Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-28

milton of the fact that there is something
! more valuable than money, and more
precious than pleasure. Day by day we are
busy doing our days work, occupied in the
small interests which crowd our time, set
upon transltory purposes, taken up with
matters OF the moment. And these things
seem the only realities there are. God is
out of sight and out of mind. Heaven and
hell are theological expressions. Prayer is
of no practical value But we can put our
hand on the round face of dollar.
We can be absolutely sure of the existence
OF dollar. That, anyhow, is real
And then comes trouble. And what a
change that makes! What a reversal of all
our valuations! Can money help US? Can
society console us? Oh Baal, hear us? But
there is no voice, nor any that answers.
Baal is silent; Ashteroth is silent. And
here IS drought and the famine, and the
brook is dried up because there is no rain
in the land. Then we begin to think. And
we remember God. And we change the
emphasis of our life, and put it in better
place. And the dry brook teaches the les
son which it taught in Ahab's day-the les
son of the supremacy of God, the lesson of
the infinite seriousness of life.
Cared for by the Ravens.
But Elijah knew that lesson. There was
no need to teach that to Elijah. Let the
other brooks dry up; but this brook Cherith
at Elijah's feet-surely God will keep that
full OF water. Morning and evening come
the ravens, bringing breakfast and supper
to the hungry prophet, and he drinks the
water of the brook. God is taking
care of Elijah. The hot sun glares
out of the sky, but the deep val
ley is in the shadow. The famine tightens
its hold upon the starving people, but Eli
jah neither thirsts nor hungers. And he
PAGES up and down in his solitary valley,
safe and satisfied, and rejoices, like Jonah,
to imagine the fearful execution of the SEN
tence Of the indignant God.
But by and by the heat begins to creep
down into the pleasant valley; little by lit
tie the water in the brook grows less. The
days pass; the anxious prophet watches; at
last, ''af er while, the brook dries up.
And the drought touches Elijah Now
here is one of the hardest things to under
stand in the hard problem of pain. 1 mean
this strange impartiality. If the brook had
dried up in front of Ahab's palace, that
would have been right. We could see,
plainly enough, what that was for But
when the brook dries up at the feet of the
only good man in the whole country, that
rain in the land" and that affected Eliiah's
brook just as it affected Ahab's Some
times there is pestilence in the land, and
the
Saint Suffers Like the Sinner.
All the time there is trouble in the land.
of one sort or another, and the trouble
touches the good just as it touches the bad.
There is no difference. And we wonder
why. No doubt but Elijah, standing on the
bank of the dry brook, wondered why. We
can see why, in Elijah's case. The dry
brook taught Elijah the lesson of fellow
ship.
There he sat apart in his pleasant valley,
and all the world about him was full of
trouble. 1t is not likely that he cared at
all. A stern man, preacher of the indig-
nation of an offended God Probably it
gave him certain fierce Joy to think of all
that misery. These people had sinned and
now they were getting properly punished
and Elijah was glad Of it. And he needed
to be taught better than that And so the
dry brook brought him, first of all, out of
his satisfied seclusion. He had to leave
that pleasant valley.
Trouble comes and makes our old life i'm
possible any longer. We have been abid-
ing in some pleasant valley, and God sum-
mons US out of it. The brook dries I'D, and
We cannot go on in the old way. Sometimes
it seems like the end of all that is worth
while in life. Probably it is but the begin
ming of wider living. 1t is no longer we'll
for us to stay in the pleasant valley. God
has some work for us to do, some help for
us to render in His service, and we need the
closer brotherhood with men which we could
never have in the secluded valley. That is
why the brook dries up.
Elijah Learned the Lesson.
Out goes Elijah into the suffering world.
Hungry and thirsty he takes his Journey
across the country. He knows now what
starvation means. A great pity begins to
take possession of his heart He thinks
now about the great famine in quite anoth-
er way and wants it ended. And presently
he is standing on the top of Carmel and
looking up into the hot sky and praying
God for rain.
1t is essential that whoever would be a
helper of men must first have fellowship
with men. He must go out among them,
and know them. He cannot stay apart in
any pleasant seclusion, having 10 expert
ence of the hunger and thirst which devours'
the life of man; he must himself bear our
sicknesses and carry our sorrows. We
must first love him before he can be of help
to us. And we can love him only when he
frs loves u.s. Christ stands supreme in our
affection, because He came out among us
and touched our hands with His hands, and
did not in any way hold Himself aloof even
from sinners. And because He was tempted
He becomes our helper in temptation. Be-
cause He suffered with US He becomes our
Savior
The brook dries up and we begin to un-
derstand what other people suffer. And so
we begin to be able to help them There is
that blessing in pain and trouble anyhow
that it gives sympathy, and fellowship, and
understanding. 1t sends US out of the
pleasant valley into the world where God
needs us for His work.
The dry book taught Ahab the existence
of God; but it taught Elijah the existence of
man. GEORGE HODGES