The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1903-03-28

unclean thing"-(the allurements and
sinful induIgences Of the world. And
he Is told to "be not drunk with wine,
wherein In excess; but be filed with
the Spirit" And the fruits Of the
indwelling Spirit are the signs Of the
Christians relations to God. As Sam
sons hair was the sign Of his Naz-
arite vow. and was token Of his
mighty strength in the Lord, so the
Christian who Is adjoining and crown
ing himself with the clarifying growth
of love, joy, peace. long-suffering, gen.
tleness. goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance. Is giving indisputable
proof of HIS Nazarite vow and bears
about with him the token of his
strength and power in the Lord.
The shorn head of Samson was the
plain evidence of violation of his vow
of conservation to God, and marked
the departure Of God from him. The
Christian whose heart is shorn of the
grace of God and the fruits of the
Spirit needs no mark of Cain on the
forehead to reveal the sad fact that
his vows of loyalty and conservation
have been broken, and that God has
departed from him. He may be as ig-
norant of his real condition and as
unconscious of his weakness as was
Samson. He may go out as at former
times against the enemies of the Lord,
but it will only be to fall into their
hands, and to suffer torture and in
dignities and shame, and then the
prison house.
VIZ It'll eyes blinded and hands and
w feet manacled, Samson soon
realized his true condition. The Lord
was departed from him. There is no
sadder thing which can be recorded
than to say that the Lord has depart
ed from the shorn Samsons. They are
not conscious of the weakness until
they are seized by the enemy, and
their eyes are bored out, and their
limbs have the chains forged about
them; then in bitterness they learn
that while they have been dwelling in
the land of self-desire and worldly in
dulgences, and sleeping in the lap OF
sin and pleasure, they have been shorn.
Eyes blinded and limbs shackled-how
suggestive! Long, unbroken abiding
in darkness will weaken and destroy
the power of sight. The blind fish in
Mammoth cave have eyeballs, but no
sight. 1t is supposed that when the
fish first came into the dark cavern
they could see, but as the years rolled
on and the eyes were net used in the
dreadful blackness, they lost the use
of those eyes. The Christian who
dwells in the darkness of the worlds
pleasures and sins is as sure to be
stricken with blindness = spiritual
blindness as the fish in the cave.
And chains are forged there, too, and
the Christian is forced to wear them,
and finally grind for the enemy. All,
what a sight all over the world to-day;
shorn Samsons, blinded and bound,
grinding for the Philistines who have
enticed them! Shorn Samsons, but,
thank God, the enemy cannot prevent
the hair growing again. There is es-
There will come new opportunities.
New victories will crown the closing
days.
Did it ever occur to you that it was
a strange thing that those Philistines
did not keep Samson's hair clipped?
They knew his strength lay in his
hair. This had been clearly and most
forcibly demonstrated to them. Why,
then, such fatal oversight as to per-
init it to become long again? The
devil is always short-sighted. He is
never able to keep the shorn Samson
from regaining his strength. Even
the devils power is limited. There is
encouragement here for every Chris
tian. There are two steps which the
shorn Samson must take to get his
strength back and to get out of prison.
He must be patient in tribulation, and
must sincerely repent of his sin. Pa
thence will supply the material out of
which repentance is able to build the
ladder up which faith may climb TO
the presence of God. And the soul
that gets back to where God is will
find that he has regained his strength.
THE restored Samson won the
L browning victory Of his life, so
that God could write of him that "the
dead which he slew ut his death were
more than they which he slew in his
life" Looked at from Gods view
point, Samson's death was a glorious
triumph. Do not suppose that re-
venge was what nerved Samson's arms
that day to tumble the arena in ruins
upon the heads of the Philistine lords
and people. 1t was contest between
the false god Dagon and the true God.
Do not suppose that Samson, because
Of his sightless eyes and shackled
limbs, sought death in dependency.
No, rather with his returning strength
and the conscious thrill of the pres
ence of God with him, he was willing
to die that the God, Whom he had so
dishonored, and Whose name he had
so brought in reproach before the
goddess people about him, might be
indicated. So 1t is with the Chris
tian who regains his strength after
having been shorn by the enemy. He
may win victories, II he will, which
will far eclipse any which he had won