our condition before GoD and the judgment which awaits us. This danger ramifies. A predominant inclination may lead us in the estimate we form of others to untruthfulness in our judgment of characters; we may be inclined rather to decide on what is true and right from what we admire in men, than to determine what is beautiful in them by the external laws of truth and right.

Rebekah's character suggests to us the importance of carefully observing the simple guidings of Providential arrangements, and the continual temptations to stray from them.

LXXIII.

DELILAH.

FALSE AFFECTION.

PROVERBS XII. 4.

"A VIRTUOUS WOMAN IS A CROWN TO HER HUSBAND:

BUT SHE THAT MAKETH ASHAMED IS AS ROTTENNESS IN HIS BONES."

1. DELILAH's character though but briefly drawn is not without terrible significance. In her we see a violation of the ties of life and properly-poised natural affection which makes us start; and yet by many among us this fault is committed and scarcely considered to be a fault.

The whole narrative is fraught with suggestions tending to arrest and appal the sinner in his way and to make him think.

Samson goes down to the valley of Sorek

and loves a woman, Delilah; and his love for her is at once made a trap by his enemies, who are on the look out for the opportunity to ruin him. He falls into the trap, and yields himself to her fascinations. She plies her art, and urges him to deliver his great secret into her power. He not only hesitates, but he misleads her; he knew what was in woman, and his own greatness despised her weakness and treachery too much to permit him to resist or reprove it openly. There is a bitter irony about his acts: he not only views her as beneath contempt, but also as exercising a cunning and subtlety which authorised him in outwitting her. He had fathomed her character, he had seen the lurking motives which impelled it, and he laughed. Still he loved her. He used her as his tool,-his mere tool, as she was using him.

She first tried to bind him with the seven "And Delilah said to Samson, green withs. Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another Then the lords of the Philistines brought

man.

up to her seven green withs which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now there were men lying in wait, abiding with her in the chamber. And she said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he brake the withs, as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire. So his strength was not known."

Then she pleads her case: she complains of his mockery of her with an apparent artlessness which might throw off the recollection of the mockery she was playing off on him. But he is up to her, and again deceives her. He bids her try the new ropes, which she does with similar success.

"And Delilah said unto Samson, Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were occupied, then shall I be weak, and be as another

man.

Delilah therefore took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there were liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like a thread."