unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byeways; the rulers
ceased in Israel; the people chose new gods; there was war in the
gates; there was no shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel
until Deborah arose. The family of Gideon also was the poorest in
Manasseh, and yet it was to him that the angel was sent, and he subdued
the Midianites and the children of the East. This hitherto had been
the Lord's way with us; and now we were to abandon Him for a king,
whose children, because they were king's children, were to be our
commanders. It well nigh broke my heart, I say. The glory of the
Tabernacle was henceforth to be dim, overshadowed by the pomp of a
monarch. I could not endure it, and again I went to the Lord, and
besought Him to turn the people or visit them with the thunder and
lightning of Mizpeh, that they might repent of their iniquity and live.
But He would not speak to them beyond what He had spoken through me,
and I returned and sent the assembly away, every man to his own city.

I called the people together in Mizpeh again, the place where they had
seen the Lord save them Himself, and yet even there they would not
yield. Then I prophesied against them, because they had cast aside Him
who had delivered them out of all their adversities and tribulations;
and I caused all their tribes to assemble before me. Saul the son of
Kish was taken, and the fools shouted God save the king. I did my best
for them. I wrote laws for them to protect them against him, and I put
them in a book and laid them up in the sanctuary.

Henceforth I was in a measure more solitary than before. Saul was a
brave man, and led the people to war, and they were pleased with his
success, but he was not single in his service of the Lord, and he had
for a wife a Horite, one Rizpah, who worshipped false gods. He
believed he could make Israel a nation by battles, and he saw not what