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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 268. The Integrity of Samuel
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The Integrity of Samuel
1. In pondering over this declaration of Samuel, we must bear in mind, first of all, that Samuel is standing on his defence before his fellow-men. He is not addressing God. He is not to be likened to the Pharisee, professing to pray in the temple, and yet saying, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers.” Samuel would have been the last man in the world to approach the Almighty with a pompous statement of his good deeds. His prayer would ever have been-“God be merciful to me a sinner.” He would have said that, after all, he was but an unprofitable servant, for he had left undone many things which he ought to have done. But Samuel is here addressing his fellow-men. He is on his defence, as it were. He had been a public man for half a century, he had served his country faithfully, and now they were forgetting an old servant, who had served them right loyally. They were slighting their old friend, who had stood true to them before God and man, and had saved them in many an hour of peril. His countrymen were passing him over, and were wanting to have this young king; and while Samuel, by God's permission, humours them in their request, he speaks out his mind manfully, stands on his defence, and challenges them to lay anything to his charge.
Samuel might have applied to himself the words of old Adam in As You Like It:
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly: let me go with you;
I'll do the service of a younger man
In all your business and necessities.
2. All the people, with one consent, cried: “Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken aught of any man's hand.” But the old man was not content; he wanted to bind the people by a solemn oath, as in the very sight of God and the king; and, therefore, he said, lifting his hand to heaven, “The Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that ye have not found aught in my hand.” And again, from the lips of all the people, with a unanimous shout, there came the response, “He is witness.” The old man was comforted, and added, “It is the Lord that appointed Moses and Aaron, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.” He was not afraid of being judged by God.
3. Samuel challenged any charge against himself or his administration. He called both the Lord and His anointed to witness to what had passed between him and the people. But, as a faithful servant of the Lord, and ruler in Israel, he went further. Fain would he bring them to repentance for their great sin in the manner wherein they had demanded a king. One by one he recalled to them the “righteous doings” of Jehovah in the fulfilment of His covenant-promises in the past. In contrast to this never-failing help, he pointed to their unbelief, when, unmindful of what God had done and distrustful of what He would do, they had, on the approach of serious danger, virtually said concerning His leadership, “Nay, but a king shall reign over us.” And God had granted their desire. But upon their and their king's bearing towards the Lord, not upon the fact that they had now a king, would the future of Israel depend. And this truth, so difficult for them to learn, God would now, as it were, prove before them in a symbol. Did they think it unlikely, even well-nigh impossible, to fail in their present circumstances? God would bring the unlikely and seemingly incredible to pass in a manner patent to all. Was it not the time of wheat-harvest, when in the east not a cloud darkens the clear sky? God would send thunder and rain to convince them, by making the unlikely real, of the folly and sin of their thoughts in demanding a king. So manifest a proof of the truth of what Samuel had said, and of the nearness of God and of His personal interposition, struck terror into the hearts of the people, and led to at least outward repentance. In reply to their confession and entreaty for his continued intercession, Samuel assured them that he would not fail in his duty of prayer for them, nor would God, either in His faithfulness to His covenant and promises, or in His justice and holiness if they did wickedly. And so the assembly parted-the Israelites to their tents, Saul to the work of the kingdom which lay to his hands, and Samuel to the far more trying and difficult duty of faithfully representing and executing the will of God as His appointed messenger in the land.
Besides instructing their successors in the art of carrying on a popular movement, Wilberforce and his followers had a lesson to teach, the value of which not so many perhaps will be disposed to question. In public life, as in private, they habitually had the fear of God before their eyes. A mere handful as to number, and in average talent very much on a level with the mass of their colleagues;-counting in their ranks no orator, or minister, or boroughmonger;-they commanded the ear of the House, and exerted on its proceedings an influence the secret of which those who have studied the parliamentary history of the period find it only too easy to understand. To refrain from gambling and ball-giving, to go much to church and never to the theatre, was not more at variance with the social customs of the day than it was the exception in the political world to meet with men who looked to the facts of the case and not to the wishes of the minister, and who before going into the Lobby required to be obliged with a reason instead of with a job. Confidence and respect, and (what in the House of Commons is their unvarying accompaniment) power, were gradually, and to a great extent involuntarily, accorded to this group of members. They were not addicted to crotchets, nor to the obtrusive and unseasonable assertion of conscientious scruples. The occasions on which they made proof of independence and impartiality were such as justified, and dignified, their temporary renunciation of party ties. They interfered with decisive effect in the debates on the great scandals of Lord Melville and the Duke of York, and in more than one financial or commercial controversy that deeply concerned the national interests, of which the question of the retaining the Orders in Council was a conspicuous instance. A boy who, like young Macaulay, was admitted to the intimacy of politicians such as these, and was accustomed to hear matters of State discussed exclusively from a public point of view without any afterthought of ambition, or jealousy, or self-seeking, could hardly fail to grow up a patriotic and disinterested man. “What is far better and more important than all is this, that I believe Macaulay to be incorruptible. You might lay ribbons, stars, garters, wealth, titles before him in vain. He has an honest genuine love of his country, and the world would not bribe him to neglect her interests.” Thus said Sydney Smith, who of all his real friends was the least inclined to overpraise him.1 [Note: Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, chap. i.]
The Man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity,-
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not-
Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won:
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name-
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:
This is the happy Warrior; this is He
That every Man in arms should wish to be.2 [Note: Wordsworth, Character of the Happy Warrior.]