DEBORAH THE DRASTICBy George MathesonBRILLIAT periods tend to be followedby times of stagnation. The age whichimmediately succeeded Peter and Paul is apoor and barren sequel to a grand beginning;the age which directly followed Addison andSteele is a relapse from literary glory. Shakes-peare has not bequeathed his genius to his linealdescendants; when he died on Mount ebothey all came down to the plain. It wouldseem as if the storms of human feehng are Hkethe storms of physical nature— they dissipateenergy by the very intensity of their movement.Israel was a sharer in this fate. On leavingthe desert her first steps had been triumphant.Jordan had been passed; Jericho had beenstormed; Ai had been taken; the sun of pros-perity had refused to go down on the hours of 147148 DEBORAH THE DRASTICher conflict. It was a brilliant, glorious time — that nation's morning! But the mid-day wasdisastrous! While Israel was conquering physi-cally, she was herself conquered mentally by thevery nations she was subduing! She becameenamoured of her enemies — of their idolatry,of their sin. She refused to drive them out fromher promised land; she tried to imitate them,to live as they lived. Her debasement was amental debasement — a lowering of her moralstandard. But when a man lowers his moralstandard he loses his physical power. The ob-
jects to which our courage yields are nearly al-ways thoughts — not things. The strength of Israel had been her sense of God. When sheabandoned that, she could not stand two minutesagainst the nations. The desert had been aparadise because He was there; the promisedland had been a wilderness because she sentHim away. The nations bore her down, robbedher, prostrated her, reduced all her sons to onecommon level — bankruptcy.But men cannot remain at a common level.Bring down the members of a community to anDEBORAH THE DRASTIC 149equal abyss of low fortune, denude them eachand all of their physical advantages, take awayfrom every man that outward thing which makeshim superior to another, and leave the wholecompany in the same degree of material destitution,what will happen ? If you complete the processon Monday morning and come back on Saturdaynight, you will get a surprise. . The level youhave made will have disappeared. The groundwill have become again uneven. The equalityof destitutiofi will be utterly broken. Of themen whom you left in a row, some will be therestill, some will have fallen behind, some wiHhave moved forward, and almost certainly asolitary figure will be seen standing in front of the whole band — one man who has alreadyraised himself into the rank of king.This was what happened with prostrate Israel.Her sons were all levelled in a common physicaldestitution. On the Monday morning there wasno difference between lord and peasant; onSaturday night the inequalities were resumed, andthere was a leader in front of the company —
one whom they called their "judge," eager to im-I50 DEBORAH THE DRASTICprove their morals and ready to break theirchains. We have the names of fifteen suchleaders — each a reformer of the land — each apreserver of the nation. Whence came they?Very short and very graphic is the account inthe Bible narrative, "The Lord raised up judges."What does this mean ? Why is it said that theLord raised them up? Clearly, to imply that itwas not man that did it. I understand themeaning to be that these men were not raisedby popular election or act of parliament or priestlyordination — that they owed their elevation to nohuman appointment and came to the front byno political favour. I take the picture to saythat they came to the front spontaneously, bythe sheer force of superior mental power. Theycame because superiority will not hide — not evenin a quagmire. They came because wherevextalent is it must speak, because wherever virtueexists it is bound to be manifested. They soughtnot the suffrages of the crowd; but the crowdwent out to thejriy attracted by a magnetism the^could not understand.As if to emphasize the fact that the powerDEBORAH THE DRASTIC 151of these leaders had a mental rather than aphysical source, one of them is a woman. Uniquoon the canvas of the Bible Gallery stands outthe figure of Deborah! Alone of all that bandof women she succeeds in reaching the prizewhich Miriam had failed to win! She is the
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