The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-02
Landmarks

Landmarks challenge the imagina- tion
 In modern times men set up bronze tablets, boulders of granite and shafts of, marble as landmarks. They set them upSto mark the places where history has been made. The impulse is nat ural. A child will set up a crooked stick in the back yard to mark the bur ial place of dead chick.
 Little crosses, few of which were painted white, but the majority of the thousands of others gwere too hastely set up to be painted, all the way from ! the outskirts of-Paris to the heights of Sedan, marked the place where history was made and where the makers rested from the making. t.
 The Jews made much of landmarks. They thought much of memorial stones. They set them up at strategic places all the way from Canaan to Egypt and back again. Doubles, Abraham set a stone to mark the place from which he set out, there on the high ground be- tween the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. He set others along the route of his journey to Canaan whence he led the members of his tribe with their QO0keyS, CduSlSp AAOChO anu ACAuSf .eS l lay the foundation of new nation.
 Isaac caused a pile of stones to be heaped together to mark the place where he met Rebecca.
 Jacob set up stone to mark the place where he talked to an angel at night.
 Doubtless, Joseph erected m0nu. ment in Egypt where he was sold into slavery, and where he rose to be the prime minister of the then greatest na- tion on earth.
 Moses marked the place where he saw the burning bush and received the com mission to lead his people from the bondage they had suffered four hun dred years. He set memorial to mark the place at Sinai where the law was given for the governing of Israel and the nations which should follow them. Joshua unveiled many a monument that marked the place where victory had been with his soldiers in their final conquest for settlement of the land that was promised Israel.
 Gideon must have set a stone to in- dicate the place whence the Arabs were sent in wild flight back to the desert. All the other twelve judges had raised markers to commemorate victorious bat tlefields.
 Unique Leader Now comes Samuel, one of the great est characters of Jewish history, to per form his special mission for his nation. The stone which he set up at Mizpah had two-fold significance. It marked at once the place where he routed with the aid of celestial artillery, the hosts of the Philistines, and also the place where 20 years before, Israel had been crushed and humiliated by defeat and by suffering the sacred ark to be cap tured and carried away.
 After Sampson, sometimes consider ed the last of the judges, Eli was priest and judge at Shiloh. At this time there lived in neighboring village a man named Elkanah. He had two wives, as did many men in that time. The best known and most loved of the two was Hannah. She was pathetic figure. She had no children.
 On one of the family's annual visits to the tabernacle, where they wor- shipped, Hannah prayed for son. Her prayer was answered. When the baby was born she named him Samuel.
 Hand That Rocks Cradle
 As soon as lie was old enough, she took him to the tabernacle again and asked Eli, the priest, to adopt him in order that he might grow up in Gods house.
 One night Samuel while yet a child, was lying upon his little bed in a tent beside the tabernacle. He heard a voice calling him by name. When he had mistaken the call three times as com ing from Eli, his guardian, Eli caught him how to answer when the voice should call again. Perhaps there isn't place in the civilized world where the story has not been told and retOld
 Time went on and the Philistines. the strong heather nation that occu- pied the seabOard along the western most border of the country, invaded all that part of the country occupied by the Jews, conquered it and caused the peo- pie to pass under the yoke. This was a ceremonial which acknowledged the conditions of servitude.
 Sacrilege
 During the conquest Israel, in her desperation, had taken the Ark out of the tabernacle at Shiloh and carried it into camp on the field. The next day the greatest battle of the war took place. The Philistines were the vic tors. They slew thousands of the Jews