the like of whom had not appeared since Moses, so gifted and so earnest; and secondly, by founding a school for the education of young men who should go with his instructions wherever he chose to send them, like the early missionaries, to hamlets and villages which he was unable to visit in person.  The first “school of the prophets” was a seminary of missionaries, animated by the spirit of a teacher whom they feared and admired as no prophet had been revered in the whole history of the nation since Moses.

Samuel communicated his own burning spirit wherever he went, and the burden of his eloquence was zeal and loyalty for Jehovah.  Before his time the prophets had been known as seers; but Samuel superadded the duties of a religious teacher,—­the spokesman of the Almighty.  The number of his disciples, whom he doubtless commissioned as evangelists, must have been very large.  They lived in communities and ate in common, like the primitive monks.  They probably resembled the early Dominican and Franciscan friars of the Middle Ages, who were kindled to enthusiasm by such teachers as Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura.  Like them they were ascetics in their habits and dress, wearing sheepskins, and living on locusts and wild honey,—­on the fruits which grew spontaneously in the rich valleys of their well-watered country.  It did not require much learning to arouse the common people to new duties and a higher religious life.  The Bible does not inform us as to the details by which Samuel made his influence felt, but there can be no doubt that by some means he kindled a religious life before unknown among his countrymen.  He infused courage and hope into their despairing hearts, and laid the foundation of military enthusiasm by combining with it religious ardor; so that by the discipline of forty years,—­the same period employed by Moses in transmuting a horde of slaves into a national host of warriors; a period long enough to drop out the corrupted elements and replace them with the better trained rising generation,—­the nation was prepared for accomplishing the victories of Saul and David.  But for Samuel no great captains would have arisen to lead the scattered and dispirited hosts of Israel against the Philistines and other enemies.  He was thus a political leader as well as a religious teacher, combining the offices of judge and prophet.  Everybody felt that he was directly commissioned by God, and his words had the force of inspiration.  He reigned with as much power as a king over all the tribes, though clad in the garments of humility.  Who in all Israel was greater than he, even after he had anointed Saul to the kingly office?