The Story of Samson

1915

The story of Samson bulks large in the book of Judges and in the interest and imagination of all men ever since his day.

Every race has its superman, and usually it is one of physical strength. That Samson had no physical evidence of his superior strength is evident from the fact that Delilah asked to know his secret. Nor was his strength in his hair, else there was no need that the "Spirit of Jehovah" should come upon him. The secret of his power is indicated in Judges 13:25, "And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times..." The word "move" suggests to play upon a harp, as if Samson's heart was open to God as a harp is open to human touch. As one said, "Samson's power was the result of a faith that was open to the infinite storehouse of the divine dynamic." Such spiritual power is within the reach of every man.

Samson ("sunny") was full of laughter; not the comic, but the joyous. He did the big things God gave him to do and was filled with gladness. But Samson came under the spell of an evil woman and all of this true laughter and glad joyousness left his soul. The laughter heard in the haunts of sin has lost its buoyancy, is forced, is different. is that of men whose hearts are unclean.

Samson's Impurity. A woman can make or mar the man with whom she associates. As a Nazarite, Samson was dedicated unto God, must not allow a razor to touch his head, was not to touch anything unclean, nor drink intoxicating liquor. This vow was usually for a short period. Samuel and John the Baptizer are other Nazarites recorded in Scripture, and are said to have been such from birth. Samson's strength burned out when he lay his forehead in a harlot's lap and the laughter went out of his soul. It was that which broke the contact between him and God. Samson's birth in a godly home, his knowledge of his relation to God not keep him from an ignoble failure. He left the atmosphere of God's spirit for that of sin.

Samson's Imprisonment. We find him after his excesses grinding in the Philistine prison, where he perhaps overheard praises being sung to Dagon who had overthrown Jehovah's judge. It is never safe to play with temptation though conscious of our own strength; then it is we are most apt to fall (1 Cor. 10:12). One act and the gay hero is grinding in a prison house. Directly a man goes into impurity, whether in act or thought, he loses the power that formerly moved men or worked wonders. Year after year Samson plodded his round of enforced toil, a type of the force and power of intemperance and other impure habits. During these years he doubtless put his hand upon his head and said. "My hair is growing again." and it gave him courage to believe that God would yet give him another chance.

Finally, "when their hearts were merry" (Judges 16:25), he is brought out to make sport. During one of his resting periods he said to a boy near by. "Let me feel of the two pillars," those upon which the main walls rested and which were within a man's reach. Then it was that be was able to grip the mysterious power of the unseen. Was Samson a suicide? No! He accepted death as the inevitable consequence of his act of duty (see Heb. 11:32.)

The growth of his hair was only a token of that consecration which he had surrendered when he failed to withstand the wiles of Delilah.

Driven to Suicide By His Daughters

1908

St. Joseph, Mo., May 22. — With two daughters on the stage, which weighed heavily on his mind, and on account of other domestic troubles, Rev. Rufus R. Fletcher, forty-five years old, a Methodist preacher, committed suicide with carbolic acid. After taking the poison in a shed, he entered his house, took his Bible and, opening the book, began reading. He died a few minutes later.

The Ghost Appeared, Waving Its Fleshless Arms

1910

FARMERS SWEAR TO HAVING SEEN A GHOST

HAMILTON, Ohio, March 5. -- Somerville is quaking over the nightly appearance of a ghost, vouched for by Farmers Dan Thomas and his neighbor, Andy Neanover, both of whom have made affidavit before Mayor Ben Baker of Somerville in actually seeing the estray from spiritland.

Thomas and Neanover lay for the ghost, whose haunts are in an abandoned log cabin, where thirty-five years ago Dan Bently hanged himself. The ghost appeared and, both men swear, ran after them, waving its fleshless arms. They ran to the Thomas home, and his ghostship vanished in a pale-blue flame.

--The Des Moines News, March 5, 1910, page 10, home edition section.