represent, as a matter of fact, all that we know of Samuel anterior to his relations with Saul.  This account seems to represent him as exercising merely a restricted influence over the territory of Benjamin and the south of Ephraim.  It was not until the prophetic period that, together with Eli, he was made to figure as Judge of all Israel.

The Philistine power continued dominant for at least half a century.  The Hebrew chroniclers, scandalised at the prosperity of the heathen, did their best to abridge the time of the Philistine dominion, and interspersed it with Israelitish victories.  Just at this time, however, there lived a man who was able to inspire them with fresh hope.  He was a priest of Bamah, Samuel, the son of Elkanah, who had acquired the reputation of being a just and wise judge in the towns of Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah; “and he judged Israel in all those places, and his return was to Bamah, for there was his house... and he built there an altar unto the Lord.”  To this man the whole Israelite nation attributed with pride the deliverance of their race.  The sacred writings relate how his mother, the pious Hannah, had obtained his birth from Jahveh after years of childlessness, and had forthwith devoted him to the service of God.  She had sent him to Shiloh at the age of three years, and there, clothed in a linen tunic and in a little robe which his mother made for him herself, he ministered before God in the presence of Eli.  One night it happened, when the latter was asleep in his place, “and the lamp of God was not yet gone out, and Samuel was laid down to sleep in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, that the Lord called Samuel:  and he said, Here am I. And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou calledst me.  And he said, I called thee not; lie down again.”  Twice again the voice was heard, and at length Eli perceived that it was God who had called the child, and he bade him reply:  “Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth.”  From thenceforward Jahveh was “with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.  And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord.”  Twenty years after the sad death of his master, Samuel felt that the moment had come to throw off the Philistine yoke; he exhorted the people to put away their false gods, and he assembled them at Mizpah to absolve them from their sins.  The Philistines, suspicious of this concourse, which boded ill for the maintenance of their authority, arose against him.  “And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines.  And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a whole burnt offering unto the Lord:  and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him.”  The Philistines, demoralised by the thunderstorm which ensued, were overcome on the very spot where they had triumphed over the sons of Eli, and fled in disorder to their own country.  “Then