Page:Faithhealingchri00buckiala.djvu/236

222 Amid the conflict I also will show "mine opinion." Saul, who was a man of strong passions, feeble judgment, and little self-control, had sinned, and God refused to hear him. With the Philistines visible at a distance of four miles, encamped in a better position than his own, being forsaken by God, his heart sank within him, and he determined to know the worst. Taking his servants into his confidence, he sought out a professed witch, or necromancer. Having received an oath that she would not be punished, she began in her usual way. "Whom shall I bring up unto thee?" This was her professed business. "Bring me up Samuel!" Immediately afterward the woman cried with a loud voice, and said to Saul. "Why hast thou deceived me, for thou art Saul?" There is a strong presumption that she would have known him under any circumstances. He was "head and shoulders above all the people"; his face must have been familiar; his camp was less than twelve miles from her cave. It is incredible, in that small country, with Saul ranging over it, and great public processions, that the witch had never seen him. Said he, "Be not afraid." She said, "I see gods ascending out of the earth." "What form is he of?" "An old man covered with a mantle." Then Saul, who never saw anything, but depended upon her description, "perceived that it was Samuel." What such women did in those times they are doing now in the East. She had retired—her cave, according to the Oriental custom, being divided by a curtain—and had been performing her incantations and muttering. It has often been remarked that when such a giant as Saul appeared and said, "Bring me up Samuel!" the witch must have been indeed a foolish woman not to suspect who he was that made such a strange request. Before Samuel is represented as