I often was alone amidst a people which had well nigh all gone astray, but I remembered the voice which I heard in the Temple when I was a child.  I sought the Most High day and night, and He came very close to me, and it became clearer and clearer to me that all things were as nothing compared with the Law, and that everything was to be set aside for its sake.  Alone, I say, I testified on His behalf, but He kept me.  Neither women nor wine have I ever known when men were given over to women and wine:  His Vision has filled me, dedicate to Him ere I was born.

The Lord chastised Israel through their enemies, and I besought the people to turn away from the Philistine gods and their iniquities.  I gathered them together in Mizpeh:  the Philistines heard of it, and came down upon Mizpeh, thinking that now they could wipe us out from the face of the earth.  Kings have had their captains, but I had none, and was not a man of war; the people were in a panic; their lascivious idolatry of Baal had destroyed their strength, and the enemy lay opposite us.  That night I did not sleep, but went to the Lord in prayer.  If I had had nothing but my own strength which I could trust I should have fainted, for what could I, unlearned in battle, do against such an army, and with no soldiers save a frightened mob, which knew that it deserved God’s wrath.  I wrestled with the Most High as Jacob wrestled, and I implored Him to remember His promise to our fathers.  I called to mind that day by the borders of the sea, when His angel which went before the camp of the Israelites removed and went behind them, and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face and stood behind them, and how the waters were a wall on the right hand and on the left, and in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.  I called to mind the night when Gideon and his three hundred stood round the Midianites, and the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host.  I called to mind the voice which spoke to me when as a child I lay on my bed in the Lord’s House.  As I communed and wrestled, the tent was filled with light, brighter than that of the sun at noon.  No word was spoken, but I knew it was the light of Him whom to see is death, but whose light is life.  All fear departed, and as the glory slowly waned, sleep overcame me—­sleep like that of an infant; and when the morning dawned, and I opened the doors of my tent and watched the sun rise, I was strong with the strength of ten thousand men, and rejoiced, although the Philistines were like the sand on the seashore for multitude.  I caused the trumpet to sound, and brought Israel together.  On the hill there in Mizpeh, in sight of the people who stood round trembling, I builded an altar and slew a lamb, and offered it as a sacrifice to Him who had appeared unto me.  I prayed again, for as