wait and trust to His power. 37. What had they the time before proposed to do? St. Mark, vi. 37. 38. What had they then said of their provisions? St. John, vi. 9. 39. What was all they now said? 40. Then what had grown in them?

41. What did the people sit on the first time? St. John, vi. 10. 42. On what did they sit now? 43. How was that? A. Because the first miracle was in spring, when the grass is very thick and fine; this one took place in summer, when it is withered and burnt up by the sun. 44. How is the short life of the grass in the East described? Ps. xc. 6.

45. What was the number the first time? 46. What number this time? 47. What was the difference in the quantity of food? 48. What in the quantity of fragments? 49. These baskets were small wallets, or provision baskets, not like the great baskets filled the first time; so as to show us that our Lord fitted the miracle to the occasion, and that it was no regular rule of proportion that multiplied the food; since, on the former occasion, more were fed with a less provision, and more was left remaining. What was the same in each miracle? 50. What did our Lord do before giving out the food? 51. What are we to learn from that? 52. How can we make our meals to the honour of God? Rom. xiv. 6., middle part of verse. 53. How does St. Paul tell us these things can do Him honour? 1

Cor. x. 31.] 54. From Whom does all our food come? 55. What is our daily prayer to Him? 56. What will He always do for those who trust and pray? 57. What does He bring out of the earth? Ps. civ. 15. 58. What is going on in the fields now? 59. When do we hope to gather the corn in? 60. But if we do not pray and are not thankful, have we any right to look for good crops? 61. What does St. Paul say He does for us? 2 Cor. ix. 10. [62. What Old Testament miracle was like these? 63. Who had our Lord taught us is the Moses who feeds us? 64. What other miracle was like this? 2 Kings, iv. 42. 65. What do all these show? A. That God feeds those who seek Him. 66. What was our Lord's answer when Satan tempted Him in His hunger? 67. What can God always do for His faithful servants? 68. Who are especially blessed? St. Matt. v. 6. 69. What does God do for them? Ps. cvii. 9. 70. What do we pray Him in the Collect to nourish us with? 71. With what does He feed them? St. John, vi. 51. 72. What does the Food do for the soul? A. It preserves the soul to everlasting life. 73. What did the Epistle say is the gift of God? 74. When will all be satisfied for ever? Rev. vii. 16. 75. For Who shall feed them? v. 17.]

NOTE.-For younger scholars, from 4 to 30; from 54 to 61.

PART V.

OUR BELIEF.

SECTION XVIII. THE JUDGMENT.

1. WHAT is the Seventh Article of the Creed? 2. What did the Angels tell those who saw our Lord ascend? Acts, i. 11. 3. When shall He so come? 4. What do we say of this in the Te Deum? 5. Does anyone know when that will be? 6. What will He come to do? 7. Who are meant by the quick? [8. How will the quick meet Him? 1 Thess. iv. 17. 9. Who will be first awakened? 1 Thess. iv. 16. 10. How will they be awakened? 1 Cor. xv. 52. 11. What shall they all do?] 12. Who shall then arise? 13. How did our Lord assure us of this? St. John, v. 28. 14. Who shall come with Him? 15. What shall happen to the earth and sky? [16. What shall be set in Heaven? Rev. xx. 11; Daniel, vii. 9. 17. Who will stand before Him? Rev. xx. 12, 13; Daniel, vii. 10. 18. What is it to be judged ?] 19. What shall we be judged for? 20. What I will then be made known? 1 Cor. iv. 5.

St.

21. What will the wicked do in that day? 22. Will anything hide them from God? 23. How will He divide between the wicked and the just? St. Matt. xxv. 32. 24. What will He say to the righteous? Verse 34. 25. What will He say to the wicked? Verse 41. 26. Where shall the wicked go? 27. Where shall the righteous go? 28. How must we prepare for that day? 29. Why must we watch? 30. How must we watch? 31. What are we like? Matt. xxiv. 45. 32. How would good servants wait for their master? 33. What does our Lord say of the servant whom He shall find so doing? St. Matt. xxiv. 46. [34. What is our prayer in the Collect for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany? 35. What is the time of year in which we should especially think of His Coming? A. Advent. 36. What will He then have destroyed? 37. What is the last enemy that shall be destroyed ?] 38. What shall there be an end of? 39. What will then begin? 40. What does the Nicene Creed say? 41. Who shall reign with Him? 42. What is the promise to those who suffer with Him? 2 Tim. ii. 12. 43. What are we told of that glory? 1 Cor. ii. 9.

No. 9.]

[Price 1d.

THE MINISTRY OF ELIJAH.

THE NATURE OF ELIJAH'S MISSION. HIS FIRST APPEARANCE.

THE Kingdom of Israel has gone on from bad to worse. It was a bad beginning when the ten tribes rebelled against Solomon's successor, and set up for themselves under Jeroboam. It was a bad beginning when they not only rebelled against their lawful king Rehoboam, but also deserted the Temple Worship which God had ordained, and set up the unlawful services at Dan and Bethel. But things were far worse in the days of Elijah.

It was now about fifty years since the separation, and a new king, the sixth from Jeroboam, set aside the worship which Jeroboam had established, and brought in the worship of idols:-(Baalim and Ashtaroth.) This was Ahab. He had married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal the king of the Zidonians. The Zidonians were wholly given to idolatry. The father of Jezebel was not only king, but also priest of Astarte the goddess of the Zidonians: and the brother of Jezebel, who succeeded his father on the throne, was also priest of Baal, the god of the Zidonians. Hence Ahab was led to follow the example of his wife's family, and the land deserted the true God for the worship of idols.

This was far worse than the sin of Jeroboam. Jeroboam's sin lay in causing the Israelites to worship God in a wrong way. Ahab and Jezebel caused them to leave off worshipping Him altogether. Jeroboam caused the people to leave off going to Jerusalem to worship, and he set up "calves" for them to worship, at Dan and at Bethel. Still these "calves" were meant for emblems of the true God; they were not images of false gods. This was bad enough. But Ahab and Jezebel were guilty of a much greater wickedness, when they brought in the worship of the heathen gods of Tyre and Sidon. Jeroboam's sin was the first step, Ahab's was the second. The Kingdom of Israel went, as we said, from bad to worse; and in Elijah's days it was at the worst.

Now in this sad history, we see an

leaves Himself without a witness for His truth. At each downward step, when men are going wrong, God points out to them their error and warns them of their sin. They may not choose to listen; they may shut their eyes and ears against God's messengers and warnings; but the warnings and the messengers are there, whether they attend to them or not.

It was so with both of these downward steps in the sad history of the Kingdom of Israel. Jeroboam began the evil, and he was warned. Ahab finished it, and he too was warned-not once or twice, but often.

When Jeroboam held the great festival of the consecration of his altar at Bethel, God sent his prophet to denounce his sin. (1 Kings, xiii. 1-5.) The altar was miraculously thrown down, the king's hand was miraculously withered, and the prophet foretold how in coming years, a new king, Josiah by name, should utterly destroy this unrighteous altar. Jeroboam and his people neglected this warning, and for anything we are told the warning was never repeated. They went on, one king after another, each persisting in the same sin, until at last the sixth from Jeroboam took another downward step. Then again another prophet is sent by God, to warn the wicked Ahab, as the first prophet had warned Jeroboam. And as Ahab's sin was far greater than Jeroboam's, so his warnings were far more solemn and awful and severe. The ministry of Elijah is the most striking of any that we read of in all those dark days, from the first sin of Jeroboam to the final captivity of the wicked nation; so much so that Elijah became the very type of that great preacher of repentance, who should prepare the way for the coming of Christ Himself.

Let us see how Holy Scripture describes the life and ministry of Elijah.

There is something mysterious about him from the very first. With most of God's great prophets and teachers in the Old Testament, we are told something of their earlier years, and how God fitted them for the great work which they were to perform. It was so with Moses. It was so with Samuel. It was so with David. We seem to know

them from their very cradles, and how they grew up to be God's faithful servants when the time came for them to enter upon their callings. Not so with Elijah. We know nothing of him until we see him in the midst of his great duties, warning the wicked king, standing single handed against the prophets of Baal, or holding mysterious communion with God in the solitudes of Horeb. He seems to come (if we may use such a phrase) straight from God, to deliver God's awful messages; and then when his messages are delivered, he goes back again into some mysterious retirement, where he receives fresh messages from God, and is trained and schooled for still more arduous service. One thing only we are told about him. He was "of the inhabitants of Gilead." (1 Kings, xvii. 1.) Now Gilead was the mountain country east of the Jordan, over against the country afterwards called Galilee. It was a very different country from that on the western side the river, where Ahab and Jezebel lived and held their court. It was a land of hills and ravines. Its inhabitants were a rough and hardy race, living mostly in tents, and wandering from place to place wherever they might best feed their flocks. They were a fearless and independent people, often at war with the Arabs of the eastward desert, and thereby trained to habits of endurance, and to a contempt of danger and fatigue. Those of you who have read anything of modern history, know how different the dwellers in the mountains of Switzerland, or in the Alps of the Tyrol, have always been, from their soft Italian neighbours. There was the same difference between the mountaineers of Gilead and the luxurious dwellers in the plains where Ahab and Jezebel reigned and worshipped the gods of the rich citizens of Tyre and Sidon. Such then was the people from amongst whom God chose the prophet who was to denounce the sins, and brave the anger, of the wicked and selfish king. For the rest, we are told no more. We see Elijah in his work, and in that alone.

What then was Elijah's work? It was to show the people that the new gods whom Ahab and Jezebel had brought in were no gods at all; that the God of Israel, the Lord Jehovah, could avenge Himself on those who denied Him; and that an inhabitant of Gilead standing single-handed against all the might of Ahab and of Jezebel, should put to confusion the powers of their gods! Elijah was to denounce this new idolatry, just as Jeroboam's erroneous worship had been denounced by the prophet who overthrew the altar at Bethel. And as Ahab's sin was far worse than Jeroboam's, so the ministry of Elijah was far more terrible than the warning of the pro

phet who was sent to Jeroboam. That first warning was not so much out of the ordinary way of things. Jeroboam had not denied the true God. But Ahab and Jezebel had gone too far for mild remonstrances. So God sent them a prophet from among the inhabitants of Gilead; a man as unlike a courtier as possible; a man rough in his attire, coming and going with mysterious uncertainty, bold in speech, and who feared not the face of kings. The times demanded it. Four hundred of the prophets of Ashtaroth, four hundred and fifty of the prophets of Baal, were established at the court of Jezebel; the false worship was in full glory around the royal dwelling, and the land was defiled with idolatry. Then, upon a sudden, Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, appeared before Ahab and said, "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before Whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." (1 Kings, xvii. 1.) This is his first appearance, and these are his first words. We must explain them. They are a challenge and a defiance of the false gods whom Ahab was worshipping. Elijah, the servant of Jehovah, conveys God's message against these false gods. His words begin with a solemn oath by the Name of Jehovah :-" As Jehovah the God of Israel liveth." This is a declaration that Jehovah is the true God, that all else are false. Then he says "before Whom I stand." This is a declaration that Elijah was the servant of Jehovah, that he came with a message from Him, that he rejected the gods whom Ahab and Jezebel served. What was the message itself? It was that there should be no rain nor dew for years, except according to the bidding of Elijah himself. Now this was the same thing as saying that he, Elijah, speaking in the name of Jehovah, was more powerful than all the gods of the Zidonians. These Zidonian gods were considered by their worshippers to be the gods who ruled over the sun and moon, the weather and the seasons, over the fire and the air. It was because of this that they were worshipped-because they were supposed to give the light and warmth, the rain and the dew. words were as if he had said to Ahab, "You think that these new gods of yours are the gods who give you the rain and the fruitful seasons. You are mistaken. It is the God of Israel who really gives all these things. He can make even me, His servant, more powerful than all your false gods are. Baal shall not be able so much as to give you rain or dew for years-not until my word permits it." The rough dweller in the mountains of Gilead more powerful than all the gods of Ahab and Jezebel! We may imagine the fury and the amazement of the wicked

court.

Hence Elijah's

This is Elijah's first appearance. But the famine begins, and Elijah disappears altogether. God commands him to hide himself from the anger of the king and queen. First God sends him back to his native mountains, eastward, to conceal himself in the ravine of a mountain stream

which flowed down from his Gileadite hills into the Jordan valley. There for many months, perhaps a year, he remained concealed, fed by the ravens whom God taught to nourish the hidden prophet, until the drought which he had foretold dried up the stream which gave him water. (1 Kings, xvii. 5-7.) One year of the famine has gone; it has yet more than another year to last, and God provides His prophet with another refuge in the house of a widow at Sarepta. (1 Kings, xvii. 8, &c.) The famine was very sore, and she was at the point of perishing with her son. But the same God who had given Elijah miraculous food in the ravine of the Cherith, now gives him food by miracle in the widow's dwelling; and not for himself only, but for those who sheltered him. There for a full year dwelt the hidden prophet; and blessing rested on the widow's home, for when her son was sick unto death Elijah restored him again to life. Still the famine went on around them, and it was very sore in Samaria, where Ahab and Jezebel dwelt, and where the priests of Baal and of Ashtaroth ministered. Baal and the Zidonian gods could do nothing for their worshippers. Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord, (though some were saved by Obadiah) still the Zidonian gods could do nothing. What did Ahab do? Now Elijah had said that the drought should last until he should speak the word. So Ahab sent everywhere to seek the man whose word alone could save them all. There was "no nation nor kingdom" whither he did not send to seek him; "and when they said, He is not there, he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found him not." (1 Kings, xviii. 10.) But Elijah was resting quietly in the widow's house at Sarepta, not far from that very Sidon whence Ahab had married the wicked Jezebel. Yet they found him not. Then the third year of the famine came, and Ahab was in despair. Truly the Gileadite's message had been fulfilled indeed. When would the famine cease? It was not to cease until Elijah should appear once more; it was not to rain again, until the triumph of the true God over the idolatrous worship had been fully won, until the Zidonian priests had been slain at the command of the hidden prophet. Then, when the priests of the gods of the sun and moon, of the rain and the seasons, were all destroyed; then the word of Elijah would restore the fertilizing rain ;--then, but not before. So

we stand now at the threshold of Elijah's second appearance. A. R. A.

NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

THE MINISTRY OF ELIJAH.

(Concluded from the last Sunday's Reading.) AND now the great famine has gone on for nearly three years, and Elijah has been hidden all the time. At the last God informs Elijah that He will bring the drought to an end, that He will send rain upon the earth, and that Elijah must now go and show himself again to Ahab.

Ahab and Obadiah, the chief of the royal household, were going up and down the country, each in different directions, seeking pasture for the horses and the mules. Elijah, going as he was directed to meet with Ahab, first falls in with Obadiah, and bids him carry a message to Ahab: “Go tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here." (1 Kings, xviii. 8.) Elijah knew that Ahab would come quickly enough to meet him. He had sought him fruitlessly these three long years; it would be joyful tidings indeed which Obadiah bore, if Elijah would at last really meet the king. Obadiah feared it was too good tidings to be fulfilled. Obadiah knew that Elijah was protected by God's care, and he thought that God would not suffer His prophet to fall into the hands of Ahab. So Elijah swore to Obadiah, "As the Lord of Hosts liveth, before Whom I stand, (i. e., Whose servant I am,) I will surely show myself unto him to-day." (1 Kings, xviii. 15.) Then Ahab came quickly to meet Elijah. He met him in great anger, and taxed him with being the cause of all the trouble which the country had suffered in the famine. Elijah answered fearlessly that Ahab and his idolatrous family were the real cause:-"in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim." (1 Kings, xviii. 18.) Then Elijah demanded that all the idolatrous priests, eight hundred and fifty in number, should be assembled at Mount Carmel, where, in the face of all Israel, he would meet them, and the whole nation should see which was the true God, Jehovah or Baal. Elijah alone against the hundreds of Baal's prophets;-the whole assembly of the nation and their king, Ahab, looking on;-so would the great controversy be at last decided.

The trial was to be which of the two Gods, Jehovah or Baal, would answer their prophet's prayer and send fire to consume their sacrifice. We must again remember that the gods of the Zidonians were supposed to have especial power over the elements:-fire and water, rain and the fruitful seasons, these were the things

which the worshippers of Baal thought he was especially able to confer on them.* The people had already seen by the long famine that Baal could not give his worshippers rain when it was wanted. Now Elijah would show that Baal could not send fire when his prophets asked it, but that it would come immediately at the bidding of the prophet of Jehovah.

So they were all met on a high peak of Mount Carmel, whence all the fertile land of northern Palestine was visible, and where the people could be assembled by thousands to see the man whom their king had sought in vain now coming forward of his own free will to set the priests of Baal at defiance. There was a ruined altar of the true God there, and there was also a spring of water, which, as recent travellers tell us, is the last to be dried up in seasons of drought. We all know the history;-how Elijah restored the altar, rebuilding it of twelve stones, and so reminding the spectators that Jehovah was the God of ALL the tribes of Israel; how all day long the priests of Baal sought vainly for the wished-for fire; and how at evening time, when the hour of evening sacrifice was come, Elijah placed his sacrifice upon the altar, drenching it first three times with water, that the miracle of the fire might be the more marvellously impressive. Then Elijah prayed his noble prayer: "Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that Thou art God in Israel, and that I am Thy servant, and that I have done all these things at Thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that Thou art the Lord (Jehovah) God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again." (1 Kings, xviii. 36, 37.) After this the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed not only the sacrifice but the wood, the stones, the dust, and "licked up the water that was in the trench." Here we must observe how completely the miracle was performed. There could be no doubt now but that Jehovah and not Baal was the God who really ruled over the elements. The fire of Jehovah was powerful indeed, when the rock and the water were alike consumed by it, and not merely the sacrifice. And so the people were convinced. They fell on their faces and said, “Jehovah, He is the God! Jehovah, He is the God!" Then Elijah bade them seize the prophets of Baal and lead them down the steep hill-side to the river which ran beneath, "that ancient river, the river Kishon," as it had been called in the songs of Deborah; and there

This seems to explain how it was that the challenge (1 Kings, xviii. 24.) was so readily accepted. It was one which the priests of Baal could

those wicked prophets, for whose sake Jezebel had killed the prophets of the Lord, met their righteous doom. Murderers they had been of Jehovah's prophets, now vengeance fell upon them, and the one prophet of the true God wiped out the foul stain of his country's iniquity in the blood of those who had polluted it with their abominations. Thus was another great deed done on the banks of this old historic river, and the selfsame spot which had seen the rout and destruction of the host of Sisera, now beheld the yet more solemn overthrow of the Zidonian priests and of the worship which Ahab and Jezebel had brought in. Such then is the issue of the great defiance which Elijah had offered three years ago to Ahab and his gods. The drought and the famine had come, the gods of the Zidonians could do nothing against it. Elijah had met their priests, and their gods could not answer their prayers. Elijah had convinced the people that Jehovah was God and not Baal, and the slaughter of God's prophets had been punished by the death of their murderers.

But the famine? and the drought? Now that Baal's weakness was confessed, the famine and the drought might cease. The people had acknowledged Jehovah for the true God, and He would once more give them rain. Elijah would now give the word for rain. He said to Ahab, "Get thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain." And again, “Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down (from the hill,) that the rain stop thee not. And it came to pass in the meanwhile, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain." (1 Kings, xviii. 41, 44, 45.) The word spoken three years ago was fulfilled. There was rain now, but for all those years there had been no rain nor dew" but according to " Elijah's word. Ahab's great sin was punished, and the false worship was humbled.

But Jezebel was not humbled. When Ahab told her all that had happened, she sent a message to Elijah that, as he had slain her priests, so she would slay him before the next day was out. (1 Kings, xix. 2.) Hence Elijah fled instantly. He fled out of the country over which Jezebel's power extended. He betook himself to the kingdom of Judah, and then leaving his servant at Beersheba, he went into the wilderness south of Palestine, giving himself over to despair. Why did he despair? Here we must stop to notice how disappointed Elijah seems to have been at the result of his great triumph over the priests of Baal. That message of Jezebel's seems to have taken him entirely by surprise, and to have quelled his spirit altogether. He had

taught the people he was.

given up now that the Baal-prophets had