"Given to hospitality" (Rom. xii. 13). "Use hospitality one to another without grudging" (1 Pet. iv. 9). "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Heb. xiii. 2). “I was a stranger, and ye took me in" (Matt. xxv. 35). What a beautiful instance of such hospitality is presented to us here. "And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman; and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread." The lowly husbandman of Abel-Meholah a welcome guest with the great woman" of Shunem is a lovely illustration of what grace can do. Nor did she know, as it would appear, anything of him when she first "constrained him to eat bread" save the homely garb, the unpretending exterior of the man.

Another fruit of faith much noted in Scripture, is the capacity of discerning and owning "like precious faith" in others. Its very first exercise is discernment-discernment of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. When He was here upon the earth, while He was faith's object, so was He God's great test of where there was faith and where there was not. Where there was not faith, His person and His glory, were unknown and unconfessed. Where there was faith it perceived, through the veil of His humiliation, the glory that it enshrined, and confessed Him as the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. To as many as thus received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God. So now, whosoever is quickened by the Holy Ghost to behold the glory of God in the once marred face of Jesus Christ; in beholding that receives the assurance of salvation and everlasting life. But the same faith that beholds the glory of God in its fulness there, can discern its transmitted and reflected rays in those of whom it is said, "Ye are the epistle of Christ;" of whom Christ Himself "Ye are the light of the world." This capacity of discernment exists, of course, in very various measures as faith is strong or weak. But more or less of it there must be in order to "love as brethren." Plainly, I must discern who are my brethren, or I cannot love them as

says,

such. Who could give a cup of cold water to a disciple in the name of a disciple, if he had not the capacity of discerning the badge of discipleship? Beautiful is the display of this spiritually intuitive discernment of where God had set His mark and put His honour, in the case of this godly Shunammite. She had shown him hospitality as a stranger, "as oft as he passed by afterwards, he turned in to eat bread;" but in these repeated interviews she saw enough of him to make her long on other and higher grounds to provide for him more permanent accommodation. "She said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither." The Lord grant us, beloved, to be so in communion with Himself, that wherever His name is truly confessed, and His Spirit dwells, we may be quick to discern and joyful to own His handiwork.

The Shunammite's appreciation of the tastes and habits of her guest, is another lovely trait which the Spirit has been pleased to note in this delineation of her ways. It was Martha's failure, that, while she really and devotedly loved the Lord, she so little appreciated what His glory really was, and the errand on which He had come from heaven to earth, that she thought to please Him by providing for Him a sumptuous feast. To think of entertaining God manifest in the flesh with a feast! Not so Mary. She knew that He had come, not to be ministered to, but to minister; and to give His life a ransom for many. She spread the table and provided the feast that He had really come for the purpose of enjoying, by sitting at his feet, and opening her heart to drink in the words of eternal life from His lips. Like-minded with her was this godly Shunammite. She had Martha's hospitality with Mary's appreciation of her guest; and her guest was but a mortal, a child of God indeed, but still a mortal man. Martha's and Mary's guest was the Lord from heaven. Elisha has a hearty welcome to the hospitalities of the Shunammite; there is even an apart

ment set aside for his use, where he may turn in and tarry as long as he will. But what a tale does its furniture tell! No provision for the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life. A bed, a table, a stool, and a candlestick, are all that it contains. A pilgrim's accommodation shews how entirely the Shunammite had appreciated the pilgrim character of her guest. Would that there were more of this heavenly simplicity amongst us, beloved. Would that our hearts were so in heaven, that we might feel, as to one another, that even our hospitality must be after a heavenly sort; cordial, largehearted, without grudging, as the Apostle says; but yet, not as though we looked upon each other as in the flesh, or thought we could gratify one another by making provision for its lusts.

"Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have," is the exhortation of the Apostle. How the spirit of it was exemplified by the Shunammite. Elisha instructs Gehazi to say to her, "Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care, what is to be done for thee? Wouldst thou be spoken for to the king, or to the captain of the host?" God had wrought a great deliverance by Elisha for the king and his allies but a short time before; and thus, for the season, he could doubtless have had of the king whatever he had asked. But the Shunammite wishes for nothing that the king or the captain of the host can give. "I dwell among mine own people," was the reply of her contented spirit. Can we, in any way, so powerfully testify to the world of its vanity, and the emptiness of all it prizes, as by this holy superiority to its attractions and its offers? If anything can tell on the conscience of a worldling, it is to see a child of God so conscious of his portion in his Father's love, that he declines, when it is in his power, to accept of a portion

here.

But if the prophet of Abel-Meholah, like an Apostle of later days, be destitute of silver and gold; and if the Shunammite cares not for what Elisha's temporary favour with the king might have procured her, he has interest at another court, and she refuses not what the prophet

promises on behalf of that "God who quickeneth the dead, and calleth things which be not as though they were." She is childless, and her husband is old; but the prophet assures her that at the set time she shall embrace a son. The promise thus given, God fulfils; and a child direct from His hand, crowns the faith which had already produced such lovely fruits. What that child must have been to the Shunammite. With what inexpressible tenderness must she have nursed him in infancy, and watched the unfolding of his faculties, as from infancy he passed to boyhood, and from that to youth. The mother only that loves the Lord, and nurses and brings up her offspring for Him, can form the least idea, and even hers must be but faint, of what that mother's feelings were; the deep throbbings of her heart, as she looks onward to the future in connection with the prospects of her child; and the calm but deeper joy which must have often pervaded and filled her heart, while encouraged by the occasion and circumstances of his birth, she trusted in God that that future was charged with blessing. But she had to learn the lesson already referred to, as the great moral of the history; and well will it be for us, if God's record of His dealings with her should be used of Him to aid us in learning that lesson too.

"And when the child was grown, it fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers. And he said unto his father, My head, my head! And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died." What a stroke was this! The child with the birth of which her faith had been crowned, and which she had received, as it were, direct from God's hand, snatched from her embraces and cold in death! And was this God's reward of the care which He had put into her heart to have for his servant, the prophet? Was it for this that God had made Himself known as the Quickener of the dead, causing the barren to bear, only that when the child was grown, he might be suddenly torn away? No, she has better thoughts of God than this. It is not that she questions His right to resume what His mercy had bestowed. But her faith gathers from the

past, what God's meaning and purpose were in dealing with her as He had done, and she is not without hope even now. "But her son is dead." What then? It was from God who quickeneth the dead she had received her son. "But what can she do?" Nay, that is not the question. What can, or rather, what can not God do? That is faith's question, and thus there is no case too extreme for faith, because there is none too extreme for God. Faith knows and trusts. "With God all things are possible."

A brother once wrote me, "Faith rejoices in a dead lift." And so it is. Circumstances which produce utter despondency where there is not faith, are but to faith the occasion for more singly and entirely trusting God. "And she went up, and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him and went out. And she called unto her husband, and said, Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men, and one of the asses, that I may run to the man of God and come again.' The husband remonstrates. It is neither the new moon nor the Sabbath day; and his faith goes not beyond the ordinary exercises of devotion, if indeed he be a man of faith at all. Faith like his wife's, who does not give up her son though dead, because she knows Him who quickeneth the dead, he seems to have no thought of. But his wife can neither be detained nor turned aside. "It shall be well;" is all the reply she makes, and hastens to the man of God to Carmel.

But here she is to meet with other trials of her faith.

If there was any one or any thing in danger of being between her soul and God, it was the prophet, the man of God. To own him as the prophet of God was indeed at that time the test of faith in Israel. Singularly had God honoured him in fulfilling His promise in God's behalf that this woman should have a son. But it was possible then, as, alas! we find it now, for the channel more or less to have the place with the soul which only belongs to the source from whence it is supplied. At all events the Shunammite is to learn that even the man of God of himself can do nothing for her. To all the inquiries of Gehazi she has but one answer "Well:" she

.