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The excessive fatigue brought on by this en counter of Samson with the Philistines, and the thirst that accompanied it, so exhausted him that he cried to the Lord, in his extremity, for still further aid. "Thou hast given," said he, "this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant : and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?"

His prayer was heard, and relief afforded. God caused a hollow place in the ground to appear in Lehi, (where Samson destroyed the Philistines, which word, in our translation of the Scriptures, is rendered the jaw-bone,) and a fountain in this hollow place to send forth water, which so refreshed him that his strength and spirits were revived, and himself prepared for any fresh exploit. To this fountain he gave the name which it afterwards retained, of En-hakkore, that is, the fountain of him that prayed.

We hear nothing more of Samson till about twenty years after these events. During this period he was a judge, or ruler, over a portion of the Israelites, probably those who dwelt in the south-western part of Canaan, where they suffered most from the Philistines. He was successful in defending his countrymen, in a good degree, against the oppressors, though not of effecting their entire deliverance. This did not take place till the time of David, who was the instru

ment, in the hands of God, of accomplishing it

At the expiration of the twenty years above alluded to, Samson went to Gaza, the capital of the five lordships of the Philistines. It was a very old and important city, a few miles from the Mediterranean Sea, and about sixty south-west from Jerusalem. Here he fell into an intimacy with a woman of bad character, as if he were her husband, although no marriage between them had taken place. It must have been in a state of sad declension from the love and service of God, and of forgetfulness of his peculiar obligations as a Nazarite, that he did this. It shows, in connection with some subsequent occurrences, how dangerous it is for good men to go thoughtlessly among the grossly wicked, and expose themselves to the temptations with which they must, under such circumstances, inevitably be assailed.

Some of the inhabitants of Gaza, finding that Samson was there, took measures to prevent, if possible, his leaving the city during the night. They avoided giving any alarm, and lay in wait near the gate, intending to make sure of seizing him in the morning, and of putting him to death. Having, probably, an intimation of their design, he contrived, in the darkness of midnight, to elude their notice, and made his escape. In doing this, he had so much alertness and strength as to

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carry away with him to the summit of a hill on the way towards Hebron, the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts with the bar exploit which he was enabled to perform, to let the Philistines notice the still remaining power of his arm, and what he could accomplish if it should become necessary to act against them. His yielding once more to the temptations which beset him, as we shall soon see, proved a ruinous snare to his virtue, and by drawing him away from the service of God, rendered him unworthy, at last, of continuing to be the protector of the Israelites.

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Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Such was the case with Samson. He had escaped the imminent danger into which, while at Gaza, his intimacy with one wicked woman had brought him; and now, instead of humbling himself before God for such conduct, and avoiding it in future, he suffered his affections to be ensnared by another female of similar character, in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. The lords of the Philistines soon perceived that this would furnish them with a favorable opportunity of making him their victim. For they knew that Delilah had no true attachment to Samson, and that she was a woman of such base and selfish Joshua & Judges.

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designs that money would easily induce her to be subservient to their purpose.

These five men offered her eleven hundred pieces of silver each, if she would entice him to disclose to her wherein his great strength lay, and thus ascertain by what means they might succeed in overcoming and binding him as their prisoner, to degrade and afflict him. She yielded to their wishes, hoping to secure the reward of her treachery, and made the necessary inquiries for that end of Samson, with all the arts of persuasion and cunning at her command.

Samson was truly in a dangerous and deplorable condition. He had gone astray from the path of virtue and safety. He had suffered himself to be entangled by the wiles of a corrupt, mercenary, and faithless woman; and losing the protection of God, he had no security against the influence of still more seductive temptations, and the ruin to which such a course would expose him.

Let his example, my young friend, make a deep impression on your memory. Never, never for get, that to yield to such temptations is to prepare the way for sins of the most infatuating and polluting kind. Their miserable victim soon loses all sense of shame and of duty. Uncontrollable passions become his master. Conscience is seared, and has no more sensibility left. Cha

racter is sacrificed. The counsel of friends is rejected. The Bible, the Sabbath, all the restraints of religion are powerless. Unless the grace of God interpose, and lead to repentance and entire reformation, the ruin is complete ;the slave of sensuality is undone for ever!

CHAPTER XXII.

Delilah betrays Samson into the hands of the Philistines, They carry him to Gaza.

Delilah was rejoiced, at length, to get from Samson what she supposed was a faithful reply to her inquiries. But in this she was mistaken. One sin makes the commission of another more easy. He who had broken a sacred vow, as Samson had, and abandoned himself to vice in one of its most degrading forms, felt little or no compunction of conscience at uttering a falsehood.

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If they bind me," said he, "with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man."

These means of making him their prisoner were

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