The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-09-24
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 INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON
Copyright, Davis W. Clark.) 


 1 triotic feelings. Do not take Elijah out of the category of perfectly nor mal human life. St. James says his feelings and emotions were just such as ours would be under similar cirs cumstances. In his distress he com muned with God. Is the evil remedi- less? Can not the people be chast- eHed? Will not drought and famine bring them to repentence? He be- | lieves so. He prays that it may not rain. Can he aspire to be Jehovah's | ambassador to the court of Ahab? If so, he places himself unreservedly at I the disposal of the Almighty. So, of l his own will, with the use of his own | judgment, in normal manner he be- comes Israers reformer.
 | For sheer courage Elijah Is unsur- passed. Among the ever-living heroes he stands the peer of any for intrepid ity. "Go!" And he went!" Is the brief record, but how much must be read between the lines. He was com- manded to go into the teeth of a rag ing lion. Ahab felt that the prestige | of his kingship had been discounted by Elijah's opposition. He had been hu- initiated in the eyes of his subjects and neighboring monarchs. His wife, in- | famed with religious zeal. goaded him on to revenge. Every circumstance, I l spired to make him the implacable foe of the prophet who had brought this whitening woe upon the nation. Un- der circumstances like these the per- emptory command came, Go, show | myself to Ahabn' Without remon- strance or hesitation, taking his very life in his hand, the prophet started. | The annals of war, exploration, or res- cue do not contain an instance which 
 courage.
 The lessons of Carmel are as clear cut as the skyline of the mountain it. self. The commentary seemed to come | in advance of the text in this instance. thousand years before St.. Paul wrote the words ''an idol is a nonentity in the world,' this scene illustrated and proved it Not for six hours on the mountain had Baal been appealed to. but probably for the whole three years of the famine. Yet not whisper came in response. But Jehovah answered the prophets prayer at once. The next we see of Elijah he is not riding the crest of popular reformation--its idolized hero-but ignominiously stranded upon the shore, where the re- ceding tide has left him. The picture may not be as pleasing and exhilarat- ing, but it may be quite as profitable,
  to deport one's self in defeat; how to make defeat serviceable in the evolu- tion of character-that is the prime lesson for the universal human heart And that lesson God teaches us in His dealings with His servant in the wild erness and in Mount Horeb. The splendid scenic parable of Sinti cleared up Elijahs difficulties. By means of 1t he caught again the clue PTOvidanaA.s Ha ped the thread until 1t led him to the | chariot of fire. The parable was for him personally. He was to be like 1t. In his case roar was to subside into whisper After the cataclysms of his career. there was to be period of blissful communion. Again the para ble had meaning for the national life Storm and fire stand for the initial | means of reformation. They made the nation susceptible to the still small voice of justice and truth, which breathed through the prophets who | succeeded. To the few isolated events of Ehjah's career one was to be added which should surpass them all, even in the quality of scenic effect. But any attempt at minute description of Elijah's translation leads to exagger- ated rhetoric. Human language can not depict the scene. The Lords min ister on this occasion, as on so many others. was a flaming fire. Amos, to whose book attention Is drawn in the closing lesson of the quarter, is the peer of any in the col lege of the prophets. He has been called the peasant prophet He lived among the rough hills of Judea near 1 the edge of the great desert. He was untrained in the schools. It is the sur prise of the critics that from such an unlikely source such an elaborate and exalted work should come. Amos has been compared to Dante His proph- ecy has been described as a thunder storm rolling over all the surrounding kingdoms. touching Judah, and finally settling down upon Israel.