Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1915-08-28
WHEN WOMAN AND MAN
WARPED.
The international Sunday School Les
son for August 20 is Goods Care of
Elijah" - Kings 17:1-16.
(By william T. Ellis.)

i
Enter the hairy, desert marked figure
Of the most interesting man in the Old
Testament. Welcome, Elijah, champion
of righteousness, fearless foe of cor
rupt king and queen, lonely servant OF
truth First of the long line of proph-
cts of social justice and national right
|eousness, who are only today coming
to their own, Elijah, son of the wilder
mes, is figure of absorbing interest.
The tens of millions of members of the
Sunday school will study his life for
the next few weeks, with more than
ordinary attention. His career has mes
sage for little children and for strong
men in the thick of public affairs.
The background is attested both by
the Old Testament record and by the
monuments. Ahab. brilliant states
man, had succeeded his great father,
Omri, on the throne of the northern
kingdom. Ahab was ambitious to make
Israel a world power. He made not
able alliances with Syria on the east
and Phoenicia on the west. AS part OF
his diplomacy, he had married the
daughter of the bloody king Of Tyre,
and Jezebel herself was brilliant, bad
woman, stronger personality than
her husband. Her name is today more
widely used as synonym for wicked
womanhood than that of Cleopatra ner.
SELF
Contrasting sharply with the bril-
liant court of Israel, with it's import
ed worldiness and heather usages, is
the personality Of the great prophet,
Elijah, whose character is more clearly
drawn than that of any of the other
Old Testament prophets. He is vivid
figure. A Nazarite, vowed to aceticism,
and dwelling in the wilderness of Gil
cad, east of the Jordan, Elijah's every
gesture and utterance spells personal
ity. Clad in skins, like his post-type
John the Baptist, and disdaining the
polished speech and manners of the
city, he was all rugged virility, "a man
with the bark on" In that best school
of soul greatness, the wilderness. he
had learned independence and fearless
ness, and a wholesome degree of con-
tempt for conventionality. The voice
of God had spoken to him; and that
emancipated him from, sycophancy
and servility. He would never have
made popular" preacher
A clash between shrewd, sophisti-
Gated, palace trained Jezebel and this
voice from the desert was inevitable.
Israel was not big enough to contain
two such personalities in peace For
they represented utterly irreconcilable
forces: Jezebel stood for idolatry. and
all it's attendant immortality; Elijah
stood for stern loyalty to the one God,
who had called the Hebrews out from
among the nations, to be peculiar
people The background of all the
studies affecting Elijah which follow is
this fundamental antagonism between
the woman Jezebel and the man Elijah.
The Man Who Faced a King.
To souls that dwell apart, friends
Of the solitudes and silences, God
speaks His messages. Apartness from
men Is often nearness to God. History
is full of such experiences, right down
to our own time. Myriads of present
day Christians are listening to the
spoken and written words of S. D. Cor
don, an apostle of the life hid with
Christ. Few of them know. that Cor
don was o Young Mems Christian as
ISOLATION secretary to the sort who is
,called upon chiefly to lead in merry