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reaction producing despondency in his heart, with a sense of loneliness which made life seem a burden, and death a happy door of release, he plunged still farther into the desert, and came even to Horeb, the Mount of God.
2. Perhaps no spot on earth is more associated with the mani- fested presence of God than that sacred mount. There the bush burned with fire ; there the Law was given ; there Moses spent forty days and nights alone with God. It was a natural instinct that led the prophet thither, and all the world could not have furnished a more appropriate school. Natural scenery and holy associations lent all their powers to impress and elevate the soul.
We know the scenery. Beneath Elijah's eyes, as he stood at the entrance of the cave, lay the vast desert, a rough and stony plain, with dry and infrequent herbage. Infinite silence, infinite awe, as of the presence of an eternal God, encompassed him. Near at hand were the great mountain walls of red granite, deep- hewn valleys below splintered gorges ; and above, the naked peaks piercing the heaven, in which the stars burned in depths even more vocal of infinitude than the desert. Tradition still points out, as tradition chose, the small and lonely valley, the upland level under the summit, where Elijah rested. One cypress tree stands now in its midst, and a well and tank are open near the ruined chapel which covers the rock in which the cave was set. It is one of the most silent places in the world, as hidden as it is silent. The granite cliffs lap it round on all sides but one, that side where Elijah stood, when, in the dawn, he came forth to hear the voice of God.
3. Elijah is in great despondency. It is amazing through what apparently inconsistent moods the same man can pass in a very short time. We go back but a little way to his experience upon 'Carmel, when the same Elijah moved about in majestic confidence, inspired by unclouded hope. He seemed to realize the immediateness of the Almighty, and he revelled in the fulness of his resources. And now all this bounding assurance passes away ; the heavens appear to be emptied ; the earth is deserted ; and the prophet is languishing in this melancholy recital, "I, even I only, am left ! " The once triumphant spokesman of the
t KINGS XIX. II, 12 4^3
Lord has temporarily lost his exuberant faith, and is sunk in dark despair.
There is something in human nature which makes us feel more akin to men who occasionally suffer defeat. If Elijah's pilgrimage along the way of life had been a series of unfailing triumphs, and if the cloud of uncertainty had never gathered about his heart, he might have seemed like a man of an alien race, having little or no kinship with the sons and daughters of despondency and grief. When the Apostle Peter is very bold, daring even death in the presence of the great ones of the earth, he appears very remote to the child of hesitancy and doubt ; but in the hour of Peter's weakness, when he shrinks from the foes that beset him, he becomes one of the common crowd. His impulsiveness makes even his martyrdom human. St. Paul's feelings of wretchedness lend humanness even to his ecstasies, and his unspeakable revelations do not lie in lands too remote.
But, in spite of all this, the pity of the prophet's defeat ! He knew the strength of his God, he had experienced the softened light of His guidance, he had had proofs innumerable of His providential care, he had " tasted that the Lord is gracious," and yet here he is, in a season of peculiar crisis, throwing up his ministry, and lying down with a desire to die 1
4. What is the secret of his despondency? He has been counting heads. He has become the victim of the apparent. " They have thrown down thine altars, slain thy prophets ! " The antagonisms are overwhelming ! " I, even I only, am left ! " The enemy, who flaunted his greatness, seemed the greatest power on the field.
Has there never been a time in our experience when we have grown baffled and weary with the greatness of our tasks and the smallness of our success with them ? Have we never felt that we craved something besides the feeling that what we were doing was worth doing and that we would prevail in the end ? Have we never had our hours of deep discourage- ment— yes, and our seasons of defeat — in which we questioned with ourselves whether what we were doing was worth doing after all? Like Elijah, perhaps, we played the man, and did it well. We confounded King Ahab in the full consciousness
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of rectitude and sincerity of purpose. We even had our Mount Carmel, our dramatic stand for righteousness, and our hard-won, stormy triumph. We fixed our eye upon a certain goal and got there. We gained our point in some fiercely contested conflict of interests in which we managed to see justice done. We unmasked some piece of cruel humbug or put to silence some clamorous evil. We put our whole soul into the cause, whatever it was, which we felt to be ours, and our very intensity and self-forgetful zeal gained us a temporary victory. Then followed the hour of disillusionment. No sooner did we drive an evil out by one door than it returned by another. The victory we thought was going to do everything turned out to have done nothing; things were no better than they were before — worse, perhaps.