I will not eat. But his servants, together with the woman, compelled him, and he hearkened unto their voice. So he arose from the earth, and sat upon the bed. And the woman had a fat calf in the house, and she hasted, and killed it, and took flour, and kneaded it, and did bake unleavened bread thereof. And she brought it before Saul, and before his servants; and they did eat. Then they rose up, and went away that night."

We do not need to inquire what a witch was, or why she was forbidden, further than this story shows. She is placed here as exactly the contrary alternative to God, in the wants and sorrows of life. The whole tenor of instruction to the Jews was, that there was no Divine anger that might not be appeased and turned away by deep, heartfelt repentance and amendment. In the GREAT NAME revealed to Moses, the Jehovah declares himself "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, of great kindness, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin," there is but a single clause added on the side of admonitory terror, "who will by no means clear the guilty." A favorite mode in which the guardian God is represented as speaking is that he "repenteth of the evil" he thought to do, in response to penitent prayer.

Saul had broken with his God on the score of an intense selfwill, and he did not repent. The prophet Samuel had announced wrath, and threatened final rejection, but no humiliation and no penitence followed. In this mood of mind, when his fear came as desolation, all the avenues of knowledge or aid which belonged to God's children were closed upon him, and he voluntarily put himself in the hands of those powers which were his declared

enemies.

The scene as given is so exactly like what is occurring in our day, like incidents that so many among us have the best reason for knowing to be objectively facts of daily occurrence, that there is no reason to encumber it with notes and comments as to the probability of the account. The woman was a medium who had the power of calling up the spirits of the dead at the desire of those who came to her. She is not represented at all as a witch after the Shakespearean style. There is no " eye of newt and toe of frog," no caldron or grimaces to appall. From all that appears,

THE WITCH OF ENDOR.

she was a soft-hearted, kindly, cowardly creature, turning a penny as she could, in a way forbidden by the laws of the land; quite ready to make up by artifice for any lack of reality; who cast her line into the infinite shadows, and was somewhat appalled by what it brought up.

There is a tone of reproof in the voice of the departed friend: "Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?" And when Saul says, "God hath forsaken us, and will not answer," the reproving shade replies, "Wherefore come to me, seeing God hath become thine enemy?" In all this is the voice of the true and loyal prophet, who from a child had sought God, and God alone, in every emergency, and ever found him true and faithful.

This story has its parallel in our days. In our times there is a God and Father always nigh to those who diligently seek him. There is communion with spirits through Jesus, the great HighPriest. There are promises of guidance in difficulties and support under trials to all who come to God by Him.

In our days, too, there are those who propose, for the relief of human perplexities and the balm for human sorrows, a recourse to those who have familiar spirits, and profess to call back to us those who are at rest with God.

Now, while there is no objection to a strict philosophical investigation and analysis and record of these phenomena considered as psychological facts, while, in fact, such investigation is loudly called for as the best remedy for superstition, there is great danger to the mind and moral sense in seeking them as guides in our perplexities or comforters in our sorrows. And the danger is just this, that they take the place of that communion with God and that filial intercourse with him which is alone the true source of light and comfort. Most especially, to those whose souls are weakened by the anguish of some great bereavement, is the seeking of those that have familiar spirits to be dreaded. Who could bear to expose to the eye of a paid medium the sanctuary of our most sacred love and sorrow? and how fearful is the thought that some wandering spirit, in the voice and with the tone and manner of those dearest to us, may lead us astray to trust in those who are not God!

1

The most dangerous feature we know of in these professed spirit-messages is their constant tendency to place themselves before our minds as our refuge and confidence rather than God. "Seek us, trust us, believe in us, rely on us,” -such is always the voice that comes from them.

In Isaiah viii. 19, the prophet describes a time of great affliction and sorrow coming upon the Jews, when they would be driven to seek supernatural aid. He says: "And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and to wizards that peep and mutter; should not a nation seek unto their God? should the living seek unto the dead? To the law, and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them." The prophet goes on to say that those who thus turn from God to these sources of comfort "shall be hardly bestead and hungry, and shall fret themselves."

All our observation of those who have sought to these sources of comfort has been that they fall into just this restless hunger of mind, an appetite forever growing and never satisfied; and as their steps go farther and farther from the true source of all comfort, the hunger and thirst increase. How much more beautiful, safe, and sure that good old way of trust in God! The writer has had a somewhat large observation of the very best and most remarkable phenomena of that which is claimed to be spirit communion; she does not doubt the reality of many very remarkable appearances and occurrences; she has only respectful and tender sympathy for those whose heart-sorrows they have consoled. But when this way of guidance and consolation is put in the place of that direct filial access to God through Jesus which the Bible reveals, it must be looked upon as the most illusive and insidious of dangers. The phenomena, whatever they are, belong to forces too little understood, to laws too much unknown, that we should trust ourselves to them in the most delicate, critical, and sacred wants of our life.

Better than all is the way spoken of by Jesus when he, the Comforter, Guide, Teacher, Friend, will manifest himself to the faithful soul as he does not to the world: "If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come and make our abode with him."

Earth yawned; he stood the center of a cloud:
Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud.
Death stood all glassy in his fixéd eye;
His hand was withered, and his veins were dry;
His foot in bony whiteness glittered there,
Shrunken, and sinewless, and ghastly bare:
From lips that moved not, and unbreathing frame,
Like caverned winds the hollow accents came.
Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak,
At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke.

"Why is my sleep disquieted?
Who is he that calls the dead?
Is it thou, O king? Behold,
Bloodless are these limbs, and cold:
Such are mine; and such shall be
Thine to-morrow, when with me:
Ere the coming day is done,
Such shalt thou be, such thy son.
Fare thee well, but for a day,
Then we mix our mouldering clay.
Thou, thy race, lie pale and low,
Pierced by shafts of many a bow;
And the falchion by thy side
To thy heart thy hand shall guide:
Crownless, breathless, headless, fall
Son and sire, the house of Saul!"

Lord Byron.