66 Well, there is little more to tell. From that night Leigh failed rapidly, and at length there came a day when the physician said his life was all but over. As I sat by his side that evening, he asked me to lift him that he might look at the moon-lit bay. I heard him whisper, If I could only have heard it all, have finished that strain! Shall I ever, Whalley, shall I ever?' "I laid him back, and as his eyes closed, a look of rest and satisfied longing came upon him. Then faint and far, far off, I seemed to catch a strain of music, and I knew that the harmony was complete." The deep voice ceased. The storm had passed over without breaking, and the moon shone out from the clouds and made of the rocks and bay a vision of peace. GUIDO'S MADONNA. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord !" Shut in By midnight darkness, lo! a maiden kneels : Her eyes are deeps of holy calm. No warning din Within Of coming troubles breaks the hush of night. Enough for her to trust in Him and wait. '93. SAMSON. Never had a man a better opportunity to be a hero than had Samson. A judge of Israel, divinely appointed for a certain work, and divinely gifted with a strength for the performance of that work, his life out-look promised everything that was great and noble. But heroism depends, not alone upon circumstances, but upon the spirit within, and the soul of Samson was not heroic. His life was to be not an epic, but a tragedy, for he possessed, not the necessary union of physical and moral power, but the fatal combination of great physical strength and great moral weakness. Strength, in any form is attractive, and we cannot help being drawn to the mere brute force of Samson. We are stirred by an irrepressible thrill of admiration when the mighty slayer exults over his fallen foes: "With the jaw bone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw bone of an ass have I slain a thousand men." Moreover, this feeling is increased by the element of the God-given in Samson's strength, which the writer of Judges keeps ever before us. "And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him," we are told, before each deed of prowess. But in proportion as we admire Samson's physical strength, so much the more do we despise his moral weakness. Pitiable indeed, is the contrast between the two. The man who does not fear wild beasts, but rends lions as kids, is unable to control his own unruly passions. He who can vanquish the host of the Philistines by the might of his right arm cannot resist the wiles of a pleading woman, but is insensible alike to the sacredness of his Nazarite vow, and to the three-fold proof he has had of Delilah's base designs upon him. All the wonderful physical strength counts for naught when behind it is such feebleness of will power. The weakness and littleness of Sampson's character is also seen in his failure to realize his divine mission in life. Knowing that he was purposed to do a certain definite work for his country, he yet was never stirred by any high ambition, and never acted save in accordance with the impulse of the moment. It is true that Samson, throughout his life, was an instrument in the hands of God: his strength was God-given and it was to a great extent Godused. Nor can we be sure that, apparent failure though Samson's life was, it did not accomplish what was prophesied; for it is noticeable that Samson's work was not "to save Israel out of the hands of the Philistines," but " "to begin to save Israel." Yet though Samson was an instrument of God, he was not a willing instrument: he had no sense of responsibility to God, no thought of cooperation with God; and for this reason he failed to accomplish, if not what was prophesied, certainly much that lay within his power. And for this same reason he himself failed to gain any spiritual food from the little he did accomplish. There is something strangely pathetic in the thought of a man, morally weak, of low and selfish aims, furthering the advancement of God's plan involuntarily or unintentionally, and not because of any all-absorbing desire to do the great, the right. Samson fails to meet the requisites of a hero in his lack, not only of moral stamina, but also of moral beauty. There are few Old Testament characters in which we do not find some prophecy of the New Testament spirit of love. Joseph forgives and forgets the injury his brothers did him. David refuses to harm the enemy fallen into his power, and Saul in return forgives, for the time being, the outlaw whom he was pursuing. Moses, no less than Paul, wishes, in a triumph of self-sacrifice, that he could be accurst for the sake of his people. But in the character of Samson is no hint of this Christ-like spirit. Selfishness and revenge are his ruling motives. How shamelessly does he display his thirst for revenge! "As they did unto me, so have I done unto them," is his explanation of his reckless destruction of the Philistines. Samson, unlike David, is bitter against his enemies, not because they are God's enemies, but because they are his own enemies. Samson's death was a fitting end for such a life. It was a grand epitome of his character. It makes a vivid picture; the blind prisoner, with regained strength, pulling down the house upon himself and his three thousand enemies,—and it is one that arouses our mingled admiration, pity and contempt. We cannot help admiring the strong man, hurling ruin upon his tormentors and sharing it unflinchingly himself; we cannot help pitying the blind man, weary of furnishing sport for those whose terror he so lately was, groping for the pillars that he might end his misery: and we cannot help despising the weak man, unable to endure the consequences of his own folly and sin, and showing in the last prayer and final act of his life only the desire for vengeance which was the key-note of his character. MONTEREY. Follow the road up hill and down hill through the sweet smelling pine woods till, almost without warning, it brings you face to face with the ocean, with only a strip of brown tar-weed and the tossed-up rocks between you and it. Make your way to these gray rocks, seamed and wrinkled by the ceaseless spray of ages, and climb along them till you come to a tiny strip of beach. Jump down upon this, find a seat on that broad ledge of rock above it, and give yourself up to the Great Ocean. Watch how the waves grow from tiny rounded hills to tall mountains, whose tops growing thinner and thinner, finally droop forward, and then the whole comes with a soft rush up the sloping sand, as far as the unyielding rocks will allow. You call to mind all the images to which you have heard the sea likened, and try to make it resemble a dragon, a war-horse; but in vain. It is like nothing in heaven above or in the earth beneath, it is simply the Great Sea, the "waters under the earth," and therein lies half its mystery and charm. It always seems incongruous to attribute to it our little human passions, and call it " fierce," " angry," "revengeful." The old Romans thus described their gods, and though they could not belittle the Divinity, they degraded their own souls. Those who measure the measureless sea by their own small weaknesses, and those who say, "Ah yes, it looks as though it were endless, but really there is another country beyond it," are shut out forever from the dim conception that it gives us of the Infinite. But see, the tide is rising, and your little strip of beach is nearly covered. You run across it between two waves, and are soon on top of the gray rocks once more. You stop for a last look at "yon meeting of the sky and sea," then turn away with the waves still sounding in your ears, and the peace of the Great Ocean in your heart. |