Chapter 2: Samuel (Or the Subject Place)

 •  35 min. read  •  grade level: 8
 
“The bird that soars on highest wing.
Builds on the ground her lowly nest;
And she that cloth most sweetly sing,
Sings in the shade when all things rests.
In lark and nightingale we see,
What honor hath Humility."
(1 SAMUEL 1, 2, 3)
1SA 1, 2, 3AMONG all the Children of Scripture there is none, I think, more known or loved than “Little Samuel." How many pictures of Samuel have been made! And if you have ever seen a man go by with a tray of white plaster images on his head, there is sure to be at least one "Little Samuel" among them. However, as the Bible says nothing about Samuel's appearance, none of the pictures or images can be at all really like him; and we shall know Samuel better by considering what God has told us about his words and ways, than by looking at a picture or image of what a man fancies his face and figure to have been.
In the story of Moses we looked at the Care that is around you; the story of Samuel will, I hope, bring a few thoughts about the Place you are in.
Shall you be surprised to hear that you are in the same place that Samuel once was in? All children are in this place, a little, quiet, lowly place, this Subject Place, but it is a safe, happy useful place: it is not a place such as you may see with your eyes, but one which your mind will do well to consider, and I hope you will like to think about this place, its furniture, its duties, its ornaments, and the dress which suits it.
Samuel, like Moses, is shown to us first as a baby; and even before God gave Hannah the little son we read of her desires, her tears and her prayers, for Hannah, like Jochabed, was a woman of faith; and when the child was born Hannah called his name Samuel, saying, "Because I have asked him of the Lord;" for the name Samuel means "Asked of God."
Elkanah, the father of Samuel, belonged, like Amram, to the tribe of Levi; and little Samuel was born in Canaan, the land which God had so many years before promised to Abraham and to his seed, and to which he had led the people of Israel about 300 years before the birth of Samuel.
It was from Egypt that the Israelites had come to Canaan, and Ramah, Samuel's home, was two or three hundred miles distant from that little spot by the river's brink where the infant Moses had been laid.
Many places in Canaan had the name of Ramah, and this will not surprise you when you hear that Ramah meant a hill; thus, there was Ramah of Gilead, which means the hill of Gilead; and Ramathaim-Zophim, the hills of the watchmen, and one of these Ramahs or hills of the watch men is thought to be the Ramah where Elkanah and Hannah lived, and where the child Samuel was born: this Ramah was not far from the borders of the Plain of Sharon, a lovely, fruitful spot; most of you have heard of the Rose of Sharon. Hannah may have often seen the flower that beautified these plains, but we may think how far more precious in her eyes was the little son whom she had asked of God.
Once every year, Elkanah took a journey, and Hannah went with him. The usual mode of traveling in Canaan, at that time, was on donkeys: the donkey of Eastern countries is a finer animal than our English donkey, though he, too, is a pretty, useful creature when well fed and kindly treated. But how often the poor, patient donkey is unkindly treated! If we remember the Tender Care of God which is over all creatures, that God hears their cry, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge, and that in speaking of His compassion for the great city Nineveh, He did not forget the cattle, we shall surely treat with kindness those of His creatures which He allows us to use, or which may, by any means, come in our way.
How hard must be the heart, how forgetful of Him whose tender mercies are over all His works, which can take pleasure in the pain of a poor donkey, a dog, or even a fly!
But I must go on to tell you about the journey of Elkanah and Hannah.
Every year they went to Shiloh: Shiloh was about twelve or fifteen miles to the north-east of Ramah; you may think this a very short journey, for in these busy traveling days you have perhaps already been further than that, but we have Trains, things never dreamed of in the days of Elkanah; how swiftly they take us mile after mile! and we go so quickly that we scarcely consider the number of miles we have passed, but if you and your father were to start at the same time for the same place, and he went by train and you on a donkey, he would have had time to see and to do a great many things before you arrived. So Elkanah and his family would be some hours on their journey, though it was a little one.
And why did they go to Shiloh?
Ah! the most precious thing in Israel was then at Shiloh. The Ark of God, that chest of shittim wood overlaid with pure gold. And what precious things the ark of God contained! The Golden Pot that had manna, Aaron's Rod that budded, and the Tables of the Covenant.
The lid or cover of the ark was not of shittim wood overlaid with gold; it was entirely of pure gold, and perhaps you have already heard the sweet name that it bore: it was called the Mercy Seat.
On each end of the mercy seat was a cherub of gold with wings stretched forth on high covering the mercy seat, and how blessed were the words spoken by God about this
No wonder, then, that amid all the good things which they had found in the Land of Promise, nothing was so dear to the hearts of true Israelites as this Ark which they had brought with them.
The Ark abode in the Holy Tent or Tabernacle which Moses had made in the wilderness according to the pattern shown to him in the Mount: in the wilderness it had been first set up, with its hangings and curtains of fine twined linen, and blue and purple and scarlet; when the Israelites journeyed, the Ark went before them, to search out a resting-place for the people of God in the waste, howling wilderness; the sons of Kohath carried the Ark; and the holy vessels, with their coverings, were carried by the sons of Merari. The boards, bars, and pillars of the Tabernacle, with its curtains and coverings were carried by the sons of Gershon.
In this manner, hundreds of years before the day of Elkanah's first journey, the ark had gone before the people into Jordan, and the waters of Jordan had been cut off before it while the people passed over; "and when all the people were clean passed over, the Ark of the Lord passed over," and some time after that, the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there.
Hannah had many times made the journey to Shiloh with a sorrowful heart, but at last the day came when her sorrow was passed, and with a heart rejoicing and thankful she stood before Eli and presented the child to the Lord.
Besides the child, Elkanah and Hannah took up bullocks, flour, and wine, as offerings and sacrifices to God, and when they presented the child to the Lord in Shiloh they slew a bullock; for no little child can be brought near to God except through the death of Christ, "who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God;” and the bullocks, lambs and goats slain by the Israelites all pointed forward to that one perfect Sacrifice, "the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world."
Elkanah and Hannah therefore, as obedient Israelites, could only bring the child to God through that which was a figure of the death of Christ.
Hannah had prayed for a son, and the Lord had granted her petition. He had given her little Samuel. Therefore she said, "I have lent him [or returned him] to the Lord, as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord."
After Hannah had presented the child, she prayed that beautiful prayer or song which you read in the first ten verses of 1 Sam. 2, then she and the father returned to their home in Ramah, while little Samuel remained at Shiloh under the care of Eli, the high priest.
Hannah had five more children after this, and no doubt she loved them as a mother does love all her children; but while the three sons and two daughters were around her at Ramah, I am sure that her heart was often at Shiloh with the little son whom she had lent to the Lord.
Perhaps some of you may remember one, a little brother or sister, who has been returned to the Lord; or it may be one whom you have never seen, but your mother remembers him, and when you are all together perhaps she may speak of the little one who is gone to be with Jesus. So perhaps Hannah spoke sometimes of her little Samuel: and he was not, like the little ones who are with Jesus, in a place where there are no needs and no sorrows; he must have needed many things, that little child who ministered before the Lord, girded with a linen ephod; and so, in the quiet hours at home, Hannah not only thought or spoke of her little son, but she made him a little coat.
How wonderful! God has even noticed and told us in His Word of so simple a thing as a mother making a little coat for her son: ah, there is nothing too small for God to take note of; a toiling mother or a little needy child, all are seen by God.
Every year Hannah made a new little coat, and I daresay, as yours would be, the old one was well worn by that time; what a joyful day it must have been for Samuel when "his mother brought it to him, from year to year, when she came with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice."
And how happy were Hannah and Elkanah who, year after year, saw their child ministering in the house of the Lord.—For “a wise son maketh a glad father."
Thus “the child Samuel grew on and was in favor both with the Lord and also with men." Many a step in the subject place of lowly service and obedience to Eli had Samuel trodden, we may be sure, before those blessed words were said of him, for "Before honor is humility," and this was wonderful honor for the humble, obedient child; for almost in the same words which describe the path of Samuel has the path of the Holy Child Jesus been described. And is Samuel the only one thus honored?
Of no other child have such words been written in the Scriptures, but "Even a child is known by his doings," and the God who looks down on children now, just as attentively and just as graciously as he looked on little Samuel, sees and is pleased with every step of lowly obedience which you take.
Eli was now very old, and little Samuel must have been a comfort to his sorrowful heart.
Do you know why I call Eli's a sorrowful heart?
Alas! he was not the glad father that Elkanah was, for his sons were not wise: "the sin of the young men, Hophni and Phinehas, was very great before the Lord."
Yes, God noticed all their evil ways, just as He noticed Samuel's obedient ways. Eli, too, noticed the sin of his sons. He was a God-fearing man, he wished them to give up their evil ways, he reproved them, but yet God said of him that “he restrained them not."
It is not enough for parents to wish their children to do right, and it is not enough for them to reprove their children when they do wrong, they must also restrain them; that means, prevent them from going on in what is displeasing to God. When a parent reproves, it ought to be enough for the subject child, but if it is not enough, the rod, that is the punishment, must come, for Scripture says: “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thine eye spare for his crying."
How far better would it have been for Hophni and Phinehas to have shed tears here, and to have been restrained from their evil ways; better still, if they had listened to the gentle word of reproof. But no; "Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them."
Oh, terrible words! “They hearkened not unto the voice of their father:" it was a sign that they were on the way to destruction. "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."
This was the sad history of Hophni and Phinehas. Could such a ‘notwithstanding' ever be said of you? Have you ever been reproved, and NOTWITHSTANDING gone on in your own way?
Hophni and Phinehas were much older than Samuel, but this only made their sin and disobedience the worse.
Surely as you grow older you should be growing more obedient, more like the wise child who makes a glad father; but I have seen a sight sometimes that makes me very sad.
What is this sight?
I will tell you. I have seen a little child, sweet and lowly, and loving and obedient; and bigger children, brothers and sisters of that little child, or even that same little child a few years later, rude and self-willed and disobedient, and then, I need scarcely add, unloving. Such a child is like the little gardens that children sometimes make.
What! such a child like a garden! A garden is something sweet and pleasant.
Stay, the garden I am going to tell you of is a very disappointing garden.
Did you ever see a child gather some bright flowers, and then stick them into his own little bit of ground? Oh, how gay his garden looked, in a few minutes perhaps. He is quite pleased; he goes to bed in the evening, and thinks he has such a fine garden: the next morning, he runs to look; and what is to be seen?
Nothing but withered blossoms and drooping stalks. Perhaps he cries over his disappointing Garden.
And well may the parent cry who sees such a child as I have described. I hope that none of you, dear children, will be even for a day like the Disappointing Garden.
And why had the blossoms all withered in a day? Were they not sweet, bright flowers, just like those from among which they had been gathered? Yes, but they had no roots. There was no Life going on under the blossoms in that little bit of ground, no little roots beneath the flowers, feeding and giving vigor and growth. The Scripture tells us of those who "have no root in themselves and so endure but for a time;" and again of those who are "born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever." The sweet flowers from that precious seed are enduring, but “all flesh is as grass and all the glory of men as the flower of grass; the grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away."
Not only upon themselves did Hophni and Phinehas bring destruction; they brought down the judgment of God upon their father.
Ah, think of this when you are tempted to make it hard, by your self-will or carelessness, for a gentle mother or loving father to restrain you in what is wrong.
What grief must have been added to the already sorrowful heart of poor old Eli, by the solemn reproof which was sent to him: "The Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me forever, but now the Lord saith: Be it far from me; for them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed."
Through all those sad days of the sinful sons and the failing father, and the reproofs of the Lord God of Israel, Samuel walked his lowly path as he had done before, and almost the same words are given us as to his doings in 1 Sam. 3 that we found in 1 Sam. 2:1818But Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod. (1 Samuel 2:18), "The child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli."
But a wonderful moment was near for Samuel.
One night Eli was laid down in his place. In the tabernacle the lamp of God was burning, that pure candlestick which Aaron and his sons, and now Eli had been told to dress, day by day, with pure olive oil beaten. Samuel was laid down to sleep in his place, just as he had lain down so many nights before; but this night was not to be like other nights. Though Samuel lived to be very old, as Eli then was, I am sure that he never forgot this night when, a little child it might be about seven years old, he heard the voice of the Lord.
The Lord called him by his name.
Yes; God knows all our names; He knows when our names are called and we do not run to obey. But Samuel attended to the voice that called him; at once he answered, "Here am I," then he ran to Eli; you see, he not only obeyed, but he obeyed quickly and willingly; it is when we are quick and willing that we run. Perhaps you have often before read this story of little Samuel, and have thought to yourself-If the Lord had called me, I, too, would have been ready to answer "Here am I," and it is right that you should feel so; but shall I tell you how we may know whether you would have been ready, like little Samuel?
Samuel answered and ran when he thought it was Eli who called him; and you may be sure that if you are not ready to answer and obey when your parents or those who have the care of you speak, you are not ready to hear and answer a call from God; for it is through parents or others who have the care of them, that God now speaks to children.
Samuel was in bed, laid down to sleep, his day's work was finished; he might have thought of all this, but he did not wait to think whether it was easy or pleasant to him to answer the call, or whether to be called after he was laid down to sleep was what he expected; "he ran to Eli and said, Here am I, for thou calledst me."
Eli had heard no voice; he said, “I called not; lie down again."
Then Samuel obeyed again; “he went and lay down."
Samuel heard that voice again. Yes; he was called, he did hear his name; again he went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for thou didst call me."
How different, this ready listening child, from Eli's own sons! Perhaps Eli thought of this, for he spoke kindly to the obedient child, “I called not, my son; lie down again."
A third time Samuel heard the call, and a third time he went to Eli; he knew not the voice that called him, but this time "Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child," and he told him what he was to say if he heard that voice again, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth."
Then, once more, the fourth time, Samuel heard the voice again; the Lord was very near to Samuel then. “The Lord came and stood and called, Samuel, Samuel." Then Samuel answered, “Speak, for thy servant heareth."
It was a very sad message which Samuel heard from God that night.
He heard how God intended to punish the house of Eli for the wickedness of Hophni and Phinehas: he lay still in his bed until the morning, but I don't think he slept any more; his heart was filled with solemn, sad thoughts, but he rose and remembered his duties: he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. He was afraid at the thought of all that he would have to say to Eli, the sorrowful old man whom he had so long obeyed and respected. Eli did call him before long; he asked what Jehovah, the God of Israel, had said; perhaps he already guessed something of the sad message that awaited him; and how meekly he received this reproof from the lips of the child-prophet!—he said, "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good."
Samuel never lost that place to which God had called him: many years of childhood were yet before him, but the Lord who had called him also kept him.
“And Samuel grew, and the Lord 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. And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord."
Thus we see the child, whose path of lowly obedience had led him on to the night when the Lord was pleased so to honor him, continuing in that same path. Neither honor given, nor the knowledge of future greatness was to lift him out of the subject place, even "an heir so long as he is a child differeth nothing from a servant, but is under [that is, subject to] tutors and governors," and just as we saw that the Tender Care of God was not only over children, but over men and women of all ages, so I must tell you that men and women, as well as children, are in different ways in the Subject Place. None know how to rule well who have not learned first to obey; and if any of you are among the number who may some day be set over others, you have special need to learn the lessons of the Subject Place.
Do you know what our Queen said, when first she knew that she was heiress to the throne of England? If not, I am sure you would like to hear.
I wonder what you would say or think, if you heard that a throne was before you?
I do not know, and perhaps you hardly know either, but if I were to see you I could soon guess what kind of little kings or queens you would make.
Does your mother or your nurse ever go away and leave you, as eldest, in charge of the little ones?
How do you behave to them then?
Are you kind and patient with them?
Do you give up your own pleasure and think of what will be best for them?
Or are you pleasing yourself, perhaps leading the little ones into mischief, or forgetting them, or making them cry?
Ah! what bad kings and queens such elder ones would make.
But I have not seen many like that; I have seen many patient, careful elder brothers and sisters, and I am sure there are numbers more whom I have not seen.
But I must not forget my story about the Queen.
Her Majesty, then the Princess Victoria, was the only child of the Duke of Kent, who died when the little Princess was but a few months old; thus she was early left a fatherless child, and was very carefully brought up, in Kensington Palace, by her mother, the Duchess of Kent.
George the Third, a king much beloved, whose death soon followed that of the Duke of Kent, was the grandfather of the Princess Victoria: his son, George the Fourth, became King after him; then George's brother, William the Fourth; all the little daughters of William the Fourth had died in infancy, King William was an old man, and the next to come after him was the Princess Victoria, who at that time was twelve years old.
It was thought right now to make known to the young Princess what had before been entirely kept secret from her,—that she was the next heir to the throne of England, so her governess, the Baroness Lehzen, put the genealogical table (that is the list showing the names of former kings, queens, princes and princesses), into the book from which the Princess Victoria learned English history.
On opening the book, her Royal Highness remarked, “I never saw this before. I see I am nearer the throne than I thought;” then, after a little while, she turned with tears in her eyes to the Baroness Lehzen and gave her her hand, saying with childish simplicity, yet with beautiful solemnity — "I will be good.... I understand all better now; I will be good."
Was not this a sweet and right thought to come at once from the lips and heart of the future Queen?
You know we are told to honor the king and pray for all in authority, to be subject to those who are set as rulers over us, and perhaps this little story will help you to remember, and honor the Queen; it is also a useful lesson for you: the Princess said, "I understand all better now." She understood why she had been so trained in the Subject Place, why she had had many difficult lessons to learn, why she had never been permitted to make her own pleasure her object, or her own will her guide.
You, too, may every day understand better all that meets you in the Subject Place, and may learn to find yourself at home in that little, quiet, lowly place which, as I told you before, is also a safe, happy, and useful place. Love is there, as a firm soft carpet spread under your feet, so must it not be a happy place? Safety is all around, like the curtains which we hang at our windows to shut out from our houses the wind and rain, and every disagreeable thing, outside in the dark lonely streets. There are seats, too, in the subject place, I am sure, for to sit down is the very best thing to do there; but they are little, low seats, and I think we may call them Contentment; and, besides all this, there are the ornaments. I think the ornaments of the Subject Place are the Subject children like olive branches round about the parents' table. And what are the duties of these children, in this happy place? Could I name to you all the little things you have to do, day by day? Indeed I could not; but I can tell you of two duties which are like great seeds, and hold all your other duties within them.
These words, I am sure, are already well known to you, and they are the child's first great duty, “Children obey your parents, in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord." The second will also not be new to most of you: “Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise."
If you obey your parents, you will be, like Samuel, quick and willing to answer to a call; you will try to do all that you are told, and when your father and mother are not near, you will try to remember all they have told you to do, and to avoid all they have told you not to do. I remember a dear little girl who tried to obey her parents and to remember, when away from them, all that they said. She and her little brother were spending the day with some friends, and Walter, who was a year younger than little Emma, was becoming forgetful of home lessons, and fretting to get his own way.
Emma was sorry to see this; she was not one of those who would lead a little one into mischief, and she wanted to remind him of what Mamma would say, but, being a very little girl herself, she hardly knew how to take the place of a reprover, and so, holding up her plump little finger to fretting Walter, and slowly shaking her curly head, with a very grave look on her baby face she said, " Oh, Watty dear, you know Mamma says it isn't good to be naughty." This was a very funny little speech to make, was it not? but I am glad to say that the loving little reminder of Mamma, and what Mamma had said, was enough for Watty, and he left off fretting, and became content and happy like dear little Emmy.
If Emmy had not learned some lessons in the Subject Place herself, she could not have helped the little brother out of the naughty fit that he was inclined to give way to; if she had not tried to obey herself, she would not have been so quick or so grieved to see his disobedience; and I think little Emmy honored her parents as well as obeyed them.
If you honor your parents you certainly will obey them, but besides that you will think a great deal about them, and you will thus know very often what they would like you to do, even when they have given you no rule; it is the heart that honors, and the heart will teach you to do many little duties that you have scarcely been told to do. Some children, who obey their parents, seem yet to forget those little duties which would show that they also honor their parents. I trust, in their hearts, they do remember this, which is as much a duty as "Children obey," but children cannot show us their hearts, we can only see their ways, and the ways of some children do not look like honoring the parent. If Papa or Mamma comes into the room, these children go on with their work or their book just as if nothing had happened; or if they are talking together, they go on with their talk; no one waits to know if Papa, who has just come into the room, may have any-thing to say; no one runs to see if Mamma wants her work, or if she has a footstool, or if Papa wants his book.
About one hundred years ago, children were made to show very great respect to their parents: well brought up children never sat down in their parents' presence until they were told to do so; and the child who spoke to its mother in a quick, careless tone without saying Ma'am, or to its father without saying Sir, would have been thought very rude indeed. Such formal manners as these would now be unbecoming and out of place; they are what would be called "old-fashioned," but the word, "Honor thy father and thy mother," though it was given thousands, that is tens of hundreds of years ago, has not grown old-fashioned, for "the word of the Lord endureth forever."
Your father and mother cannot be always with you; many things may call them away, and so they set others in their place to direct you; and just as you obey and honor your parents you will obey and honor those whom they set over you, or who are kind enough to take care of you in their stead.
Elkanah and Hannah did not stay with Samuel, they were busy in their home at Ramah; but Samuel obeyed Eli, into whose charge Hannah had given her little son, and this obedience was well pleasing to the Lord.
Does not this ending of the verse encourage you: “This is well pleasing unto the Lord."
Those little things you do every day which are not all perhaps quite what you like, or the little things you give up which perhaps you would like so much are all known to the Lord, and He is well pleased when you do the right little things or leave the wrong little things, because He has said: "Children, obey your parents in all things."
Ah, can this safe, happy, useful place ever seem a dull place, or a hard place to the child who has been set in it by the God who knows the needs and the dangers of a child?
Have you thought about the dress that is so suited to the subject place? The roof won't seem too low, or the walls too narrow if you have this dress on. “Be clothed with humility." Humility does not think about itself at all; it is always at home and happy in the subject place, and the little seats are just suited for those who are "clothed with humility:" they are not fretting for what is beyond the curtains of the subject place; they are able to enjoy the love and the safety; and the little seats of contentment are high enough and big enough for them; this dress never looks unbecoming, and, another thing is, you will never grow out of it as you do out of last year's clothes.
“Fairest and best adorned is she
Whose clothing is Humility."
And if she does not suit you, for you know the pronoun she would not suit all kinds of children, you will find the other pronoun, he rhymes just as well; and humility is a dress as becoming to a boy as to a girl.
Samuel, we may feel sure, was "clothed with humility" while he ministered before Eli, and when he grew and was in favor both with the Lord and also with men. "Better is it to be of an humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud," for “before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honor is humility."
“A man's pride shall bring him low, but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit." How much trouble pride can bring even a child into! On the other hand, How much trouble humility saves even children from, for “with the lowly is wisdom." “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." Shall we not then seek to incline our ears to hear the voice of Him who said “Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart"? Pride and self-will do not like the curtains of the subject place; they long to be beyond them. Perhaps you would like to hear a story about those curtains; oh! how many dangers they shut out from us, dangers which perhaps the child never supposes, but the boy of whom I am now going to tell you was able to see what the subject place saved him from. He was almost grown beyond what might be called a boy, but he did not think himself grown beyond considering the wishes and feelings of those who were above him: he was not like the disappointing garden.
He was staying with an uncle and aunt, and one evening some young friends asked him to join them, the next day, in an excursion on the river; this of course sounded very pleasant to him, and he agreed to go, and returning to his uncle's house he told his aunt of the proposed plan. The aunt was a very timid person and not at all fond of boats and rivers herself; when she went to bed that night, her fear about her nephew and the boating excursion prevented her from getting any quiet sleep: very early in the morning she went to her nephew's room and told him her fears and how much she had suffered all through the night; he felt no fears, besides he had promised to join his friends; and what excuse could he give to them for not being with them? “Write to them," said his aunt, "and say that I am ill, and you will not leave me: “for indeed the fears and the restless night had made the poor aunt quite ill. Now her nephew could see no danger, nothing but pleasure in the expected boating, and it was not at all pleasant to him to disappoint his friends, or to withdraw himself from the expected treat, but he had learned a lesson in the subject place, and so he respected his aunt's wishes, and wrote the note, and his young friends went without him.
And then, what do you think happened
Oh, how glad that boy must have been of his safe subject place, and how thankful the uncle and aunt must have been to see him safe at home, for in the very middle of the river, quite suddenly, as boats so often do, the boat upset, and not one of the youths who were in it ever returned to his home; all were drowned in a moment. Oh! what a terrible pang of sorrow would have pierced the nephew's heart had he, like Hophni and Phinehas, despised the word of advice and gone with his friends and found himself, with them, sinking into the deep waters.
If he lived to grow old I hope he had that day learned a lesson of the safety found in the Subject Place which would be useful to him all his life through; tor you remember we never grow too old for the Subject Place, just as we never grow too old for the Tender Care. Our parents may die; those who once guided us may grow old and leave us, or the business of daily life may take us far away from them, but is there then no guarding safety around us? no firm footing spread by Love beneath our feet Ah yes! The parent's rule, the friend's counsel may have gone from us, but the will of God is there, enduring to guide; and the child who now obeys this word "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right," who is now most careful to say, Would this please my father? or Would my mother like this? will best learn how to find and to follow that safe, lasting pathway through the Subject Place, God's way.
"As for God, his way is perfect," and "the path of the just is as the shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Yes, and on that pathway, the way of God, we walk not alone: you know, dear children, who has walked that way before you; the whole, whole length of the Subject Place, even from the babe's lowly manger-cradle.
The Lord Jesus Christ. It was His footsteps that made that safe pathway for us. He alone, of all who ever trod this earth, never set a footstep, never had a thought or a wish beyond the Subject Place. As the only obedient One, His pathway would have led straight into glory; His, and none other, was the path of the just, shining more and more unto the perfect day; but then, though the shining way would have been traced through the subject place, not one of us could have walked along it, for the mind of man, called the carnal mind, "is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Christ would not enter alone into the glory; He passed it by and He “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Thus He was the Good Shepherd giving His life for the sheep. Now He is in glory, and now He can say, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life: and they shall never perish."
He has left us an example that we should follow His steps. How safe are the feet that are set in His footprints; but only the Sheep can walk there: they hear His voice; He knows them; and they follow Him.
The steps in that pathway are not great steps; there are footprints there little enough for children's little feet. The child Jesus went down into Nazareth, and was subject to Joseph and Mary.
Who so “clothed with humility" as Jesus? who could say, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
“Childhood’s years are passing o'er us,
Youthful days will soon be done;
Cares and sorrows lie before us,
Hidden dangers, snares unknown.
" Oh! may He who, meek and lowly,
Trod Himself this vale of woe,
Make us His and make us holy,
Guard and guide us while we go.
"Hark! it is the Savior calling,
Little children, follow me:
Jesus, keep our feet from falling,
Teach us all to follow Thee."
WHITAKER