MANOAH.

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friends and homes; God does not) obey His will, and to be ready to
wish all this; but he wants our| live or die as He pleases.

hearts, our love; He wants us. to

 

EPHTHAH judged Is-

rael six years, and then

~N| died. And now the peo-

ple began again to sin

against the Lord, and He

gave them up to their enemies the

Philistines for forty years. This

was a long time to be in sorrow and

trouble; but the Israelites deserved

punishment. Many times they had

displeased God, and now He showed

them again the evil of sin, by let-

ting them suffer. But God did not

forget His people, though He pun-

ished them; He knew how to

deliver at the right time, and He

had a deliverer ready to save them
when He pleased.

There was a good man in the
tribe of Dan, named Manoah. He
and his wife both served God. They
had no child. One day, an angel
of the Lord appeared to Manoah’s
wife, and said, “Soon God will give
thee a son, who shall deliver Israel
from the Philistines. No razor
must come upon him, for he shall
be a-Nazarite unto God.”

Who were the Nazarites? They
were people who had made a vow
to give themselves to God. They
did not drink wine, nor any strong
liquor; and they never cut their
hair nor shaved their heads.

Manoah’s wife wondered very
much to hear what the angel said,
and she went and told her husband.

 

Manoah believed it all, for he had
great faith in God. He knew that
nothing was too wonderful for God
to do: and he felt very thankful for
God’s promise to deliver Israel by ©
the child who should soon be born.
But Manoah feared that he and his
wife might forget what the angel
had said, and not bring up their
child rightly; so he prayed God to
send the angel to them again, to
tell them what they must do.

God heard Manoah’s prayer. A
few days after, the woman was sit-
ting alone in the field, and she
looked up, and saw the angel again
standing by her; then she ran di-
rectly, and called her husband.
Manoah followed his wife, and came
to the angel, and asked, “What
shall we do to the child when he is
born?” ‘The angel told them what
he had told the woman before, and
then Manoah said, “Stay here till
we have made ready a kid for thee.”
The angel answered, “I will not
eat of thy bread; and if thou wilt
offer a sacrifice, offer it to God.”
Manoah did not know who the an-
gel was, and he asked again, “ What
is thy name?” But the angel an-
swered, “Why dost thou ask my
name? It is avery secret, and a
very wonderful name.” Then Ma-
noah offered a kid in sacrifice to the
Lord upon the rock, and God sent
fire upon the sacrifice to consume