This song shows the fire, the depth, the fervency of the nature of this woman, capable of rising to the sublimest conceptions. It is the ecstasy of the triumph of conscious weakness in an omnipotent protector. Through her own experience, as it is with every true soul, she passes to the experience of universal humanity; in her Deliverer she sees the Deliverer and Helper of all the helpless and desolate; and thus, through the gate of personal experience, she comes to a wide sympathy with all who live. She loves her God, not mainly and only for what he is to her, but for what he is to all. How high and splendid were these conceptions and experiences that visited and hallowed the life of the simple and lowly Jewish woman in those rugged and unsettled periods, and what beautiful glimpses do we get of the good and honest-hearted people that lived at that time in Palestine, and went up yearly to worship at Shiloh! After this we have a few more touches in this beautiful story. The little one remained in the temple; for it is said, "And Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod. Moreover, his mother made him a little coat and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice." How the little one was cared for the story does not say. In some passages of the Bible, we have intimations of an order of consecrated women who devoted themselves to the ministries of the temple, like Anna the prophetess, "who departed not from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayer, night and day." Doubtless from the hands of such were motherly ministries. One rejoices to hear that the Gracious Giver blessed this mother abundantly more than she asked or thought; for we are told that a family of three sons and two daughters were given to her. We cannot forbear to add to this story that of the sacred little one, who grew fair as the sheltered lily in the house of God. Child of prayer, born in the very ardor and ecstasy of a soul uplifted to God, his very nature seemed heavenly, and the benignant Father early revealed himself to him, choosing him as a medium for divine messages. One of the most thrilling and poetic passages in the Bible describes the first call of the Divine One to the consecrated child. The lamps burning in the holy place; the little one lying down to sleep; the mysterious voice calling him; his innocent wonder, and the slow perception of old Eli of the true significance of the event,--all these form a beautiful introduction to the life of the last and most favored of those prophetic magistrates who interpreted to the Jewish people the will of God. Samuel was the last of the Judges,--the strongest, the purest, and most blameless,--the worthy son of such a mother. [Illustration: RUTH] RUTH THE MOABITESS.