SAMUEL REPROVES AND 


COUNSELS THE PEOPLE.


WHEN Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house, Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched, but others despised him, and said, How shall this man save us?

Soon after this, Nahash the Ammonite came up with an army, and encamped against the men of Jabesh Gilead; and when the men of the city offered to become his servants, he would not make peace with them unless they would allow him to thrust out all their right eyes. When the people of Israel heard of this, they wept aloud; but Saul was full of courage, for the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. He called all the people together, a great army, more than three hundred thousand men; and fought against the Ammonites, and scattered them, so that no two of them were left together.

Then said Samuel to the people, Let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there; and all the people went to Gilgal, and with great rejoicing proclaimed that Saul should be their king.

And Samuel called upon the people to witness that he had never taken anything that belonged to them, and that he had never received bribes from any man. Yet, now that he had become old and gray headed, they had forsaken him, and wanted a king. He told them that it was the Lord that had always delivered them from their troubles; that it was the Lord that had worked through Moses and Aaron to bring them out of Egypt, and that all along had raised up men to deliver them from their enemies; that the Lord had been their king; and that in wanting a king like the nations around them, they had rejected 

God.

When Samuel had finished talking, he told the people that the Lord would make it thunder and rain, that they might know that they had sinned, and that what he had said was true. When the thunder and rain came, the people were terrified, for it was at a time of year when it never rains in that country. Then the people wanted Samuel to pray for them that the Lord would forgive their sins, and especially the sin of turning from the Lord, and desiring another king to reign over them. Samuel promised to pray for them, and said that if they would obey the Lord in all things, he would still be with them, and would bless them and their king.