But after awhile she persuades him to tell the truth.  He says:  “If you should take a razor or shears and cut off this long hair, I should be powerless and in the hands of my enemies.”  Samson sleeps, and that she may not wake him up during the process of shearing, help is called in.  You know that the barbers of the East have such a skillful way of manipulating the head to this very day that, instead of waking up a sleeping man, they will put a man wide awake sound asleep.  I hear the blades of the shears grinding against each other, and I see the long locks falling off.  The shears or razor accomplishes what green withes and new ropes and house-loom could not do.  Suddenly she claps her hands, and says:  “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!” He rouses up with a struggle, but his strength is all gone.  He is in the hands of his enemies.

I hear the groan of the giant as they take his eyes out, and then I see him staggering on in his blindness, feeling his way as he goes on toward Gaza.  The prison door is open, and the giant is thrust in.  He sits down and puts his hands on the mill-crank, which, with exhausting horizontal motion, goes day after day, week after week, month after month—­work, work, work!  The consternation of the world in captivity, his locks shorn, his eyes punctured, grinding corn in Gaza!

I. First of all, behold in this giant of the text that physical power is not always an index of moral power.  He was a huge man—­the lion found it out, and the three thousand men whom he slew found it out; yet he was the subject of petty revenges and out-gianted by low passion.  I am far from throwing any discredit upon physical stamina.  There are those who seem to have great admiration for delicacy and sickliness of constitution.  I never could see any glory in weak nerves or sick headache.  Whatever effort in our day is made to make the men and women more robust should have the favor of every good citizen as well as of every Christian.  Gymnastics may be positively religious.

Good people sometimes ascribe to a wicked heart what they ought to ascribe to a slow liver.  The body and the soul are such near neighbors that they often catch each other’s diseases.  Those who never saw a sick day, and who, like Hercules, show the giant in the cradle, have more to answer for than those who are the subjects of life-long infirmities.  He who can lift twice as much as you can, and walk twice as far, and work twice as long, will have a double account to meet in the judgment.

How often it is that you do not find physical energy indicative of spiritual power!  If a clear head is worth more than one dizzy with perpetual vertigo—­if muscles with the play of health in them are worth more than those drawn up in chronic “rheumatics”—­if an eye quick to catch passing objects is better than one with vision dim and uncertain—­then God will require of us efficiency just in proportion to what he has given us.  Physical energy ought to be a type of moral power.  We ought to have as good digestion of truth as we have capacity to assimilate food.  Our spiritual hearing ought to be as good as our physical hearing.  Our spiritual taste ought to be as clear as our tongue.  Samsons in body, we ought to be giants in moral power.