BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 151

be true as long as cradles are rocked and mothers bend
above them in wise, patient, prayerful love.

The world owes the strength of its greatest men to the
gentle ministry of their mothers. The world would have
had more men like Samuel if there had been more mothers
like Hannah. It is true, deeply true, that the hand that
rocks the cradle rules the world, and guides the church, and
marks out the path of empire. Three thousand years ago
and more, a man was needed very much in Israel. The
world has never suffered so much from anything as from the
lack of men—upright, brave, godly men. There were men
enough, after a fashion, in Israel, but what sort of men were
they? Those who were not grossly wicked were culpably
weak. A trembling, faltering priest in the temple, debauch-
ery in sight of the very altar of God, the whole nation sink.
ing down into a demoralized condition. What Israel wanted
wasaman. The times were out of joint. . The government
of the judges was falling to pieces.

A new order of things was about to begin. To inaug-
urate this new order, and to bridge over the period of organic
change, a man was wanted—a man of mental force, a man
of moral power, a man who could rise to the dignity of a great
mission and carry it forward to fulfillment. Such men are
not always plentiful. But when God wants such a man He
knows exactly where to find him. And when the time draws
nigh for the work of some Samuel, it will generally be found
that God has been at work through the aid of some Hannah
preparing Samuel for the coming task.

This old-world story of the Jewish mother and her devout
lad, and of the voice that shook the midnight silence of
Shiloh, is only one of many thousands of just such stories,

differing only in circumstance and time. What a glorious
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