good, that a thing can radically hurt you there only so far as
you place yourself within its reach. Yield yourselves to the Power
that can lift you by your real need, the need of regeneration, which
can so change your nature that while you are free to many things that
have in them the elements of temptation, you are yet too free to want
them--the Power which can enable each one of us to say: "I fear no foe,
because, by the help of God, I am my own friend."

[1] George Dawson, M.A.

[2] Rev. Dr. Falding--_Clarum et venerabile nomen_.

SELF-RESPECT AND COMPANIONSHIPS

"Is Saul also among the prophets?"--1 Samuel x. 12.

VI

SELF-RESPECT AND COMPANIONSHIPS

Ever since we could hear or notice sayings and things, and for long
before we were here to do either, this text has been in the world as a
kind of proverb-question: "Is Saul also among the prophets?" If a man
says something which is decidedly in advance of his generally-accepted
reputation for intelligence and good sense, if he surprise us by doing
something which rises sheer above the plane of his average life, if we
happen to find him in company that is made up of men who are his
superiors in attainments, character, and social importance, we mark the
unlooked-for circumstance by repeating this text. We say: "How does
this come to pass? What is the explanation?" "Is Saul also among the
prophets?" If we think out our impression, it means that the
unexpected has somehow happened; that the man must have more in him, or
about him, than hitherto he has been credited with having, or by some
accident he is found where we should least have thought of looking for
him. In a word, the popular interpretation of Saul among the prophets
is that Saul had taken a step up. The truth is, the text may mean that
he had taken one down. It all depends who these prophets were. Before
we can say that it is to a man's credit to be found in a certain
company, and that because he is there we must revise our judgments
about him, we must know what the company is, and why for the moment he
is in it. It is also well to reflect that a man may be in a company
and not of it.

In these prophets of the time of Saul, when we first meet them, we have
the type which prophesying had first assumed on Canaanitish soil. They
were men, as Professor Cornill in his suggestive book tells us, after
the manner of Mohammedan fakirs, or dancing and howling dervishes, who
express their