With a bowed head, though with a stout heart, Hosea went to the market place on the following morning. He mingled with the people in the vicinity of the slave auction district, watching particularly a certain block, on which, he was told, Gomer was to be offered for sale.

He studied carefully every woman that was put upon the block. At last he recognized her. But how changed she seemed. Her beauty, for which she had been famous, was gone. Her straight erect form was stooped.

Her eyes, once proud, were cast down. She had a forlorn, hopeless look, as if she didn't care what happened to her. Evidently she had suffered greatly.

Where had she been during the past four years? What hardships had she been through that she was so changed? Why did she fall so low that she had to be sold into slavery?

The answers to these questions would have made no difference in the plan Hosea had determined to follow with Gomer. Standing on the outskirts of the crowd, he raised bid after bid, until he bought her for "fifteen pieces of silver and a homer of barley and a half-homer of barley."

Gomer was not at all concerned about the one who had purchased her.

She did not take a single glance in the direction of those who were bidding for her. When sold, she stepped wearily down from the block and waited listlessly to be claimed by the owner and taken away.

Hosea approached her, stepped to her side and spoke her name in a low voice: "Gomer!"

She raised her eyes and looked at him as through a haze. Hosea, too, had changed much during the past four years. His love for Gomer, the uncertainty of her whereabouts, his grief, his constant preaching to Israel that fell on deaf ears, had made deep furrows in his face and brought wrinkles to his forehead.

"Come with me," he said softly to her.

For a moment Gomer stared at him; then she fell in a dead faint at his feet.

It was a long time before she revived. Sorrow and repentance for her foolishness in leaving a home where her husband loved her and where her children would have worshiped her, had she permitted them to do so, had sapped all her strength. The sudden shock of seeing Hosea and the knowledge that he had bought her as a slave nearly killed her.

But Hosea had no thought of revenge. In his great heart there was naught but love for Gomer.

On their way home Gomer began:

"I regret," she said, "I am sorry--"

But Hosea stopped her. He would not even listen to words of explanation from her whom he loved. He knew that she must have suffered much, that she was unhappy. It was sufficient now that she was sorry, that she had repented. Hosea did not want to cause her the pain of a recital of her sorrows.

That is the way people who love truly do. They forgive and forget, quickly and without causing pain.

Hosea had the children removed to the home of a friend for several months. During that time Gomer quickly recovered from her trials and returned to health and beauty. Then he brought the children back and restored them to their real mother.

Once, after the reunited family had spent a very happy evening, a tremendous truth came home to Hosea. Here they were all happy, as if trouble had never entered to disturb the sweetness and beauty of their lives! Why had sorrow and suffering come upon them at all?

Then and there Hosea realized that there was a purpose in his home tragedy. He understood better than ever before that G.o.d had selected him to be a prophet to his people; that G.o.d had taught him through sorrow and suffering, the lesson he was to teach to Israel.

Israel had become faithless to G.o.d and had left His law; even as Gomer had left her husband. G.o.d grieved for the sins of Israel; even as he had grieved for Gomer who had strayed from him. G.o.d loved His people, nevertheless; even as he loved Gomer, continually. G.o.d was prepared to take Israel back under His guiding and loving care, when Israel would repent of its backsliding and sinning; even as he did with Gomer.

From that day on Hosea's preaching took on a different form. He no longer scolded and condemned, but entreated and pleaded with his people:

"Return, O Israel, to the Lord thy G.o.d, For thou hast stumbled through thine iniquity.

Take words with thee And return to G.o.d.

Say to Him, 'Pardon Thou wholly iniquity And receive (us) with favor.

a.s.syria will not save us, We will not ride upon horses (to Egypt); We will no more say to the work of our hands, "Ye are our G.o.d."'"

And, in the fervor of his poetic soul, the prophet hears G.o.d's answer to repenting and returning Israel:

"I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, For my anger is turned away from them.

I will be as dew to Israel; He shall blossom as the lily And strike his roots deep as Lebanon.

His saplings shall spread out, And his beauty shall be as the olive tree.

They shall return and dwell in my shadow, They shall live well-watered like a garden, They shall flourish like a vine, Their renown shall be like that of the wine of Lebanon."

But such hopefulness and promise of divine love had no more effect upon the doomed people than did the attacks upon their sinfulness and wrongdoing.

The Judean prophet, Amos, it will be remembered, drew a picture of G.o.d as a stern judge and Israel as the criminal. Israel is proved guilty of all the prophet's accusations, and the Judge p.r.o.nounces sentence.

The experiences that led the Samarian, Hosea, to prophesy were different than those of the Tekoan. Understanding the lasting love that dwelt within him for Gomer, and how he yearned for her return to him, he cried out to his people, from the depths of a wounded heart, speaking through the inspiration of a loving and merciful G.o.d:

"O my people!

How can I give thee up, O Ephraim!

How can I surrender thee, O Israel!

How can I give thee up as Admah!

Or make thee as Zeboim!

My heart a.s.serts itself: My sympathies are all aglow.

I will not carry into effect the fierceness of my anger; I will not turn to destroy Ephraim.

For G.o.d am I, and not man, Holy in the midst of thee; Therefore I will not utterly consume.

Turn thou to thy G.o.d, Keep kindness and justice, And wait for thy G.o.d continually."

Although Hosea saw that he was laboring to no good effect, he did not for an instant give up. Time and again he recalled the early days of love and devotion between G.o.d and Israel. He recounted the times when Israel deserted G.o.d, from the Exodus on, but G.o.d always received Israel back, when the people repented of their sins and returned to acts of justice, righteousness and love.

"I am the Lord, thy G.o.d, from the land of Egypt; Thou knowest no G.o.d but Me, And besides Me there is no Savior."

Hosea could not conceive the idea that G.o.d would desert Israel forever. He recognized, however, that the doom of the sinful nation was sealed. And so he read the drama of Israel in his own life.

a.s.syria would destroy Samaria. Israel would leave the fatherland as Gomer left her home. In exile Israel would learn through suffering and hardships as Gomer had done. Israel would redeem itself and, eventually, would return to G.o.d. G.o.d, loving Israel always, would wait to receive His repentant people, as he himself had received Gomer.

And so Hosea drew a beautiful picture of that future day in these words:

"And I will betroth thee unto me forever.

Yea, I will betroth thee unto me with righteousness, And with justice and with loving-kindness and in mercy; Yea, I will betroth thee unto me with faithfulness, And thou shalt know G.o.d."

The compiler of the fragments of Hosea's speeches in the book bearing the prophet's name--the most fragmentary book in the Bible, and from which this story has been built up--concludes his labors with this admonition:

"Whoso is wise, let him understand these things; Whoso is prudent, let him realize them; For straight are the ways of the Lord.

The righteous walk in them, But transgressors stumble upon them."

THE STATESMAN PROPHET

CHAPTER I.