reply. I think he spoke here unadvisedly. You do not make a bad man better by taunting him and twitting him with what is gone by. It is much better to let bygones be bygones, and try and make the worse better, not to say what will make the good bad. And the king answered, "Nay; for the Lord hath called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hand of Moab;" as much as to say, here is a danger worthy of the interposition of a prophet. "And Elisha said, Surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee." He had a great reverence and respect for Jehoshaphat, who seems to have been the best of three men, not one of whom was particularly excellent. And then he said, "Bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him." There was nothing in the music that was the medium of divine communication; but it was just as when Saul got David to play the harp in his presence, and the evil spirit, we are told, fled from Saul. Everybody knows that in music of the highest order there is a composing and soothing influence that seems to fit the mind for entertaining grand thoughts, and to touch the lips and make them eloquent in the expression of them. The man who has no music in his soul, as the great dramatic writer says, is fit for all sorts of stratagems and crimes. We would not go so far as that; but certainly the man that has no susceptibility of the soothing and composing effect of music, is destitute of a very great enjoyment. We know, also, what music of a martial character is, what stirring and exciting effects it has. There is no one

thing that we are acquainted with that seems to be possessed of a more magical power than the varied strains and moods of music. Such music was played in the hearing of Elisha; his mind was soothed, his heart perhaps brought into that state when it might be most fitted for a divine communication, or a divine impression. And he is spoken to by God; and he tells them, True, there is no water; but just wait a little, and you shall see the valley filled with water, and there shall be abundance both for you and for your cattle; and also God will deliver the Moabites into your bands. And then he pronounces a sentence. "Ye shall smite every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all wells of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones." This seems like vengeance, but probably there was a reason for it; what that reason was we do not know; but there is no one calamity that a victorious army leaves behind it more terrible than when it becomes a necessity to stop the wells and fell the trees. It is a very remarkable fact, as we find in Revelation, that the great Mahometan and Saracenic powers in the 8th and 9th centuries made it a rule to spare every green tree, never to stop a well, nor do anything that would inflict injury upon the innocent and the inoffensive.

When the valley was filled with water, the sun in the morning tinged it with red; and the Moabites seeing it red by the rays of the sun, thought it was blood. It is supposed that the Red Sea is so called because the rays of the rising and setting sun give it a reddish tinge. The Moabites seeing this, rushed hastily to the conclusion that the three kings had

fallen out among themselves, and had slaughtered each other and all their armies; that what they saw was the blood shed in the terrible internecine struggle; and they took courage, rushed against the Israelites, but found to their dismay a vast army prepared for their reception; they were caught as in a snare, and were utterly defeated. Determined, however, to make a last desperate effort, the king of Moab selected seven hundred of his ablest and most heroic men to break through even unto the king of Edom; that is, to break their way through the opposing host; but they fell before the victorious Israelites. This almost reminds us of that memorable scene at Waterloo, when Napoleon, as a last great effort, launched his Invincible Guards against the British ranks; and if you read Alison's description of that magnificent and awful scene, you will see on a grander scale what is here recorded the last desperate effort to retrieve the battle. In Alison you read (an illustration of what occurred here), how under the resistless force, and firmness, and solidity of our British Guards and British soldiers, that mighty host of Invincibles melted away like snow in the sunshine, and the great Napoleon became a fugitive from those he so lately expected to conquer and to crush.

231

MIRACLES.

CHAPTER IV.

MIRACLES. A MOTHER'S APPEAL. THE OIL INCREASED. THE

PROPHET'S CHAMBER. A SON PROMISED.

CHILD. THE CHILD RAISED TO LIFE.
POT. FOOD FOUND.

DEATH OF THE

DEATH IN THE

THERE are in the course of the life of Elisha, such groups of miracles, that one is at times disposed to think the narrative unreal. But we should recollect that each miracle occurred at intervals; the intervals may have been months, or they may have been years; they are grouped together in the narrative; they were separated by months or years in their actual occur

rence.

First of all we read of a certain woman, the wife of a son of the prophets-that is, of one professing and preaching Christian truth-who came to Elisha and said, "Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord; and the ereditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen." It was the law of Levi, that the creditor might seize the children, and keep them, and work them as slaves, if the parent died in debt; and that these children should continue to be slaves till the year of jubilee arrived, when they could demand their liberty and be freemen again. This feature forms the broad distinction between the slavery that exists in the Southern States of America, and the slavery that existed in ancient Israel. There is no year of jubilee for the slave in the Southern States but as soon as its glad peal sounded in Israel, the slave was a free

man, and no man dare, without his consent, make him again a slave. It appears here that the creditor demanded these sons, as he legally might, and the mother was most reluctant to part with them, as might be conceived; and she applied to Elisha, whose wondrous deeds had excited such interest in the land, and she told him the whole story-that she was starving, that she had nothing to live on, everything was against her could he in any respect help her or do her good? He asked her what she had in the house, and she said all she had was a single pot of olive oil. He said, Bring empty vessels; go in in secret, without ostentation; pour out of this pot of oil into the empty vessels, and you will see the result. And the result was that she had abundance of oil, one of the most precious articles of commerce in those days; and she went and sold the oil, paid the debt, and her children were free, and she herself was happy.

The next incident that occurs at an interval, is that Elisha went to Shunem, "where was a great woman," or a noble lady, who, with the hospitality which is implied in the name (for the words lord and lady meant in Saxon "bread givers and distributors," people that gave bread to others) constrained the prophet to eat bread. She was so charmed with his Christian character and his instructive lessons, that she asked the permission of her husband to have a little chamber built upon the wall, to be called the prophet's chamber, where he might lodge, and have a table, and a chair, and a bed, and a candlestick, that they might have the advantage of the instruction of so excellent and consistent a chaplain. While he was there we are told one day, he instructed Gehazi his servant to