ble to give it vividness without anticipating many of the statements of the history; but you know enough of both already to be convinced that I am speaking truly. Elijah began his ministry with the announcement of a terrible calamity; Elisha signalized the commencement of his public work by the performance of a miracle of mercy. Elijah dwelt apart in the desert, like John the Baptist; Elisha abode in the cities, and mingled with men in their homes and in the streets, like him who was a guest at the feast of Cana, and taught in the streets of Capernaum. Elijah dealt in denunciation, and called down fire from heaven to devour his adversaries; Elisha's might was in his gentleness, and he went everywhere carrying a blessing. Elijah with the plow and harrow tore up the soil; Elisha followed, casting in the seed; or, to go back to the parabolic miracle which was last Lord's Day before our thoughts, Elijah was the whirlwind, the earthquake, and the fire; Elisha was the still small voice. Each came in his own order; each was excellent for his own department. The one could not do the other's work, and both together were needed for the service of God. So it is yet. There are diversities of aptitude and character among the servants of God; but all who love him are his servants, and the qualities of each, however diverse from those of the others, are made subservient to the purposes of Jehovah's grace. Each has his own beauty and excellence The rose is not the violet, neither the daffodil the primrose; but God has made them all, and has revealed his wisdom distinctively in each. So in the members of his church there is a variety in unity, and the effect is to manifest more wonderfully to men and angels his own "manifold wisdom.”

Once more the conduct of Elisha here furnishes us with a beautiful example of the spirit and manner in which we should respond to the call of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we have rightly represented his views as to the meaning of

the act performed by Elijah on him, Elisha must have fully counted the cost of the step which he was about to take in responding to Jehovah's call. He knew that he must leave. his home. He knew, also, that with an Ahab on the throne, a Jezebel in the palace, and an idolatrous population scattered over the country, the duties of the prophetical office would be not only onerous, but dangerous. Yet he conferred not with flesh and blood, but promptly and decidedly arose and went after Elijah. Now, so it ought to be with us and Christ. He does not call every one of us now to the office of the ministry, indeed, neither does he require us to leave our father's house in every case; but every man who hears the Gospel is required to renounce himself and his sins, to take Jesus for his Lord, and to follow him in the sense of imbibing his principles and imitating his example. No matter though it should entail pecuniary loss or personal danger; no matter though it should estrange us from the closest earthly relatives, and separate us from our most cherished friends; no matter though it should demand the sacrifice of pleasures dear to us as a right hand or a right eye; no matter though it should put us in peril of the prison or the scaffold, we are required to "follow him." Here are the terms: "Whosoever will be my disciple, let him deny himself," i. e., renounce himself," and take up his cross daily and follow me." Once again, O sinner! Christ has come to you and made this solemn call. Let him not cast his mantle over you in vain. Let no sin hold you back from his service. Let no shame repel you from his allegiance. Let no fear frighten you from the ranks of his followers. Rise and go with him. The very obedience which you render to his call will be itself within you a richer feast than that which Elisha spread before his fellows when he left his home. Go after him at once; but as you go, remember that you must trust in his strength, and not in your own. Be not heady and

high-minded, like him who said, "Lord, I will go with thee to prison and to judgment," and who, ere long, denied him ; be steady, be resolute, be humble, like him who went right forward into trial with these words upon his lips: "None of these things move me; neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord."

X.

NABOTH'S VINEYARD.

I KINGS xxi.

HE scene is in the city of Jezreel, where Ahab has his

TH

ivory summer palace, and whither he has just come from Samaria to take possession of a vineyard which lay contiguous to his park, and which he meant to turn into a flower-garden. He is in his royal chariot, and behind him* are riding Jehu, the son of Nimshi, and his comrade and subordinate, Bidkar-men destined, in after-days, to be the executioners of Jehovah's righteous retribution on the house of Jezebel, but now high in the favor of the reigning monarch. He is pointing out to them with pride the beauty of the situation, dwelling especially on the rounded completeness which this new acquisition gives to his fair domain, and unfolding to them the plan after which he means to lay it out, when, with the lightning-like suddenness so characteristic of all his movements, Elijah, in his hairy garment and leathern girdle, starts up before him, and rolls out the thunder of a new and terrible denunciation: "Thus saith Jehovah. Hast thou killed? and also taken possession? Thus saith Jehovah, in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine."

What means this dreadful interruption to Ahab's tour of

* 2 Kings ix., 25.

inspection and admiration? What has the king done to provoke this fearful doom? To answer these questions we must go back a little, and recount the particulars recorded. in the early part of the chapter which constitutes our subject for this evening. Years have passed since that memorable night when Elijah, with his mantle girt about him, ran from Carmel before the monarch to the gates of this very palace, and they have not been either uneventful in themselves, or entirely discreditable to Ahab; for twice, by the assistance of Jehovah graciously rendered, and gratefully received, he has overcome in battle his old Syrian enemy, Benhadad. But this great prosperity only filled his heart with pride and covetousness, and he desired to signalize his victories by making some splendid additions to the park surrounding his ivory palace at Jezreel. As it happened, there was a vineyard, the situation of which was hard by his land. Indeed, it probably abutted in upon his grounds, making what he conceived to be an ugly angle in his possessions. What more natural, therefore, than that he should wish to straighten his boundary? or what apparently more honest than his offer to its owner : "Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house, and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it, or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money." Perfectly fair, and in ordinary circumstances, or in another land, one would have expected that Naboth, to whom the vineyard belonged, would have been glad of an opportunity of obliging his royal neighbor by complying with his request. But the tenure by which the Israelite held his land was peculiar; and there was another party to all such transactions, of whom Ahab took no note. Throughout Judah and Israel, Jehovah was the real owner of the soil; and every tribe received its territory and every family its inheritance by lot from him, with this added condition, "The