A group of youngsters grow up and love in a peaceful French village. But war intrudes and peace is shattered. The German army invades and occupies village, bringing both destruction and torture. The young people of the village resist, some successfully, others tragically, until French troops retake the town.

Divinity student John Fairmeadow likes his liquor and as a result is expelled from the seminary. He travels out West and lands in a camp where lumberman Batch has just died. He reads the funeral service and befriends the dead man's daughter Pattie.

Although he has been appointed to guard the fortune of young Thomas Creighton, the unscrupulous Lord John Needham decides to spend all of it after Tom runs away. Then, however, an announcement comes that Tom is returning and that he plans to claim his money. Fearful of punishment, both from Tom and the authorities, John kills his cousin and exact double, Joseph Norbury, and takes Joseph's place, thereby making it seem as if the dead man is really John.

Samson, an Israelite whose enormous strength is legendary, falls in love with Zorah, a Philistine, and marries her, overcoming his father Manoah's objections.

"He was a regular boy and his father a switchman. The boy determined to be like his dad and spent his play hours around the switch-tower. Thus at the crucial moment he was able to save his father's honor as a switchman, when the struggle between love and duty came and later to come to the aid of his parents in the hands of the desperate counterfeiters, eventually causing their capture." —Moving Picture World synopsis.