Mrs. Penrose said, “I like to read the stories in the Bible very slowly; and I like to think, as I go along, how the persons of whom I read looked, and how their houses looked, and how they felt when they did certain things of which the Bible tells us. It makes me remember the stories better, and makes me feel as if I had seen all that I read of.

“The story of Samuel always appeared to me like a beautiful picture. I seem to see the house in which pious Hannah lived.

“There were many pretty hills in the land of Syria; and perhaps her husband’s house stood on the side of one of them. Olive-trees, with their pale green leaves, and dark cedars, may have shaded the house, for they both grew in that country; and grape-vines, bearing sunny grapes, may have grown over the pleasant porch.

“But I must not indulge my fancy too much: so I will go on with my little story.

“Hannah was a good woman. She had no children: so she prayed to God to give her a child. She said if God would do so, her child should be his as long as he lived.

“God heard Hannah’s prayer. He sent her a little son, and then she was very happy.

“Some people make promises to God, and then forget them. This is wicked. Hannah did not do so. She remembered how she had promised God that her little boy should be his child. She called him Samuel; and she took great pains to make Samuel a good boy. She taught him about the true God, and about the Messiah who was to come to redeem his people. She sung him to sleep with holy songs. She taught him to kneel down and pray to the God of Israel when he was a very little boy.

“I have no doubt that she told him of all the great things that God had done for the children of Israel. How the waters of the Red Sea parted, and stood up, like high crystal walls, on each side of them, as they walked across on the dry land; and how he sent them bread from heaven, when they traveled through the dreary wilderness, and made plenty of pure, cool water gush out from the burning rock, when they were almost choked with thirst.

“Little Samuel loved God. Very young children can love God. They need not wait to do that until they have grown large, or until they have learned a great deal.

“At last Samuel became old enough to live away from his mother; so she took him up to the tabernacle at Shiloh. The tabernacle was the church in which the Jews worshiped. In the tabernacle lived a very good old man. His name was Eli. It was Eli who was to take care of Samuel.

“I suppose Hannah led her little boy by the hand, except when the way was rough, or when he became tired of walking, and then perhaps she carried him. And maybe when it became hot Samuel might want to take his little nap under some of the shady trees that grew on their way. As he slept, I think, his mother sat beside him, and almost cried to think that he was to be with her no longer; for although she was willing that he should go to be a priest of the Lord, yet it was hard for her to part with her only one. Perhaps, as she looked at Samuel sleeping under the shadowing tree, she softly said, ‘O, my darling boy, how I shall miss you when I return home! Your little feet will not run after me when I go out to pick fresh flowers. When I go to bring water from the spring you will not skip beside me, and no little dimpled hands will try to raise the pitcher for me then. My house will be so lonely without my precious boy! I shall dream of you in the night, and think that you are near; but, when I try to touch you, no little hand will be there to take hold of mine; and when I wake in the morning I shall never hear my Samuel’s sweet voice saying, ‘Peace be with you, my mother.’

“But though Hannah may have thought thus while she looked at her sleeping boy, she never once felt that she wanted to take back her vow. She loved God so well that she was glad that she had anything as lovely as her Samuel to give him.

“Thus I might weep, Alfred, if you were one day to go from us, as a missionary, to distant lands; but I think that I should still be willing, and even thankful, that you were called by God to such a high and holy office.”