no John of Apostolic times, or Melancthon of Reformation times-gentle, devout, contemplative, sensitive—a heart overflowing with benignity and love. It was no Thomas of Apostolic times, or Erasmus of Reformation times-calm, speculative, philosophical; and, in the case of the latter, the man of learning, yet the timid, cautious time-server. It was not even a man of the stamp of Paul of Tarsusbold, brave, unflinching; with the culture and refinement needed to grapple with the sages of Athens, the courtiers of imperial Rome, and the sharp-witted merchants of Corinth; but deficient in powers of physical endurance-weak, and uncommanding in bodily presence. It was one in type and mould like John the Baptist, or like Luther — a Goliath in mind and body-one who could fearlessly confront Pharisee and Sadducee-Herod and Herodias-king, priest, and soldier-who could stand unmoved, as the great German Reformer did, amid the crowned heads and priestly potentates in the Diet at Worms, and fearlessly declare that though it were crowded with devils, he would face them all.

Such was emphatically the Tishbite,-bold, brave, trained to habits of endurance. The gigantic evils of the times needed a giant to grapple with them;-one who could confront wickedness in high places-be the scourger of court vices, and dare anything and everything for the sake of truth. God has ever His star ready to come forth in the midnight of gloom and despair; when the sword drops from the hand of Moses, He has His Joshua ready to take it up; when the Philistian champion defies the armies of Israel, He has ready the stripling youth with the sling and the pebble-stones to smite him to the

dust; when His people are led captive, He has Daniel and Cyrus, Joshua and Zerubbabel, ready at His word to turn again the captivity of Zion "as streams in the south." He has only to "give the word," and "great is the company of them that publish it." Should seasons of gloom, and darkness, and apostasy, again overtake the Church; should rampant infidelity threaten to rise to a perilous ascendancy, and to trample out the fires on God's holy altar; trust Him!—a thunder-voice will be ready. A man of might will be sent to break the impious spell. The Church historian of the future, as he closes one chapter of terror and dismay, will open the next with the words-" And ELIJAH said

"

Learn, once more, the power of individual influence.

We shall not at present speak of Elijah's influence. To this we shall have occasion, in a future chapter, more particularly to advert; how, under God, this one man rallied an apostate nation-saved his country by saving its religion, and made thousands and tens of thousands in after ages, when he himself was gone, rise up and call him blessed: "He stood in the breach, and the plague was stayed!" Let us rather, at this point, mark what a corrupt, debased, sensual, and selfish life can do. Let us see what may be the awful consequences of one guilty act,-of what a progeny of vice and ruin it may be the prolific parent. Ahab, in himself, appeared to have some naturally good and amiable qualities. But he is one of those of whom it is said he "sold himself to work iniquity." The stream which might have been flowing through his land dispensing endless blessings in its course,

became a stagnant pool, breeding and diffusing corruption. The defect of his natural character seems to have been indolence, sloth, selfishness, love of ease. Wavering and fickle, he was an easy tool for the intrigues and artifices of others. And then came the fatal crisis-the act of which we have a little ago spoken, which consummated his own ruin and his people's apostasy-his marriage with an unprincipled and bigoted idolatress. He paid the penalty which multitudes. have done who have in an evil hour scorned the Divine monition-"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?" Doubtless, Ahab's was spoken of and chronicled in its day as a splendid union. Tyre was at this time in its glory-the sovereign of that queenly city could enrich the palace and park of Jezreel with a golden dower. The fretted ceilings of the ivory palace may have been his royal gift—the cunning work of renowned Phœnician craftsmen. Israel's king may have been lauded and congratulated by the neighbouring princes as a favoured man. Alas! dearly bought was that gilded pageantry—the pomp and pride of having these retainers liveried in purple wrought on Tyrian looms! "Ichabod, the glory has departed"-the ark is taken the god of Ekron is hailed as the god of Israel: and all through the instrumentality of this unhappy, -this ungodly alliance of Jehovah's covenanted king with an uncovenanted heathen. Ahab's whole life is a mournful illustration of resisted and scorned warnings-slighted messages of remonstrance and mercy. The God he rejected strove with him to the last. But the guilty partner of his

throne and of his crimes, made him spurn at once the messenger and the message; and over that bloody grave into which their mangled bones were at last consigned, is inscribed the epitaph-" Who made Israel to sin."

Would that in this age of "trust in uncertain riches" it were borne more sacredly in mind, that it is not gold, but moral worth that is the amplest marriage-dowry. Rank, position, wealth, accomplishments, may be but the tawdry gilding underneath which lurk moral debasement and ruin. Think not of Ahab alone, for his was a miserable, characterless, soulless life. But look at Lot. See that man of God -that "righteous man." He made the guilty venture of contracting an irreligious marriage. Mark the result! See it in his "vexed soul," his weeping eyes, his laughed-at pleadings; his wife a monument of vengeance, his blackened home, his blackened name, his unknown and unhonoured grave. "A brand plucked from the burning." "SAVED; YET SO AS BY FIRE!"

IIL

The Retreat.

"And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went, and did according unto the word of the Lord: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook."-1 KINGS Xvii. 2-6.

"SO THE SPIRIT LIFTED ME UP, AND TOOK ME AWAY; .. BUT THE HAND OF THE LORD WAS STRONG UPON ME."-EZEK. III. 14.