endured in silence and died unknown than take such a weight upon his shoulders, for he was not one of those who desire power for power's sake. The apparition, too, was so sudden. The angel was there with his divine face looking steadily at him, with eyes so piercing that no secret in the inmost soul could remain hidden from them, and the man upon whom they were turned could not even think without being sure that his thought was known. Yet my father doubted, and this dread of the task imposed on him increased his doubt. Yes; he doubted an order given him at midday by a messenger sitting in front of him flaming with heavenly colour. It might after all be a delusion. He prayed, therefore, for a sign, and then as he prayed he thought he might be smitten for his presumption. But the angel was tender to his misgivings, and said he would wait for the offering which was to test his authority. My father went into the house and brought out a kid and unleavened bread, and presented it. The angel directed him to put the flesh and the cake on the rock and pour out the broth. He did so, and the angel then rose, and stretching out the staff that was in his hand, touched the flesh and cakes. No sooner had he touched them than—wonder of wonders!—a fire leapt up out of the rock; they were consumed before his eyes, and the angel had departed. A great terror overcame my father, for it had always been said that it was impossible for man to look upon a Spirit from the Lord and live. He was left alone, too, with the message, but without the Comforter, and he cried unto God in despair, not knowing what to do. As he cried, a word was spoken in his ear soft and sweet, like the voice of the aspen by the brook; soft and sweet, and yet so sure: "Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die." Then he rose and built an altar, to mark the sacred spot where God had talked with him and he had received his divine commission. There it is to this day in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. As you pass it, remember that where those stones now stand the Most High conversed with him whose blood is in your veins.

      As yet Gideon was without any direct orders, but that night he heard again the same soft, sweet voice, and it commanded him to build another altar upon the highest point of Ophrah, to throw down Baal's altar, and upon the altar to the Holy One to sacrifice the second of the bullocks belonging to Joash, the bullock of seven years old, burning it with the wood of the great idol. The angel under the oak was before my father's eyes, the soft, sweet voice, telling him he should not die, was in his ears; but not even the Lord God can conquer our fears, and although my father was a brave man and saved Israel, no man ever had worse sinkings of heart than he. It was as if he had more courage and more fear than his fellows. He did what the Lord said unto him, but he was afraid to do it by day, for not only was his tribe against him, but his father's house also. He took ten of his servants, and when the city awoke one morning the altar of Baal was cast down, the altar to the Lord God stood on the hill, and there lay on it the half-burnt logs of the image of Baal. Our nation has never believed in Baal as it has believed in the Lord God. How should it believe in Baal? Baal has done nothing for it, but the Lord God brought us from Egypt through the desert, and was the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. Nevertheless, when the altar of Baal was cast down and

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