Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 274. The Evil Spirit

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Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 274. The Evil Spirit


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The Evil Spirit



1. The breach with the prophet Samuel was ominous for Saul. It was a breach with what was best in the religious life of the nation. It was a sign that Saul was moving away from the better principles that first actuated him; it was the first cloud of the gathering storm that was soon to sweep over his life, darkening his mind, and marring the natural nobility of his character. Darker tints soon accumulated. The outward monitor was followed in his departure by the inward monitor also. God's Holy Spirit, grieved, quenched, insulted, departed from Saul. An evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. It is a remarkable fact that nearly all the worst deeds of Saul's life occurred after the period to which this description belongs. But already there must have been an inner change of a very decisive kind, before such words could have been applicable. Whatever there was of evil in his life sprang from a moral change, and was not the mere result of circumstances. Saul's character had begun to deteriorate; a divorce had taken place between religion and morality; and when a soul turns definitely from the will and way of God to the paths of disobedience, then that mystic power which our forefathers called unction, and which the Bible calls the Spirit of God, seems to be dissipated, and to pass away as the aroma when scent has been long exposed to common air. So Saul lost the special enduement of power which had enabled him to subdue his enemies and to order his kingdom. He was left henceforth to the dictates of his own mind and spirit for the government of his realm; and from that day forward his reign was stained with many a blot.



2. Whether it was the quarrel with Samuel or the constant wars with the Philistines or other reasons which we know not of, a deep spirit of gloom and melancholy settled upon Saul. As the oldest Hebrew writers refer all things, whether good or bad, to the direct, if inexplicable, agency and will of God, they called Saul's melancholy an evil spirit from God. Saul's temperament and character being what they were, we can easily understand what the result would be. He was evidently a man of warm, though undisciplined, affection; he had the emotional temperament of a true Oriental, easily swayed by the breath of impulse, and we cannot doubt that troubles arising from the new Philistine war, and bickerings among the tribes, would excite almost to frenzy one of such moods. He was between two great forces-the Spirit of the Lord which was leaving him, and the evil spirit which was acquiring the mastery. The victim of a morbid melancholy, the unhappy king, as the Lord's rejected, gave way to his worst propensities.



Not, indeed, that Saul's life was henceforth wholly bad. There are few more difficult questions, in the case of minds utterly distempered and disordered as his was, than to determine where sin, or moral disease, has ended, and madness, or mental disease, has begun. There is an obscure and mysterious border-land, where these two seem inextricably mingled, acting and reacting the one upon the other. Continually we find him catching glimpses of better things and, on at least one occasion, taking his old place and prophesying among the prophets. But he is unstable and inconstant, yielding himself to the vagaries and passions of an unbalanced heart and will, until at length a frenzy, which seems to have been little short of actual madness, takes possession of him.



For nearly five years, while Bishop of Truro, Dr. Wilkinson suffered the miseries and terrors of melancholia. His mind never lost its balance, but he suffered a daily martyrdom. He could get no rest; the prospect of work and daily engagements became unbearable; the smallest decisions became occasions of mental torture. He struggled on manfully, trying to relieve his wretchedness by travel, and took long holidays from work. Sometimes the cloud lifted a little, but invariably closed in again. His self-control and patience were wonderful. Probably only two persons-his daughter and Canon Scott Holland, with whom he travelled-knew at the time what he had to bear. He never lost his courtesy and consideration for others; he was never betrayed into irritability or sharpness; indeed, though it often seemed impossible that he could fulfil an engagement, when he was once launched he generally spoke with the old force and lucidity. But, what was the worst trial of all, his joyful sense of the Divine Presence for long periods deserted him. He never doubted that the love and peace were there, but he was as a man imprisoned in a dungeon, hearing the breeze and the rustle of leaves against the bars.1 [Note: A. C. Benson, The Leaves of the Tree, 121.]