as soon as you are called? Do you take to heart their injunctions and exhortations? Are you more like Samuel, or the sons of Heli?
How do you behave during the services of the Church? Do you like to hear the word of God, or do you feel an aversion to sermons and try to escape them by merely hearing a Mass? Do you assist at the afternoon or evening services?
IV. EPOCH:
THE KINGS.
(About 1095—588 B. C.)
Chapter XLIX.
SAUL ELECTED KING.
[1 Kings 8—15.]
SAMUEL having grown old appointed his two sons as Judges over Israel. They, however, were not just and God-fearing like their father, but took bribes and perverted judgment. So the ancients came to Samuel and said: "Thy sons walk not in thy ways; therefore give us a king[1] to judge us, as all nations have.” This word was displeasing to Samuel, for he knew that the Lord was their king, and none other. Still the Lord told him to hearken to the voice of the people, and to give them a king for their punishment. Moreover, he added, the king would rule over them with a heavy hand[2], and they would cry out and lament, but the Lord would not hear them, because they had desired for themselves a king.
Now there was a man of the tribe of Benjamin who lost his asses, and he said to Saul, his son: “Take one of the servants with thee, and arise, go, and seek the asses.” So they both started out, seeking the asses; and not being able to find them anywhere,
- ↑ A king. This desire to have an earthly king seemed to him to be, on the people’s part, a renunciation of the divine government of God.
- ↑ A heavy hand. Imposing burdens and taxes on them. He foretold them this so that later, when they felt the hand of the king to press heavily on them, they might not complain.
