It was while Samuel was still young that the chief Philistine victories were gained, and as he grew older the Philistine yoke became heavier and more severe. In the general wreck, his was the one prominent figure in Israel. To him the people looked for counsel and help, and saw in him a prophet of Yahveh. But Samuel was a man of peace, not of war. He could not lead his people to battle, or check the rising tide of Philistine success. Other men were wanted for the work, and these were not forthcoming. Perhaps a time came when Samuel himself was unwilling they should be found, and that the authority he had possessed should pass to another. Such, at least, is the impression we derive from his opposition to the demand of the people that they should have a king. Samuel possessed, moreover, something more than personal influence. He was the last representative of the ancient sanctuary at Shiloh. He had been dedicated to it even before he was born; he had grown up in it among the last descendants of the earlier high-priests; he had seen the ark taken from it to fall into the hands of the Philistines; he had also witnessed, probably, the destruction of the temple itself. All the older traditions of Mosaic worship gathered about him; he was the living link in the chain which bound the religious past of Israel with its present. In his person the doctrines and practices which had been preserved at Shiloh were handed on to the newer age of the kings. The Hebrew historian who put together the books of Samuel was no longer embarrassed, like the compiler of the book of Judges, by a want of materials. His embarrassment arose from a contrary cause. The documents before him relating to the history of the seer, to the rise of the monarchy and the adventures of David, were numerous, and the same event was sometimes recorded in different forms. He was called upon to harmonise and combine them together, and he doubtless experienced the same difficulty in doing so that the Assyriologists at present experience in reconciling the various accounts they have of the history of Babylonia in the thirteenth century B.C. That the latter can be reconciled, if only we knew a little more, we cannot doubt; but for the present the chronological inconsistencies seem irreconcilable. All that can be done is to set them side by side.