strength would depart. While he slept these locks were cut off, then
the Philistines burst in upon him, and when he arose to resist them,
he found that his strength was gone. Then his eyes were cruelly put
out, and he was bound with fetters of brass.

Our artist shows him blind, brought out to make sport at the
Philistines' feast. He is very sorrowful, and, I think, angry. He asks
the lad beside him to place his hands upon the pillars supporting the
house; then, his great strength returning, he bows himself with all
his might; the pillars break, the house falls, and Samson, with very
many of the Philistines, is crushed amid the ruins. Was not this a
terrible end to what might have been a noble life?

[Illustration: SAMSON MAKING SPORT FOR THE PHILISTINES.]




RUTH AND NAOMI.


Naomi was the wife of a Jew named Elimelech, who left his own city of
Bethlehem to go into the land of Moab, because there was a famine in
Canaan. Some time afterwards he died, leaving Naomi a widow with two
sons, all dwellers in a strange land. Her sons married two young women
belonging to Moab, whose names were Orpah and Ruth. After living there
about ten years Naomi's sons died also, leaving Orpah and Ruth widows,
along with their widowed mother-in-law. Then Naomi determined to
return to her own land. Orpah and Ruth accompanied Naomi some distance
on her journey; then she bade them to leave her, telling each to go