1 Samuel 1:3

And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship.

The pilgrimage to Shiloh

Great personages are prepared for before they arrive. Our blessed Lord, the greatest of all personages who seer appeared on earth, was prepared for long before He came. In the first nineteen verses of this chapter we are told of the circumstances which prepared the way for Samuel, which led up to his birth. These preparations were made at a holy season, and in a holy place, These pilgrimages the men and boys among the Israelites were bidden in the law to make three times a year, at the great festivals. (Deuteronomy 16:16.) But the time of the Judges was a lawless and irregular time, and probably the custom then crept in of going up only once a year to worship at the tabernacle. These yearly journeys to the place of public worship were not without difficulties and dangers. The country had no regular roads through it, or, at all events, no roads like ours--nothing but tracks of caravans, or companies of travellers who bad gone that way before. It was not rid of wild beasts. Wolves and hymens prowled about at night, and lions had their lair in the jungle which lined part of the course of the, Jordan. Then there were robbers in the hill fastnesses, ever ready to pounce upon undefended travellers, and strip them of all they possessed, even to their clothes--a calamity which happened to the poor man in our Lord’s parable, who was afterwards relieved by the good Samaritan. These pilgrimages of the Israelites to the place of God’s worship ought to remind us of the pilgrimage on which we ourselves are, or ought to be, bound, and in which every day of our lives we ought to make some progress. We, too, are “going up” to God’s heavenly temple. We are going up thither through the wilderness of this world. There are great dangers and difficulties to be encountered on the road. We have two great helps and comforts on our way. One is the society of people who are going the same road, who have the same hope before them of reaching the heavenly temple. The other help is the public worship of God upon earth, which is intended to keep ever fresh and alive in us the thought and desire of His heavenly worship. Ask yourself continually, and force your conscience to answer the questions, “Am I indeed going up to God’s heavenly temple? Have I reason to think year by year that I am getting any nearer to it?” He who finds that he is not going up may assure himself that he is going down. (Dean Goulburn.)