1 Samuel 8:6

"Samuel prayed unto the Lord." 1 Samuel 8:6 .

This showed great self-control on the part of Samuel, seeing that he was "displeased" by the demand of the people for a king. Rarely do we find prayer and displeasure linked together in the same sentence. When men are displeased they pour malediction upon the head of those who occasion the displeasure; but in this case the man who was wounded turned his attention to heaven and poured out his sorrow before the Lord. The best and noblest men may be deposed from office by the caprice of the people. The reasons of such deposition do not appear on the surface. There are reasons within reasons. It required the Lord himself to explain to Samuel how it was that the people had become disaffected towards him, it was not a case of rejecting Samuel, it was a case of rejecting the Lord himself. When met get wrong religiously they necessarily get wrong socially, and oftentimes the cause is not inquired for beyond the social line: so we speak of discontent, disloyalty, rebellion, and we look for political causes, and we try political remedies, whilst all the time we have not gone deep enough, or we should have found that the rebellion is at the root of religious disaffection. "For they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them." When we accept the Lord's sovereignty we are quite willing to receive the under-sove-reigns whom he may appoint, and who vindicate their appointment by wisdom and beneficence: but when we reject the Lord himself all that comes below that title necessarily falls in the first overthrow. The process takes the same course, only inversely, in reference to social reclamations; we must begin religiously rather than politically, or if we begin politically it must be that we may get a stronger hold upon the people to affect them religiously. The supreme lesson is that no reform is worth undertaking or consummating that is not founded upon the eternal principles of religion. We must be theological in the best sense before we can be philanthropical in any sense that touches reality and effects permanent healing.