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Nor are we to marvel that the Book of God should concern itself here and elsewhere with matters that are sometimes the occasion of silly smiles in the unreverent, or meet only with profane disregard in the shallow. Rather, let us in our hearts and homes thank God for a Book that, coming from Him, so hallows our human affections, deals so reverently and tenderly with a woman's disappointments and a man's affection, and also with his pity for her sadness, as that it opens the history of the first, and in some things the greatest of the prophetical order, with the story of Hannah's grief and Elkanah's effort at consolation. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ does not laugh any human hope or grief to scorn. Now, this earnestness, this very agony of deep desire in Hannah, is an instance of God's forerunning grace; the grace that blesses us even before we see the light of this world; that blesses us in our ancestry, in our homes and kindred, in our father and mother — the grace that sanctifies us by a mother's piety, and by the prayers offered to God before she knows a mother's joy. God's best men and women have been from mothers' prayers and vows, and from fathers' solemn consecration. Blessed unspeakably is, or ought to be, that life of man or woman, boy or girl, that has been heralded into the world not only by pain, but also by prayer, and its advent into these "lower parts of the earth" prefaced by the hand of father or mother laying hold upon God. God's forerunning, preparing grace is not the cold supervision of an Almighty One who deals with human tears or joys only as incidents in the outworking of His inscrutable will; but it is the loving, gentle touch of a Father who takes a woman's tearful longings, or a man's joys and hopes; and by the longing and the hope, by the tears and joys of father and mother, prepares greatly consecrated men and saintly women of God. So was it with Samuel the asked and heard of God. Thus was it with Jeremiah and Timothy and , and that other early teacher of the Church of whom it is told that often, when he slept the sleep of babyhood, his devoted father would bend over him and reverently kiss the little breast that by consecration of father and mother had become the temple of the Holy Ghost. In her grief she was a reproach to the feast of tabernacles, at which all were to be happy. Her grief was no nobler than ours is ofttimes, but just as human; and like ours, too, in this — that a strain of fretfulness ran through it. Yet there is in Hannah's grief one feature that more than redeems it from commonness. After years of repining she has at last dared to share her trouble with the God of Israel, and pour it forth as into the bosom of the Lord of Hosts. That is now a blessedness in her bitterness. She has, at length, gone where alone it is well to weep, grieve, regret, or be bitter; to the mercy seat. For it is safe and blessed to pour out life's bitterness only where you can pray: and that is not to the sympathy of men and women, but to the heart of God, at the feet of Jesus, before the Ark of the Covenant. There we may weep, grieve, mourn, and pray about anything. What do we pray for? Is it possession or consecration? Is it selfishly to hold earth's blessings and heaven's gifts on earth, and with them minister as much as we can to our own satisfaction and delight, or, behind and deeper than our own longings and cravings for self, have we a wish to truly serve the Lord with His own blessings, and "gladly give up all to Him to whom our more than all is due?" Oh! pray not for mere possession; pray that the more you have of anything, the more you may be able to consecrate to God; and pray, too, that you may not have anything without devotion of it to God. If you long for life here, and there is no reason why you should not, let it be that you may the longer live to Christ's praise. If you ask for this world's good, let it be that you may devote the more to Jesus. If you long for the love and light of this world, for the home lights that may be denied you, for the lamps of love to shine about you that have never yet been kindled for you, let it be that with fuller heart and wider reach of affection you may the more reveal and illustrate the love that passeth knowledge. If you seek for pardon, let it be under the quick impulse of love to Christ, and in order to glorify His cross. The high priest's words might have fallen on this distressed soul like a blast of frosty winter over the blossoms of the early spring time. How often tender hearts run risk from the ignorant hardness of others; who, perhaps, mean well enough, but are regardless of "wringing or breaking a heart." Nay, the more tender the heart's experience is, the more it hazards from intercourse with men at such times. God alone, Christ alone can be trusted for the right understanding, the gentle treatment of our griefs and wants and prayers. Many a time — God grant unwittingly — they wound where the Lord would heal, or heal but slightly when the Lord would wholly save. We are not fit to take care of one another; "who is sufficient for these things?" I have known of souls alienated from life and full consecration by the ill-judged or lightly-weighed utterance of a minister of Christ, who has thought as wisely when he has spoken to heart's experience as Eli did when he looked at Hannah, and told her to cease from her drunkenness. She had prayed, therefore she might go in peace. She had poured out her heart to the Lord, why should she, then, be sad any more? She had made her cares the Lord's, she had cast her burden upon the Lord, and might now be at rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Nor should we ever be other than calm after prayer, even though the answer be for a while ungranted. An ungranted petition is no warrant for not abiding calmly after we have tried to make our cares God's; for either He will, at the best time, give us what we ask, or at the proper time give us something better than our prayers. Thus it came about that Samuel was "asked of the Lord," as in later days he was known as the "heard of the Lord."

(G. B. Ryley.)

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KJV: For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him:

WEB: For this child I prayed; and Yahweh has given me my petition which I asked of him.