The whole land now becomes united under one ruler as a king, but at the same time strongly influenced by the prophetic authority of Samuel, who seems never to have lost power, either over the people or the king. =3. Dan= and =Beersheba= were towns which in common speech limited the whole land, the former on the north, the later on the south. Dan was the name of only the tribe on the Mediterranean west of Jerusalem until the time that a colony from this tribe migrated to the extreme north of Canaan, beyond all the tribes, and drove out a company of Sidonians who had settled by themselves near the southern parts of Mt. Hermon, in a place before called Laish. This town the Danites conquered, and, taking possession of the place, named it Dan, after their ancestor. Scarcely anything remains of this ancient city, but its location, called Tel el-Kady is beautiful, at the head of the plain of Huleh, nearly twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee. There are two fine springs at the ancient site and the elevation is 505 feet above the Mediterranean, which is twenty-five miles distant, on the west, to a point near the city of Tyre, which then existed. Dan was in the region assigned to the tribe of Naphtali. =4. Beersheba= was exactly 148 miles south-southwest of Dan. Here the only remains consist of two very ancient large wells. The site still bears the ancient name and is twenty-seven miles southwest from Hebron. The wells contain excellent water and show the rope-grooves of many centuries in the massive stones with which they are lined and curbed. =5. The introduction of Saul= to the full possession of the kingly office and authority was after his first battle, near a place east of the Jordan, called Jabesh-gilead. The Ammonites had come up against this city from the south and demanded its unconditional surrender. In their distress they sent to their brethren, at Gibeah, where Saul resided. Saul seems to have had, at this time, but little to do as king, and it was not until he returned from the field, where he had been attending to his cattle, that on inquiry he learned the condition of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead and their appeal for help to their brethren, who were publicly lamenting their inability to give them any aid. =6. Saul immediately hewed a yoke of oxen= into pieces, and sending messengers with pieces of the oxen throughout the entire land of Israel, made wise use of the name of Samuel in union with his own, in the threat, “Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen,” 1 Sam. 11:7. No such universal call to united effort had before sounded over the land for ages. It was the sword of the king and the authority of Samuel the prophet of the Lord, and the call was honored from Dan to Beersheba. The messengers from the besieged city were hurried back with the cheering reply from the gathering army, “To-morrow by that time the sun be hot ye shall have help,” 1 Sam. 11:9.