both "Tabor and Hermon " "rejoicing in God's name." Or, as at other times, he would wander along the shores of the great and wide sea, in adoring contemplation of Him who taketh up the waters in the hollow of His hand, and who "giveth the sea His decree." Yet again, when the barrel had yielded its evening supply, and the lamp had been lighted from the unfailing oil-cruse, we can picture him unfolding to these two dwellers in Pagan Phoenicia―the mother and her child-the name and works and divine character of the God of Israel;-dwelling on the glorious promise spoken to the fathers, but in the blessings of which all the families of the earth were to participate. We can think of them, perhaps, joining their voices together in the psalms of the great Hebrew minstrel, -many of them so applicable to their own circumstances and experience :-" Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God; which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is; which keepeth truth for ever; which executeth judgment for the oppressed; which giveth food to the hungry. . . . The Lord preserveth the strangers; He relieveth the fatherless and widow." Or, more appropriate still in that heathen Tyrian home:-"And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall entreat Thy favour. Instead of Thy fathers shall be Thy children, whom Thou mayest make princes in all the earth. I will make Thy

name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise Thee for ever and ever!"

But a dark season is at hand for that lowly home. Perhaps it was with this widow, as with many among us still-in her state of comparative prosperity,-of exemption, at all events, from the pressure of famine, so severely felt all around, she may have been beginning to forget the Hand which was filling her empty cupboard, and warding off want from her dwelling. Miraculously fed from day to day-seeing the barrel and the cruse each morning recruited with the needed supply,—she may have begun to feel too confidently secure;-that her "mountain was standing strong," and that she might safely calculate on a permanent immunity from the inroads of trial.

How apt are we, after a season of long-continued blessing unbroken prosperity-to indulge in this spirit of boastful independence: taking our daily comforts-food-health-friends-children-as matters

of course.

We may see, in the case of others, these strong pillars shattered and broken; but our inmost thought and feeling is, "I am all secure-I need not fear!" So may have meditated the Sarepta widow. And the last trial she would ever have anticipated would probably be the very one that was in store for her. With appalling suddenness, the little life,—the light of her dwelling,-is extinguished! "There is no breath left in him." Since this loved and only child had been given back to her from the gates of

famine and death, we may imagine her heart-strings had twined more tenderly than ever around him; he was every day growing up more of a companion and solace to her, a pledge of unspeakable blessing in her latter years-when his arms would toil for her, his prayers would comfort her, and his hands at last would close her eyes in death. Sad, indeed, that that one lone star which twinkled in her firmament should be blotted out. Better it had been if, two years ago, he had been removed, and thus been spared the pangs and struggles of many an after-hour of privation and suffering. His life being prolonged only to be taken, seemed a cruel mocking of her grief and tears. All her hopes and joys perished in that moment of woe. She could bear to see the barrel of meal yielding a diminished supply, she could endure to look on an empty, unreplenished cruse; but to gaze on that withered flower, lying cold and lifeless in her bosom, -to lose HIM, this was death indeed!

We cannot, perhaps, wonder, that for a time, faith, and patience, and submission were tempted to give way. In the bitterness of her bereft soul she thus upbraids the Prophet: "What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?" The words were a cutting reflection on Elijah, as well as an insinuation against Elijah's God. It was as if she had said, "What have I done to provoke at thy hands so terrible a calamity? Is this thy recompense and

requital for sheltering thy defenceless head? In pity I gave thee welcome to my humble roof. Have these been thine answered prayers for thy benefactress? Has thy God come, in this fearful retributive sense, to be the Judge of the widow?' Hast thou come, a wolf in sheep's clothing, to ravish my flock—and despoil me of my one lamb?" How striking is the contrast between this agony of her impassioned grief and the calm composure manifested when she first met Elijah. Then her child's death was equally imminent, and threatened, too, under a more terrible form. Her words on that occasion, in speaking of partaking with him of her last morsel, were these, "That we may eat it and die." She had familiarised herself with the approach of the last enemy: it was the passive, silent submission of blank despair. Now, however, it was "sudden death,"-death unexpecteddeath when she was handling the full cup. It was her gourd withering, not by a process of slow, gradual decay drooping leaf by leaf; but it was, as with Jonah, the luxuriant plant-coiled fresh and beauteous round her evening bower-becoming, in a night, a mass of blighted, withered leaves. In the words of the Patriarch of Uz, "The morning was even as the shadow of death."

Nor can we fail to admire Elijah's conduct in the trying circumstances. We know to what course his natural character would have impelled him. Hurt at the unkind and unjust reflection, his fiery nature

He might,

might have prompted him to retaliate. with an angry word, have answered the ungenerous suspicion breathed by that broken heart. But there is no syllable of recrimination or resentment. He says nothing (as he might have done) about the blessing he had been, and brought, to her household. He makes no reference to the barrel and the cruse beside them, the silent witnesses of God's mercy and goodness. Deeply touched at the impressive sight of death—and, perhaps, with a tender love for the youthful victim-he makes kind allowance for the anguish of the childless widow. Saying, "Give me thy son," he takes the cold marble, the dead body, in his arms, and carries it to his own couch. In Eastern dwellings in these times, as at the present day, there was generally a room higher than the rest of the building, called "'alliyeh," or, as it is here translated, "loft," where strangers and guests were accommodated. In the better class of houses it was regarded as the place of honour. To this upper room Elijah bears the lifeless child. That quiet chamber echoes to the voice of impassioned prayer. The Prophet, though he had controlled his feelings before the sorrowing mother, evidently felt keenly the severity of the blow. He dreaded lest the dealings of his God might be misjudged by that crushed mourner, and “he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, hast Thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?" Laying the corpse