then showed to be most true, which we read in the book of Ecclesiasticus, that "the teeth of wild beasts were created for vengeance, punishing the wicked to destruction."* And from it we should learn to admire the merciful loving-kindness of our God, who, possessing such abundant means in every natural agent of chastising all of us for our misdeeds, is, nevertheless, " long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."+

Elisha, on his return to Samaria, found Jehoram, a younger son of Ahab, in possession of the throne, and in confederacy with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, whose desire of preserving a good understanding with Israel had induced him, to a certain extent, to admit even Ahaziah into a commercial league with him, and now to assist his less wicked brother in punishing the king of Moab, who had revolted from him, and refused to pay him tribute. The two kings, having marched against Moab by the way of the wilderness of Edom, found themselves in danger of perishing for want of water in this emergency, while Jehoram contented himself with mere complaints, the more thoughtful and pious Jehoshaphat urged him to ask the assistance of Elisha, as a prophet of God. Elisha, having clearly made it understood that he interfered, not for the sake of Jehoram, but of Jehoshaphat, ordered them to cut trenches in the valley-assuring them, that without any perceptible rain or other natural cause, they should be filled with water. Having thus recovered their lost strength and courage, they were enabled to conquer the Moabites: though their desire of vengeance was turned into remorse and disgust, at witnessing the horrid sacrifice which the king of Moab made of his own eldest son to obtain the favour of

his blood-stained idols-and they returned to their own land. Elisha, having left them, devoted himself for a season to works of a benevolent character, which the Spirit that had descended upon him enabled him to do beyond the ordinary course of nature. Several acts of this sort are successively recorded of him, each deserving of a brief notice. The first was, the miraculous multiplication of a poor widow's vessel of oil, by which he saved her two sons from being carried away as bondmen for the payment of her debts. The second, his intercession in behalf of an hospitable woman of Shunem, by which he obtained for her that which she had long hoped for in vain, a son, born in the old age of her husband. The third, a similar intercession for the restoration to life of that same boy which God was graciously pleased to grant to his earnest entreaty, though in the first instance it was refused, when he attempted to bring it about in a more negligent and easy manner, by sending merely his servant Gehazi to touch the child with his staff. There was perhaps something approaching to presumption in this mode of proceeding, which God rebuked by withholding for a time the expected miracle but when the prophet went up, and lay upon the child, and strove as it were to impart unto him his own soul, when he prayed fervently, and was not discouraged, but repeated his efforts-then God heard him, and he was permitted to say with gladness to the anxious mother, "Take up thy son."* His fourth miracle was, by the mere admixture of a little meal into the mess of pottage which his disciples were eating, to prevent the deadly effects of some poisonous plant which had been inadvertently put into it. His fifth-bearing a striking resemblance to one of our Lord Christ's--to make twenty loaves of barley and

2 Kings iv. 36.

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a little corn in the husk, serve as provision for a hundred men. His sixth, to heal Naaman, a great man in the service of the king of Syria, of a leprosy which afflicted him, by the simple bathing of his body in the waters of Jordan -and to transfer it to his own servant Gehazi, who had imposed upon the generous Syrian, and obtained from him, under false pretences, a portion of those rich rewards which he had vainly offered to the prophet. His seventh, to cause the iron head of an axe, dropped into the water, to float upon its surface. These, with the single exception of Gehazi's leprosy, were all acts of kindness, and productive of benefit to men; nor need we look upon even his merited chastisement as an exception, if, as most probably it did, it worked in him repentance for his avarice and falsehood, and amended his character in these important points. They were done, also, either in the quiet retirement of his own dwelling, or in those places of the country which were his usual resort, as being the abodes of his disciples.

But although dissatisfied with the conduct of his king, he was not therefore unmindful of his duties as a citizen and subject; and when war broke out between Syria and Israel, he used the supernatural knowledge which he possessed in giving such intelligence of the enemy's movements to Jehoram, as baffled all their plans, and caused the king of Syria to make a desperate attempt to seize and punish him. Having first calmed the terrors of his servant, by showing him in a preternatural vision the mountain girt about with horses and chariots of fire for his protection, he led the blinded Syrians, who were sent to take him, into the midst of Samaria; and, directing the king of Israel to let them return in safety, gave a sufficing proof how useless it was to assail by mortal arms one thus guarded by Heaven, or any whom he

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might think it fitting to protect. The king of Syria, however, after a while forgot this wholesome lesson : he besieged Samaria, and reduced it to much distress through extremity of famine. While things were in this state, and Jehoram in his rage had sworn to kill Elisha, on whose help he had trusted as he supposed in vain, the prophet gave him, what from any other lips would have been the incredible promise, that by the next day the scarcity should be changed into the utmost plenty a promise which was most amply made good, by the flight of the Syrians that very night, in consequence of a panic terror which came upon them from the Lord, and the abandonment of the camp with all its riches as a prey to the Israelites. The alarm with which the Syrians were infected, appears either to have caused them immediately to make peace with Israel, or at least to have inspired in them such reverence for the person of Elisha, that we next hear of him in Damascus, their capital city, and find him consulted by their king Benhadad, as to his recovery from a sickness which afflicted him. The messenger whom he sent to make this inquiry was Hazael, the captain of his host, the person who, as God had long before declared to Elijah, was destined to succeed him. Elisha, who while he looked him in the face foresaw not only the treacherous and wicked manner in which he would effect this, but also the horrible cruelties and evils which in the course of his reign he would inflict upon Israel, could not refrain from weeping while he gave him an answer to this effect, that the king might indeed recover, but that he would surely die; that is, his illness was not incurable, but his danger proceeded from another quarter, even from Hazael himself—who, learning from the prophet that he was to be king over Syria, after an hypocritical profession of abhorrence for the crimes he was about to commit, made haste to secure

the succession to himself, by murdering his master on the following day. Well might the prophet weep, on seeing such consequences arise from the communication which he felt himself compelled to make to this ambitious traitor: he felt, too, that he was preparing in him a scourge for the offences of his own people, and sorrowed, while he submitted himself to the will of God, to think that they needed so severe a punishment his tears arose from a like cause with those which flowed from the eyes of Jesus, when he beheld the city of Jerusalem*-obstinate and careless of the future as it was-and mourned its certain doom. Let us remember that no country is ever vicious but through the vices of its individual inhabitants; and let us so walk, through the help of grace, that punishment may never fall upon it because of sins that we have committed.

CHAP. XXX.

THE HISTORY OF ELISHA.-PART II.

THE repentance of Ahab, incomplete as it appears to have been, so far prevailed with God as to procure for him a remission of one part of his sentence, that, namely, which involved the destruction of his family during his own life-time, but was not permitted to extend its beneficial effects beyond the limits of a single generation: "In his son's days,' said the Lord to Elijah, "I will bring the evil on his house." The time chosen for the execution of this threatened doom upon Jehoram, Ahab's son, and the

Luke xix. 41.

+1 Kings xxi. 29.