The Second Answer by Fire.

And there

Again, also

"Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty with his fifty: and he went up to him; (and, behold, he sat on the top of an hill ;) and he spake unto him, Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down. And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty. he sent unto him another captain of fifty with his fifty. And he answered and said unto him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly. And Elijah answered and said unto them, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And the fire of God came down from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty. And he sent again a captain of the third fifty with his fifty. And the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants, be precious in thy sight. And the angel of the Lord said unto Elijah, Go down with him; be not afraid of him. And he arose, and went down with him unto the king. And he said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron, (is it not because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word?) therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. So he died, according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken."-2 KINGS i. 9-18.

“FOR, BEHOLD, THE LORD WILL COME WITH FIRE, AND WITH HIS CHARIOTS LIKE A WHIRLWIND, TO RENDER HIS ANGER WITH FURY, AND HIS REBUKE WITH FLAMES OF FIRE."-ISAIAH LXVI. 15.

"AND I WILL GIVE POWER UNTO MY TWO WITNESSES, AND THEY SHALL PROPHESY A THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND THREESCORE DAYS, CLOTHED IN SACKCLOTH. AND IF ANY MAN WILL HURT THEM, FIRE PROCEEDETH OUT OF THEIR MOUTH, AND DEVOURETH THEIR ENEMIES AND IF ANY MAN WILL HURT THEM, HE MUST IN THIS MANNER BE KILLED."-REV. XI. 3, 5.

THE SECOND ANSWER BY FIRE.

IN last chapter, we considered the account given of the messengers who were sent by Ahaziah, from his sick-bed, to consult the oracle of Baal-zebub, the fly-god at the Philistine city of Ekron. While hastening on their journey, we found them suddenly arrested by none other than Elijah himself. We followed them as they returned to the chamber of their sovereign, bearing to him the Prophet's doom of death;-the merited retribution for so impious a deference to an idol of the heathen, and so insulting a rejection of the God of Israel. We shall now pursue the narrative, and note how the message of these heralds of evil tidings was received by the prostrate king.

The unexpected intervention of Elijah was calculated to fill Ahaziah with dismay. He knew that the words and threatenings of the stern Prophet carried with them a terrible significance. That never-to-be-forgotten day on Carmel-the fire, the slaughter, the blood-must have engraven itself deep in his young memory. He might well have deemed it the height of madness to trifle with the sayings of one who could unlock the armoury of Heaven, and inflict summary vengeance on the adversaries of the God he served. Therefore, as a doomed man, we half expect, half hope, to see the tear of penitence trembling in his eye, and messengers forthwith

despatched along the plain of Esdraelon, to endeavour to avert or modify the awful denunciation. But the blood of his mother Jezebel flows in this sick man's veins. The message of the Prophet rouses him only to wild and frenzied exasperation. He resolves that the Tishbite shall forfeit his liberty or his life for his bold presumption.

How sad when affliction, in whatever shape it comes to us, whether it be sickness, or bereavement, or worldly loss, is not accompanied with the humbling effects of resignation, penitence, submission! Outward trials, as we have remarked before, in speaking of Ahab, if they be not sanctified for softening the heart, must have the opposite result of leading to a deeper hardening and impenitency. So it was now with Ahaziah. We might have expected that his sickness would have proved a salutary monitor-a rousing messenger of rebuke and warning to his soul, humbling him in godly sorrow and tears, and leading him to cry for mercy. But instead of being like oil poured on the troubled waters -calming their fretfulness,-that sickness proved rather like oil thrown into the flames, feeding their fury. The dying man presents a picture of what, alas! is not unfrequently seen, though the saddest of all spectacles,-a scorner and spurner of the most solemn providential warnings at the very last gasp of life;-contending with his Maker-lifting his soul in proud defiance against God.

It is evident, from the troop of soldiers the king summons, that he deems the Tishbite no mean prey. An officer, with fifty men, is sent in hot haste to bring him dead or alive to the palace of Samaria. Elijah has meanwhile retired to "the top of an hill,”—" the top of the mount "-supposed with

every probability to be Mount Carmel.* There he once more manifests in all its integrity, his old hero-spirit; the truest of all bravery—that of unflinching faith and trust in his God. Seated on the summit, watching the armed band approaching, he would at once conjecture their hostile intent. Had he been the panic-stricken Prophet we so lately found. wandering in the desert of Beersheba, he would have girded up his loins, and with the fleet foot which, on a previous occasion, nigh this same place, had outstripped the coursers of Ahab's chariot, he would have evaded the vengeance of his pursuers, either by distant flight, or by taking refuge in one of the many caves of Carmel with which he was familiar. But his old watchword and motto again rises to the ascendant. Nay, under the consciousness of the presence and nearness of the Covenant Angel-the Divine, mysterious Personage, whose voice had a few brief hours before addressed him-he could say, with a special emphasis, "The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him." If one wavering unworthy thought might for a moment have obtruded itself, we may imagine him rebuking it in the words of the Psalmist King: "THE LORD is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower." Indeed, the lessons of

* "In this narrative, our version, as is too frequently the case, conceals the force of the original by an imperfect translation. A hill' should be the mount,' (7) the word always used for Carmel; and in connexion with Elijah, for Carmel only, with the exception of Sinai, which, of course, cannot be intended here."-Art. Carmel," Bib. Dict."