St. Tammany farmer., 1903-04-25

in the land Of your own desires and
indulgences, be they seemingly ever
so innocent and harmless, you dwell
apart from the Lord, and the enemy
may take you, and does take you, at
his pleasure.
THE unshaven head of Samson was
L the silent witness of his peculiar
relations to God. From the day cf
his birth he was to drink no strong
drink, nor was he to eat any unclean
thing. The Christian from the hour
of his birth into the Kingdom of Jesus
Christ is set apart for Gods service.
The command to him is ''come out
from among them (he world and the
people of the world), and be ye sep
arate, saith the Lord, and touch notth
unclean thing'-(the allurements and
sinful indulgences of the world). And
he is told to ''be not drunk with wine,
wherein is excess; but be filled 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 a token of his
mighty strength in the Lord, SO the
Christian who is adorning and crown
+ ing himself with the glorifying growth
of love, joy, peace, long suffering, gen
tlece~s, 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.
WITH 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. It 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 not 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 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-
cape from the prison, and the chains.
Did itrever occur to you that it was
a strange thing that those Philis tines
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-
nit 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 opt of prison.
He must be patient in tribulation, and
must sincerely repent of his sin. Pa
tience 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 crowning victory of his life, SO
that God could write of him that "the
dead which he slew at 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. It 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
enee of God with him, he was willing
to die that the God, Whom he had so
dishonored, and Whose name he had