SHORN SAMSONS by T. L. Cuyler

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 5, 1861

SHORN SAMSONS.

By T. L. Cuyler

FORTY years ago an orator stood on Plymouth Rock—lifting before his puritan audience such a "mountain of head" as they had never seen before. Standing there, he gave utterances worthy of a New Hampshire freeman on the rock of liberty. His words were half battles; they rang through the nation. A dozen years later the same statesman stood in the senate chamber, and pronounced his immortal watch-word—"LIBERTY AND UNION, now and forever, one and inseparable." He bade fair to be the nation's Samson to carry off the Gaza-gates of oppression, and to drive back the Philistines of nullification. For a time he was such. But at length a Delilah came. She flashed before his eyes the glittering bait of presidential honors. She soothed him with her promises, and in an evil hour she sheared off the locks of liberty in which lay the strong man's strength. He went out before the people to "shake himself as afore time;" but alas his strength was gone. Those whom he had deserted, in turn deserted him. Even those of us who felt for him the strongest intellectual idolatry, cannot but confess that it was a shorn Samson who was carried to his tomb beside yonder harbor of the Pilgrims. We need not name the fatal Delilah; she has wrought the political ruin of nearly every Northern statesman who has laid his head on her treacherous lap.

2. So, too, have we seen a minister of Christ advancing into vigorous power and usefulness. He was strong in his humility, his love of souls, his fidelity to the truth. At length he began to grow popular. The fascinating cup, that so few can refuse was presented to his lips. The titled and the fashionable began to court him. His name was pronounced by the lips of beauty in the drawing-room of luxury. He could stand obscurity, or hard fare, or hard work; but he could not stand flattery. At length the real power of his ministry showed sad symptoms of decline; no longer did he rebuke sin, or preach the lowly doctrines of the cross as afore time; but "he knew not that the Lord had departed from him." The admiring world soon fell away from him. The public heart is never true to the man who is not true to himself. Not even a Summerfield, a Spurgeon, a Dudley Tyng, a Beecher, or a Guthrie could hold the masses for one hour, should they have turned traitor to their conscience and their Saviour. But what the Philistine of open hostility cannot achieve, the sly Delilah can effect when the strong man falls asleep in her embrace. The twin Delilahs of the pulpit are—love of popularity and the fear of man. How many a shorn Samson have they sent away to the pity of God's people, and to the mockery of God's foes!

3. The dangers we speak of are not confined to the hall of legislation, or to the pulpit. Every private Christian has his temptress. The stronger the man in his religious influence, the more annoyance he gives to the Devil by his aggressive activity—the more surely will the Devil send some Delilah to make an attempt upon the sources of his strength. Sometimes the temptress comes with a purse at her side, and buys him off with large bribes; or she drugs his conscience with such opiates as "prudence," "provision for a rainy day," "claims of business," &c., until he has become a thorough worldling to his heart's core. Now he never comes to church without bringing the stock-market and the corn-exchange in his head; he dreams all through the service about the prices of freights and foreign bills; and goes home to "press toward the mark of the prize" in Wall street or South street. Who supposes that in the early days of that Christian professor's first love, any amount of open opposition would have driven him from Christ? No Philistine of persecution or infidel assault could have shaken him; he would have stood like Samson on the rock of Lehi. Because his conscience would be healthy, and his inward godliness would be strong. Awake, he was a match for all assailants, but when he ceased to watch and pray, when he grew sleepy in the arms of worldliness, then his locks were shorn away so slyly, that he did not hear the clipping of the fatal shears. His fault was in the yielding to the first influences of the enchantress. The moment that he yielded himself, he was left a nerveless, useless, joyless, worthless cumberer in God's church.

There are a host of Delilahs conspiring against the athletes of Christ's covenant host. Avarice is one. Ambition of office is another. Pride is a third. Unbelief is busy with her shears on many a giant's locks. Sensuality is a peculiarly dangerous sorceress who has enticed even ministers of Jesus to lay their head on her harlot-lap; and they have risen up only to be driven away to "grind in the prison-house" of remorse. Perhaps the most treacherous of all Delilahs is spiritual pride, or religious self-conceit. The victim of this tempter is prone to say to himself, How strong I am! How useful—how praised for my charities and good works! How much good I am doing! How plentifully God is laying to my hands! So the artful enemy sings him with siren songs into self-confidence. He begins to grow presumptuous. He relaxes his vigilance. He foregoes prayer somewhat. By little and little he neglects his closet. One religious duty is slighted. Then another; then a third. His locks are not all sheared off; but there is such a cropping away of moral strength, that he is no longer a Samson in Israel. He is but a common man. Never, never, until long penitence and prayer have made those locks to grow again, can he "go out to shake himself as before," and snap asunder the green withes of Satan as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire.

4. It is a noticeable fact that while all Christians are in danger, the Samsons of the church are in especial danger. Had the son of Manoah been but a common man, there would have been no extraordinary plotting against him. Satan wastes but little time or strategy on spiritual pigmies. Fools do not suit his purpose. Cowards he despises. The already sleeping he leaves asleep. But when he hears of an athletic saint, a Great-Heart or a Valiant-for-the-truth, a man zealous of good works, a Samson who can shoulder off a gate, or hew down a thousand lies with jaw-bone, or throttle the lions of error,—how he lusts for the blood of such a hero! How he keeps his tempters on his track! How he sends one Delilah after another to find out where his strength lieth! At last he finds that it lies in his conscience kept wide awake by prayer. The man is a man of prayer. Before he attacks the Cæsar at Rome, or the Pope's Bull at Wittemberg; before he pours a broadside into the slave

ship, or attacks the hydra of intemperance; before he assails the brothel or the gaming-house; before he lifts his hand against any iniquity, he renews his strength at the mercy-seat. He fortifies his soul in prayer. Satan discovers this. No longer does he try open assault. That will not avail. So he looks for a Delilah that will caress the Samson into a spiritual sleep; and when the slumbering lips have ceased to pray for grace, her cunning fingers feel softly for the locks of conscience, and noiselessly she clips them off. Alas for Samson now! He is shorn of his strength. What spectacle on earth so sad as this?

"So fallen! so sunk! the light withdrawn Which once he wore! The glory from his gray locks gone For evermore!"

"Revile him not; the tempter hath A snare for all, And pitying tears—not scorn or wrath— Befit his fall."

Thank God! there are Samsons who are never shorn! They are those who pray without ceasing. When Satan cometh to such he findeth them WATCHING. "What I say unto you, I say unto all—Watch.