authority, who could help and discipline the whole people. Everybody did what he would, and helped himself in whatever way he thought best. Part of the tribe of Dan forsook the land in a body, because they were no longer pleased with it, and had no mind to overcome the remaining enemies; and Elimelech, an individual citizen, abandoned his home when the times became bad. There was a famine in the land. No rain fell, and the crops did not prosper. Notwithstanding good and diligent cultivation, with