I saw--that the one thing necessary for our salvation was to keep
ourselves pure and separate. The people complained that the Law was a
burden, but it was their safeguard: it was the Law which marked them
off from the heathen, who were doomed to fall by their sins. I toiled
daily to preserve the Law, and to insist upon the observance of its
ceremonies, knowing full well that if the people let them go, they
would let go the commandments from Sinai; would let go the sobriety and
the chastity of their bodies; would mix in the worship of Baal, and be
lost. Saul was no observer of ceremonies, and considered them naught,
the idiot, who forgot that they were ordained of God, with whom there
is no small nor great, and that through them the people are taught.
More solitary than ever I was, I say; but I sought the Lord more than
ever, and kept closer to me the memory of the Voice which first called
me. If Israel is to live, it will not be because Saul overcame the
Amalekites and Philistines, but because the Lamp of God in my hands has
not been extinguished. When the Philistines came against us at
Michmash, Saul was in Gilgal, and I went to meet him there. Because I
came not at the time appointed, he, the impious one, took upon himself
to offer the sacrifice, pleading that the people were leaving him, and
that the Philistines were encamped against him. He forgot the thunder
and lightning at Mizpeh, and that it was his duty to obey the least
word of the Lord, whatever might happen. It was a surer way to save
Israel than to teach it by the king's example that the ordinances of
the Lord could be set aside because it was convenient. I cared not for
myself: how can he who is His messenger care for aught save His honour?
But I saw by this act of Saul what was in him--that it was an example
of his heart--that if he could conquer the Philistines he cared not for
the Law. His victories without the Law would have melted away like
snow in summer. They would have been as the victories of Philistines
over Amalekites, or Amalekites over Philistines. It was one of the