I wept when I remembered the son of Manoah. He was a child of Providence. His was a miraculous birth. Chosen to punish idolatry, to deliver his country, and judge a nation, Samson was an army of _one_. God had purposed to accomplish through him what he had done by the mighty forces of Joshua, Deborah, Gideon, and Jephthah, and to illustrate his own divine power in subduing the enemies of his church by the arm of a single man. It was a thought worthy of a God. As in other ways of the Almighty, the secret of Samson’s power was hidden. Unlike Goliath, he was an ordinary man in stature: there was nothing in his physique that indicated his wondrous strength. It was this that confounded his foes, and impelled them to solicit Delilah with a bribe to ascertain the secret of his power. As his strength was not in his muscles, so it was not in the seven locks of his hair. When asleep and at ordinary duties he was as other men, but when the Philistines were to be punished, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. So long as he retained the solitary virtue of secrecy, and allowed his beard and hair to grow untrimmed, it pleased the Lord to use him as he did Jephthah and Cyrus, and as he does a thunderbolt or a volcano, to punish the wicked; but when he preferred the smiles of a woman to the benedictions of heaven, he became as other men. Though a failure in life, he was faithful in death; and for the faith of his dying act, St. Paul records the name of Samson among the illustrious believers.[396] The subsequent history of Gaza is replete with memorable events. Being the key to Palestine to those on the south, and the key to Egypt to those on the north, it has been frequently subjected to the calamities of war. Besieged by Alexander the Great, its defenders surrendered their city with their lives; and in the fearful conflict the great warrior received a wound in the shoulder, which threatened to terminate his eventful career. In the first century of our own era it was twice destroyed, and, though subsequently rebuilt, it never attained its ancient splendor. Though early visited by the teachers of Christianity, yet in the fifth century it contained eight temples dedicated to the worship of heathen gods. In 634 A.D. it yielded to the conquering arms of Mohammed, and afterward became the birthplace of Esh-Shâfa’y, the founder of one of the largest of the Mohammedan sects. In 1152 A.D. the Crusaders found the city deserted, and, erecting a strong fortress on the highest hill, intrusted its defense to the Knights Templars.[397] Captured and sacked by Saladin in 1170 A.D., with the exception of a brief interval, it has remained, as it is now, a Moslem city.