THE PLEDGE.
Reading edition
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BY JOHN NEAL.
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Sampson was a Nazarite. He drank no wine nor strong drink; and so long as he kept the pledge and the secret of his strength, was indeed a giant. Read the scripture narrative.
“Then went Sampson down. . . . And behold a young lion roared against him.
“And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid; and he had nothing in his hand.” Judges xiv. 5, 6, etc.
Brothers! we have pledged ourselves,
Like the mighty man of old,
By a vow that bindeth fast,
By the Future! by the Past!
By their banners now unrolled!
That the secret of our strength,
Unacknowledged—unrevealed—
Setting us apart from others,
Undefiled, O, Giant Brothers!
Shall forever be concealed:
Never to be told on earth,
Never breathed aloud in prayer—
Never written—never spoken—
Lest our awful vow, if broken,
Bring us bondage and despair.
Brothers! let us all remember,
How that Strong Man self betrayed;
He that with a heart of iron;
Where he journeyed, heard the lion
Roar against him—undismayed:
He, the mightiest of the land,
By the harlotry of Sense,
Blind and fettered, came to be
A jester at a jubilee,
A proverb for his impotence!
And though his strength came back anew
When he bowed himself in prayer,
Until he had avenged the wrong
That called him up with shout and song
And jeer and scoff—he perished there.