to the concernments of our private condition, or the affairs of our party, our sect, or our town. We have among us God's spiritual ark. Dangers often threaten it; clouds often obscure the lustre of its most fine gold; at times it seems as if it were going, as if it were gone, into the hands of the Philistines. Where is, then, 'the exceeding great and bitter cry,' such as arises when some great reverse of temporal fortune comes; when some plague reaps the life of the land; when some great ship, laden with souls, sinks into the deep; when one of our chief of men is smitten suddenly down in the noontide of his honours? Alas, we have a different standard for the measurement of the relative importance of these things, from that nameless woman of Israel, who, amid the most cruel deathagonies to which the human frame is subject, and in the severest reverses we can be called to suffer, called her newborn son Ichabod, not for these things, but chiefly 'because the ark of God was taken.'

On this case it is well remarked by an old writer, whose subject led him naturally to it (it is part of a meditation for a woman expecting to be delivered): 'She took no comfort in her deliverance, though she had a son, while the church of God was not delivered. Oh that the same mind might be in me, that I might learn also to be more affected with the affairs of the church! Alas, what is my danger to the universal danger; my travail to the travail of the church? What comfort to me to have many children, unless I might see the good of God's chosen? What content have I in being delivered of my pains, unless God deliver Israel from all its troubles? What delight had Abraham in all his mercies while he was childless, or I in all my children, if the children of God be comfortless? Oh my God, bless me out of Zion, and thus let me be blessed as those are that fear the Lord; let me not only be a fruitful vine, but let me see the good of Jerusalem all my days. Let me not only see my children's children, but peace upon Israel.”1

A Present to be given to teeming Women by their Husbands and Friends. By JOHN OLIVER, less than the least of all saints, London. At the Golden Bible on London Bridge, 1669.

To which we may suitably add the words of a still earlier writer: 'What cares she for a posterity which should want the ark? What cares she for a son come into the world of İsrael, when God was gone from it? And how willingly doth she depart from them from whom God was departed! Not outward magnificence, not state, not wealth, not favour of the mighty, but the presence of God in his ordinances, was the glory of Israel; the subduing whereof is a greater judgment than destruction.'1

Twenty-ninth Week-Second Day.

DAGON.-I SAMUEL V. 1-5.

THE history of the ark in the hands of the victorious Philistines offers several circumstances of striking and peculiar interest.

They had been permitted by the Lord thus far to triumph, for the accomplishment of his own high purposes. And it remained for Him now to vindicate the honour of his own great name, equally from the despair of the Israelites, and the profane exultation of the Philistines. The latter, indeed, by making it a triumph of their own god over the God of Israel, rendered it inevitable that He should move his terrible right arm to redeem his name from reproach. It was the custom among the ancient idolaters to place among the captives, and to bear along in triumph, the idols adored by their enemies, and eventually to deposit them in the temples of their own idols as memorials of their victory. The prophet Isaiah predicts that the gods of Babylon should thus be treated by Cyrus. Instead of using the direct language of prophecy or description, he represents himself as seeing in vision the heavy laden animals and wains moving slowly along, pressed down by the weight of the captured gods that were to be borne to the distant land of the conqueror: 'Bel boweth down, Nebo croucheth; their images are laid upon the beasts and upon the cattle. Your burdens are 1 HALL'S Contemplations, Book xi. Cont. 7.

packed up as a load to the weary beast. They crouch, they bow down together; they cannot rescue the burden; themselves into captivity are gone." It is very probable that, in thus deriding the Babylonian idols for their inability to save themselves from captivity, he meant to glance back at the case before us, in which the ark of God came forth in triumph from captivity among the Philistines. Another prophet predicts that Ptolemy Euergetes should carry captive into Egypt the gods of the Syrians. Jeremiah also foretold that Chemosh, the god of Moab, should be borne into captivity, to the shame and confusion of his worshippers. There are several examples of this among the pagan writers.

Plutarch relates, that till the time of Marcellus the Romans had been content with really warlike trophies; but he first brought fine Grecian images and pictures of the gods to adorn his triumph on his return from Syracuse. This, he says, pleased the multitude; but thoughtful men were dissatisfied, doubting whether he had not brought upon them the malice and hate of the gods he thus pretended to make captive. He adds, the old men liked better the conduct of Fabius Maximus, who, when he took Tarentum, brought away indeed much gold and other useful things, but left the images of the gods standing in their places, observing, 'Let us leave to the Tarentines the gods offended with them."

With these analogous cases before us, and with the result in view, we have no doubt that the ark was placed by the Philistines in the house of Dagon' their god, at Ashdod, in order to give honour to their own idol, by exhibiting him as triumphant over Jehovah, although some have fancied that they placed the ark in this their sacred place, in order to render it honour, and even to adopt it as a god.

This people had reason to distrust the triumph of their idol, when, next morning, they found it lying on the floor, prostrate before the ark of God. But it might be an accident; so they set it up in its place. The morning after, it was not only fallen, but broken. The language in which this is related is remark1 Isa. xlvi. I, 2. 2 Dan. xi. 8. 3 Jer. xlviii. 7, 13.

able: The head of Dagon, and both the palms of his hands, were cut off upon the threshold; only the Dagon was left to him. This raises a question as to the form of this idol, and what was 'the Dagon' which remained after the head and hands were separated, and which gave name to the whole image. Dagan means 'corn' in Hebrew, whence some have thought that Dagon was the Philistine god of agriculture. There is nothing but the mere name to countenance this notion, and every other circumstance is against it. Then, again, Dag means 'a fish ;' whence, and from the incidents, it has been generally understood that the image was that of a kind of merman-the upper part human, with a fishy extremity. Certainly the expression in the text, that the Dagon' remained after the head and hands were broken off, is greatly in favour of this conclusion. This is the opinion of the Jewish writers; and it is supported by analogies. We know, in fact, that the neighbouring Phoenicians had an idol of this shapeessentially indeed the same, except that it bore a female form. This was called Derketo, otherwise Atergatis. The Babylonians had also a tradition, that in the beginning of their history, an extraordinary being,

called Oannes, having the body of a fish, but the head, hands, feet, and voice of a man, emerged from the Erythrean Sea, appeared in Babylon, and taught the rude inhabitants the use of letters, arts, religion, law, and agriculture; that, after long intervals, other similar beings appeared, and communicated the same precious lore in

detail, and that the last of these was called Odakon, the resemblance of which to Dagon is very clear. It is not difficult to recognise in these fables the distorted tradition of more civilised persons, who in ancient times came by sea or river, and taught useful arts to barbarous nations, by whom they were after death worshipped as gods. Having no memorials of the

Philistines, no figure of their Dagon has been found; but representations of the corresponding Oannes or Odakon of the Babylonians, and Derketo of the Phoenicians, have been discovered, and answer to the general notion respecting the form this idol bore.1

One would suppose that this event would have convinced the Philistines of the impotency of the idol they worshipped. It seems, indeed, to have revived their former dread of the God of Israel; but it did not lessen their devotion to their own idolatry. Nay, rather, it engaged them in a new form of superstition; for therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagon's house, tread upon the threshold of Dagon's house in Ashdod unto this day.' It may be doubtful whether this was in reverence of the threshold, since it had been touched by the superior parts of Dagon's image, or in detestation of it, as having been instrumental in this mutilation of the idol. Henceforth, however, they were careful not to tread upon it, but stepped or leaped over it; a custom which, it seems, continued not only to the latter days of Samuel, the author of this book, but down to the time of Zephaniah, who seems to allude to it: In the same day will I punish all them that leap on [or over] the threshold." It is curious that their very superstition led to the establishment of a custom which could not but serve as a standing memorial of the discomfiture of their idol in the presence of the ark of the Lord. Not unlike this usage in form, though different in principle, being simply a memorial of an event, and not a superstitious rite, is the ancient custom of the Jews in abstaining from the part, in the animals they use for food, corresponding to 'the sinew that shrank' in the thigh of Jacob when the angel wrestled with him.3

Although this fact accounts for the reverence of the threshold among the Philistines, such a superstition was not peculiar to

1 The cut is from a Babylonian engraved stone in the British Museum, and appears to represent both the Oannes, Odakon, or Dagon; and the Atergatis or Derketo, of the Babylonians and the Syrians. 3 Gen. xxxii. 32.

2 Zeph. i. 9.