The prophetic movement did something more than keep alive a belief in Yahveh as the God of Israel. It preserved at the same time the feeling of national unity. The ‘prophets’ who surrounded Samuel were drawn from all classes and from all parts of the Israelitish territory. That Samuel was ‘established to be a prophet of Yahveh’ was, we are told, known to ‘all Israel,’ ‘from Dan to Beer-sheba.’ That the statement is not too general is shown by the history of Saul. All Israel demanded a king, and it was over all the Israelitish tribes that he ruled. As he owed his power to Samuel, it is clear that the influence of Samuel also must have extended from one extremity of the Israelitish tribes to another. Wherever the Philistine supremacy allowed it, the authority of the seer was recognised and reverenced.[387] But it follows from this that the veneration in which the temple at Shiloh had been held was equally widespread. Theoretically, at least, the Israelite acknowledged a central sanctuary, where the sons of Aaron served before Yahveh, and the prescriptions of the Mosaic law were observed. In practice, it is true, the old Canaanitish high places, with their local Baalim and Ashtaroth, had usurped the place of Shiloh; private chapels had been set up in the houses of individuals, and priests ministered in the sacred ephod before a graven image. But all this was the natural fruit of an ‘age of ignorance,’ and later generations recognised that such was the case. The purer worship of Yahveh was no ‘development’ out of an earlier polytheism; it was simply a return to an ideal, the memory of which was kept alive at Shiloh. And yet a time came when it seemed as if Yahveh had forgotten the sanctuary wherein He had set His ‘name at the first.’ The punishment denounced upon the house of Eli was not slow in coming. Judah was already in Philistine hands, and the enemy were now attacking the Israelitish stronghold in Mount Ephraim. The Philistine camp was pitched at Aphek, not far from Ramah, the birthplace of Samuel.[388] The last relics of the Hebrew army were encamped opposite them in a spot subsequently named Eben-ezer, ‘the Stone of Help.’ But it proved no help to them on this occasion. The Israelites were defeated with a loss of about four thousand men, and in their despair ‘the elders’ advised that the ark of the covenant should be brought to the camp. Yahveh, it was believed, enthroned Himself above it between the wings of the cherubim, like the Babylonian Bel-Merodach, who on the feast of the New Year similarly enthroned himself above the ‘mercy-seat’ in his temple at Babylon.[389] He would therefore be actually among them, visibly, as it were, leading their troops to victory and blessing them with His presence. In the old days of the conquest of Canaan, the ark had been carried before the camp of Israel; the visible presence of ‘Yahveh of hosts’ had gone with it, and the foe had been scattered before Him like chaff before the wind.