fied, defeated, and, we may say, punished, we can conceive the Divine communication coming to him in terms identical with those in which it came in after times to men who, we are assured, were greater still than he. "My kingdom is not of this world." "Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."

Yes! dear brethren, in the prophet, toiling on foot through wind and rain, and the darkness of a stormy night, that

he

may lead the way for Ahab riding in his chariot, we may see a type of Him who spared Himself no humiliation, no

toil, no privation, no suffering, that so He might bring back safely "to the city where they dwelt," those who would trust themselves to His guidance through the difficulties and dangers of a benighted world. Christ indeed fairly warns us, "if any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me;" and to represent to the ungodly and the worldly that their return to their Father's house will be smooth and easy, would be to contradict all Scripture, and to ignore all experience. But great as we cannot but admit that the trials of the truly penitent must be expected to be-dark his road, desperate his struggles, and even deathlike his exhaustion and his faintness — as compared with Him who goes before him as his guide, he is as Ahab in his chariot, refreshed with meat and drink, to the prophet running on foot, sustained only by that meat "which the

world knows not of." Well, indeed, may Jesus say to His disciples, "take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart," and "My yoke is easy and My burthen is light." Easy! O how easy to us, comparatively to what it was to Him! Light to us, because heavy-0, how heavy-to Him! "Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;" so that griefs and sorrows though we still have in our conflict with self, with the world, and with Satan, they "are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us," if we endure them following where Christ leads us. Light they are, and but for a moment while they work in us, through the Spirit of Christ that animates us in the struggle, "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

LECTURE IV.

HOREB.

I. KINGS, XIX., 9.
What doest thou here, Elijah?

It seems to have been only up to the gate of Jezreel that Elijah led the way on foot for Ahab and his retinue. The city itself he does not appear to have entered. To whatever place it was that he retired, full, no doubt, of the deepest anxiety as to the effect of the events which occupied our attention in the last lecture, he was not long before he received a communication which showed him that the temporal power of the enemies of Jehovah was not at an end, great

as was the shock which had undoubtedly been given to it.

Jezebel, enraged by the tidings which her husband brought her of what had taken place upon Mount Carmel, sends a message to Elijah which, while it boldly asserts her refusal to own defeat, betrays a consciousness that she is not really so strong as she would have it supposed that she believes herself. If she had really meant to defy Jehovah by putting His prophet to death in revenge for the slaughter of the prophets of Baal, she would hardly have sent to Elijah the explicit warning, "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time." It seems likely that, in her inmost heart, she desired by this threat to get rid of Elijah, without running the risk of laying violent hands upon him. She may have hoped that it would so alarm him as to induce him to