But

full-fledged and unblushing, in the Baalism of Ahab. how did it begin? Away back in the time of the Judges, there was an Israelite, named Micah, who engaged a wandering Levite to become his priest, and set up a private chapel in his house, with images, and an ephod, and all the accessories of worship. When the Danites came to spy out the land, that they might choose a place in which to colonize, they visited Micah, and got his Levite to consult his oracle for them; and then, some months after, when a whole company of emigrants went from the South, they took this priest and his images with them, and carried them away to Dan.* Thus the people of that city became accustomed to image-worship; and so, when Jeroboam revolted from Solomon's son, and desired to set up separate religious centres for his subjects, he chose Dan for one of them.

For sixty years that state of things had existed, and the ten tribes had repaired to Bethel and to Dan, instead of going, as formerly, to Jerusalem. But the change of ritual wrought a disastrous change in the people. It weakened their spiritual perception; it lowered their moral tone; it deadened their consciences. Hence, they were just in a condition to be drawn away by the gorgeous worship and licentious and immoral rites of Baal and Ashtaroth, and so they fell an easy prey to Ahab's schemes. That which their fathers would have strenuously opposed in the days of Jeroboam, they meekly accepted in the days of Ahab. But it is ever so. The nature of evil is to increase. Hence, alike as individuals, as congregations, and as communities, we should withstand the beginnings of iniquity. Indulgence in one sin blunts the conscience, and prepares the way for another which at first would have been sternly resisted, and that, in its turn, makes the soul ready for yet another. "A little leaven leaveneth the

* Judges xvii., xviii.

whole lump." The admission of one sin into the heart is like the reception of the Grecian horse into the Trojan city. It brings with it the germs of many more. Its name is "Gad"—a troop cometh. One evil tolerated in a church will soon generate many others. One disreputable thing permitted or sanctioned in the state will speedily produce a numerous progeny. All sins are near akin, and wherever one enters, communication is opened with all the rest. The little divergence from rectitude which is begun as a policy, because it seems to be required for some important end, will, by-andby, develop into more heinous iniquity. So, if we would preserve ourselves from yielding homage to Baal, we must resist the worship of the golden calf. Mammonism prepares the way for materialism. The deification of worldly success by our mercantile Jeroboams leads on to the worship of law by our philosophic Ahabs. This was the course of things in ancient Israel; and he who cares to look around him may see the same leaven working at this hour.

Let us observe, in the second place, how, when God has a work to do, he finds a fitting agent to do it. If all men were alike, there could be no special adaptation in any man for a particular work; and no one individual could have the power of molding or influencing his age by his intellectual or spiritual force. On the other hand, since men are not thus alike, if there were no superintending Providence, the right man might not always come at the right time, or be sent to the right place. As Wilberforce has said, “A great poet might be produced when a great general was wanted, or a wonderful financier might be given to a horde of savages. But there are no such mistakes made in the providence of God. When the hour strikes, the man is ready, ay, even though it may have taken many years to fit him for the

* "Heroes of Hebrew Monarchy,” p. 319.

work. Elijah was prepared when it was time for him to appear. When the Gospel was to be given to the Gentiles, Paul, whose whole early training had been an unconscious preparation for his special mission, was called for the purpose; and when the fullness of the time had come, Luther, already fitted for the work by his experiences, sprung up to nail his theses to the church-door of Wittenberg, and challenge Rome to do her worst. Nor is this all. The man who has the work to do is the right man to do it. Had Elijah been one who wore soft raiment and dwelt in kings' palaces, he could not have roused Israel as he did. Had John the Baptist been begloved and fashionable, dealing in silken speech and soft attire, he would never have stirred the men of his generation to repentance. His mission, like that of Elijah, needed a fearless, blunt, undaunted man, who was not afraid to call things by their common names, and such a man God made him in the desert. We often hear slighting remarks on the great Reformers, as if they had been too stern. and rugged in their bearing; and Knox especially has hardly been forgiven by the readers of romance because he made Queen Mary weep. But in their days men had stern work to do, and a woman's tears are not so costly as a nation's blood. We had not been as we are to-day if it had not been for their sternness. True, their manner would not have suited our age; but they were not sent to our age; and they were made, not only for their work, but by it. God needs his Luthers as well as his Melancthons; his Pauls as well as his Johns; his Latimers as well as his Leightons; and we may as well find fault with the sweet-brier in the hedge because it is prickly, and because it is not the violet in the garden border, as complain because God's people in one age and in one department of his work are not so polished and refined as those in another. The carpenter has tools of various fineness and with different edge. The plane

would be as useless for felling trees as the axe would be for smoothing the surface of some valued piece of wood. Each is best for its own work; and so in the great providential and gracious work of the advancement of God's Church, each agent is most admirable for the work he does. Instead, therefore, of criticising the harshness of the Reformers, let us endeavor to find out what our particular mission is, and let us give ourselves to that with all our might.

Finally, let no one be deterred from doing what he believes to be his duty because he is alone. As we shall see, up to the time when Elisha was called, Elijah was for the most part without any coadjutor. He dwelt apart. He stood by himself. Yet God was with him, and he did valiantly. Had he waited until he could persuade some fellow-man to go with him into Ahab's palace, I do not think that he ever would have entered it. But he went in God's strength, and he spoke his message with all boldness. Let no one be dismayed, therefore, because he is only one; for one man with God in him and with him is "multitudinous above all human majorities," and will and must succeed. Not that the might is in himself—he is only one-but he furnishes a medium through which the might of God, which is omnipotence, may come in contact with the evils of his age. Thus he is "mighty through God to the pulling-down of the strongholds" of iniquity. If, therefore, there be any stirrings in any one to-night toward the doing of some needful work, let him not wait for some fellow-man to accompany him; but let him go forth to it himself alone, taking with him this gracious promise: "One man of you shall chase a thousand, for the Lord your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised you."

H

II.

BY THE BROOK.

I KINGS Xvii., 2-6.

AVING delivered his startling message in the audience of Ahab, Elijah left the royal presence as abruptly as he had at first appeared. We have no record of what occurred after his departure, between the monarch and his courtiers; but we may suppose that though for the moment they were awed into solemn silence by the prophet's weird aspect and dreadful words, they would, at his exit, break out into a shout of laughter at the whole affair; for it is the manner of such men to pass from the extreme of terror to that of derision. The first emotion of the king was, perhaps, that of indignation, forming itself into the purpose to thrust Elijah into the dungeon, as, in after-days, he did with Micaiah; but the rapid movement of the prophet rendered any such design abortive; and so, baffled in his intended vengeance, he would affect to look upon the whole thing with contempt. "Tush!" he might say; "'tis but some maniac who has broken loose," and in a few days the occurrence would be forgotten. But when the rainy season came, and the sky above continued cloudless, blazing like burnished brass with the red glare of the fiery sun; when, month after month, no dew-drop sparkled on the withered grass; when the fountains refused to flow, and the rivers dried up in their beds, and grim, gaunt Famine began his desolating march

* 1 Kings xxii., 26, 27.