How much of sober history and how much of poetic allegory there may be in these glowing statements it is not easy to say. But the moral content of this record is clear. When those slender and delicate lines of contact which, as he believed according to his vow as a Nazarite, bound him in loyalty to the source of all strength, were broken, then his splendid prowess was no more. "It is that little half-inch rim of the tree where the sap runs up to the sun that makes the tree alive or dead." However you phrase it in the clearer light of this twentieth century of ours, guard with all diligence those lines of communication between your own inner life and the life of God. Maintain within yourself that faith and hope and love which will bring to you your own full measure of strength and joy. The dull, sad picture of this defeated man is not wholly unrelieved by any brighter touch. When he was shorn of his strength, robbed of his honour, stained in the quality of his manhood, we read, "Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shorn." It was only a gleam of hope, but it was a gleam. It was a far-off promise of that divine redemptive process which has become the basis of our trust. His claim upon the divine favour and his hold upon the sources of strength were not utterly forfeited by his acts of evil-doing. His hair began to grow again and a hope of moral recovery was begotten in his heart. "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves; but if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Let me close with this plain, straight word of appeal as strong as I can make it! You need God in your life. You need Him not as a philosophical belief touching the origin and ground of all finite existence; not as a mere dogma to be written at the head of your Confession of Faith; not as a name to be introduced into some liturgy which you may occasionally employ. You need God as a present, personal and profound experience. To know Him is to live, and to live well. It was Phillips Brooks who said once to an audience of Harvard men, "Here is the last great certainty, be sure of God! By simple, loving worship, by continual obedience, by keeping yourself pure even as He is pure, creep close to Him, keep close to Him, and in the end nothing can overthrow you." III The Young Man Who Became King