“That was the grandest funeral
        That ever passed on earth;
      But no one heard the trampling,
        Or saw the train go forth,—­
      Perchance the bald old eagle
        On gray Bethpeor’s height,
      Out of his lonely eyrie
        Looked on the wondrous sight.”

* * * * *

     “And had he not high honor—­
        The hillside for a pall—­
      To lie in state, while angels wait
        With stars for tapers tall;
      And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes,
        Over his bier to wave,
      And God’s own hand, in that lonely land,
        To lay him in the grave?”

* * * * *

     “O lonely grave in Moab’s land! 
        O dark Bethpeor’s hill! 
      Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
        And teach them to be still! 
      God hath his mysteries of grace,
        Ways that we cannot tell;
      He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep
        Of him he loved so well.”

SAMUEL.

1100 B.C.

THE HEBREW THEOCRACY, UNDER JUDGES.

After Moses, and until David arose, it would be difficult to select any man who rendered greater services to the Israelitish nation than Samuel.  He does not stand out in history as a man of dazzling intellectual qualities; but during a long life he efficiently labored to give to the nation political unity and power, and to reclaim it from idolatries.  He was both a political and moral reformer,—­an organizer of new forces, a man of great executive ability, a judge and a prophet.  He made no mistakes, and committed no crimes.  In view of his wisdom and sanctity it is evident that he would have adorned the office of high-priest; but as he did not belong to the family of Aaron, this great dignity could not be conferred on him.  His character was reproachless.  He was, indeed, one of the best men that ever lived, universally revered while living, and equally mourned when he died.  He ruled the nation in a great crisis, and his influence was irresistible, because favored alike by God and man.

Samuel lived in one of the most tumultuous and unsettled periods of Jewish history, when the nation was in a transition state from anarchy to law, from political slavery to national independence.  When he appeared, there was no settled government; the surrounding nations were still unconquered, and had reduced the Israelites to humiliating dependence.  Deliverers had arisen occasionally from the time of Joshua,—­like Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson,—­but their victories were not decisive or permanent.  Midianites, Amorites, and Philistines successively oppressed Israel, from generation to generation; they even succeeded in taking away their weapons of war.  Resistance to this tyranny was apparently hopeless, and the nation would have sunk into despair but for occasional providential aid.  The sacred ark was for a time in the hands of enemies, and Shiloh, the religious capital,—­abode of the tabernacle and the ark,—­had been burned.  Every smith’s forge where a sword or a spear-head could be rudely made was shut up, and the people were forced to go to the forges of their oppressors to get even their ploughshares sharpened.