On his elevated “seat” by the wayside Eli sat to receive any tidings from the battle-field, his heart trembling for the sacred Symbol of which he was the guardian. As the day closed, a young man of the tribe of Benjamin came running into the town of Shiloh. His clothes were rent, his hair sprinkled with dust. A wail of lamentation arose from the people, who no sooner saw him thus attired, than they knew how the day had gone. Eli heard the noise of the tumult, and enquired the cause. _I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army_, said the young man. _And what is there done, my son?_ enquired the pontiff. _Israel is fled before the Philistines_, was the reply, _and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people――and thy two sons, also, Hophni and Phinehas are dead――and the Ark of God is taken_. No sooner did the last part of his terrible tidings fall from his mouth, than the aged priest fell _from his seat backwards, and his neck brake, and he died_. Ninety-eight summers had passed over his head, and forty years he had judged Israel, and now his doom was come. But still another death was to mark that dreadful day. The wife of Phinehas was near to be delivered of her second child. The news reached her that her husband and her father-in-law were dead, that Israel had been defeated, that the Ark had been taken. She bowed her head, the pangs of childbirth came upon her, a son was born, and the women that stood by tried to cheer her fainting spirits. But in vain. _The Ark of God was taken_, that was all her mind could realize. With her last breath she gave the child a name that should be a memorial of that fearful day. _Call him_ ICHABOD, she said, _The glory is departed from Israel_[227] (1 Sam. iv. 12–22). CHAPTER II. _SAMUEL’S JUDGESHIP._ 1 SAM. V.–VIII. B.C. 1141–1095. MEANWHILE the Ark was carried by the Philistines in triumph to Ashdod[228], one of their five confederate cities, and placed in the Temple of Dagon. But there its sanctity was remarkably vindicated, for on the morrow that idol was found lying on its face upon the ground. In vain did its votaries set it up in its place again. The next day saw it a second time laid prostrate, and not only fallen, but broken, without head or hands. Moreover while a plague of mice destroyed their crops, “emerods,” _i.e._ hemorrhoids or piles, tormented their bodies. In great consternation they, thereupon, removed the Ark to Gath, but there, too, the same plague broke out, and when they were on the point of removing it to Ekron, the inhabitants of that city interfered, and declared they would not admit it within their walls.