Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 edition. Excerpt: ... THE SHEARS OF DELILAH. "And she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength -went from him."--Judges xvi. 19. IT would take a skilful photographist to picture Samson as he really was. The most facile words are not supple enough to describe him. He was a giant and a child; the conqueror, and the defeated; able to snap a lion's jaw, and yet captured by the sigh of a maiden. He was ruler, and slave; a commingling of virtues and vices, the sublime and the ridiculous; sharp enough to make a good riddle, and yet weak enough to be caught in the most superficial stratagem; honest enough to settle his debt, and yet outrageously robbing somebody else to get the material to pay it; a miracle and a scoffing; a crowning glory, and a burning shame There he stands, looming up above other men, a a mountain of flesh; his arms bunched with muscle that can lift the gate of a city; taking an attitude defiant of armed men and wild beasts. His hair had never been cut, and it rolled down in seven great plaits over his shoulders, adding to his fierceness and terror. The Philistines want to conquer him, and therefore they must J find out where the secret of his strength lay. There is a woman living in the valley of Sorek, by the name of Delilah. They appoint her the agent in the case. The Philistines are secreted in the same building, INFLUENCE OF DELILAH. 137 and then Delilah goes to work and coaxes Samson to tell what is the secret of his strength. "Well," he says, "if you should take seven green withes, such as they fasten wild beaste with, and put them around me, I should be perfectly powerless." So she binds him with the seven green withes. Then she claps her hands, and says, ...
