THE

LAND OF THE PHILISTINES.

THERE was one nation that gave more trouble to the Israelites than

any other. This was the nation of the Philistines. These people inhabited the western part of Canaan. They were continually fighting against the Israelites; and, though often conquered, they came again and again, and were not entirely subdued for many years. Like the other nations of Canaan, the Philistines were idolaters. Their

chief idol was named Dagon. This was an ugly image, half like a human being, and half like a fish; and the Philistines had a temple for the worship of this idol in their city Ashdod.

The first person raised up by God to fight against these enemies, was Samson, a man of the tribe of Dan. I dare say you have all heard something of the story of Samson. He was the strongest man that ever lived, and his strength was given him by God for this very purpose of subduing the Philistines. I do not mean to say much about him. You must yourselves read his history in the book of Judges. There you will find the account of the angel who appeared to his parents before his

birth; of the great strength he showed, first, in killing the lion, and afterwards in killing a thousand of the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass. There you will read the history of many more of his struggles with the Philistines; and, at last, you will come to the sad part of his life-the melancholy story of his deliverance into the hands of his cruel enemies, and how they bound him, and put out his eyes, and carried him to Gaza, and made him grind in the prison. There he stayed for a long time, weak and helpless, for he had become weak because his hair, in which his great strength lay, had been cut off by his cruel wife, who betrayed him to the Philistines. But while he was in the prison at Gaza,

his hair began to grow again, and his strength returned, and he ended his life by pulling down, with his arms, the great temple in which his enemies were assembled, and where he had been cruelly brought that he might make sport for them. "So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life." (Judges xvi. 30.) Samson judged Israel twenty years. The next judge of whom we read was Eli, and, after him, Samuel the prophet.

And now I must take you again to Shiloh. You know what was standing there during all these long years, in which the judges ruled. There was the tabernacle; and there, too, were the ark, and all the sacred vessels; and the

worship of God was going on quietly day by day at Shiloh, when other parts of the country were in a state of war and distress. It is a happy thing for a country when the true God is worshipped and served in it. Shiloh was a blessing to Israel still; and if they had attended more to their sacred duties there, they would not have suffered as they did from war and enemies, which their own sinful idolatry brought upon them.

And now, dear children, try to fancy yourselves in the tabernacle at Shiloh. Picture to yourselves all the different parts of it, as I have described them to you; and, when you have done this, I will take you a little apart from the sacred place, to the room in which

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