Elisha to pray for us, that by faith the eyes of our minds may be opened, and we may rightly estimate God's care of His elect, His watchful guardianship over the interests of His Church.

God was pleased, for His own wise reasons, to supply Elisha with miraculous assistance, to a degree unusual in Old Testament history; but it is noticeable how many of his actions, notwithstanding this element of dissimilitude, admit of a parallel in our own day. His authority and influence is not due to personal qualities, so much as Elijah's was, it is more inherited and official'. On several occasions we find him assuming a dignity which his recognised position made natural. The great and terrible Naaman, while unconverted, is not admitted to a personal interview, but must humble himself if he wishes to be cured. Elisha is not one to put himself forward, and yet, for the honour of Jehovah, he would not have the heathen suppose that there is not "a prophet in Israel." When the State admits its impotence in spiritual matters, then is the time to affirm

1 2 Kings iii. 14, iv. 12, vi. 32, xiii. 19.

that Christ has a representative on earth to whom He has committed power". Elijah passed a remarkably solitary existence; Elisha, like his Christian successors, is found in the midst of circles of disciples, and seems to have been directed to pay especial attention to the schools of the prophets, as the best hope of providing the salt, which should retard the growing corruption of the body politic. We find him employed in works of benevolence, not so unlike those which belong to our day, relieving what answered to the widow of a minister of religion and sons of the clergy". When he desires a communication from heaven, he seeks the influence of music from motives which still lead us to cultivate it in our churches. He has opportunities of amassing riches, but his habits are simple, and his cry is, "Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and oliveyards and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and menservants and maidservants ?" Elijah had to inflict national punishment, Elisha had the more welcome office of saving

m 2 Kings v. 8.

n Ibid. iv. 1. P Ibid. iv. 10.

• Ibid. iii. 15.

his sovereign, not once nor twice 1; nay, his dying hands winged arrows of deliverance, and it was no fault of his that Syria was not smitten till it was consumed ".

No wonder that the contrast, thus afforded to the career of Elijah, has been felt to symbolize the contrast between the Law and the Gospel, the missions of Moses and Christ.

Elisha's miracles, like our Lord's, were generally of a beneficent kind: he feeds a hundred men by means of scanty provision; when the cry is raised that "there is death in the pot," he effects that no harm ensues; he is enabled to relieve the lesser as well as the greater wants of his followers". Altogether, he is a remarkable type of Him whom our Saxon forefathers styled St. Hæbud, the Healer, who went about doing good, who rebuked every form of malevolent power, who, when obliged to display severity, confined it to a tree, but caused His daily path to be tracked by the monuments of His mercy which he left on every circuit that he traversed.

But Elisha is to be regarded not only as 1 2 Kings vi. 10. * Ibid. xiii. 17. $ Ibid. vi. 6.

foreshadowing the Saviour's personal ministry, but those operations of the Redeemer which, unseen, He carries on by the agency of His Church.

His Church still benefits kings and extricates them from difficulties, is often neglected or persecuted while the nation is prosperous, but sought to when danger encompasses on every side. If her ministers attach themselves to their ascended Master and refuse to be separated from Him, if by faith they see Him now that He is taken from them, they shall receive of His Spirit and continue His work. They, too, shall be healers; those that mock them shall be punished; they shall be supported in the discharge of their duties; they shall have conveyed to them every gift necessary for exercising their office; they shall have some power to discern spirits; they shall be in God's secret; yea, they shall have power to raise to life those who are dead in sint; in short, they in their day shall be enabled to continue the Saviour's work, as Elisha in his day foreshadowed it.

* 2 Kings v. 25, iv. 27, xiii. 21.

Tracts for the Christian Seasons.

TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

IT

AHA B.

is remarkable how sparing Holy Scripture is of its praise or blame of individual character, or even of individual actions. Its usual method is to lay down principles and to record actions, good or evil, in plain matter-of-fact language, simply, naturally; and then to leave it to the religious instinct of the conscience illuminated by the Spirit of God, to draw the inferences and to award the judgment. Sometimes the most atrocious crimes are narrated in words so unimpassioned as to be almost startling, and sentence upon them is recorded in language so mild and gentle, that it seems to convey no adequate notion of the enormity of the offence. That dark passage in David's life, e.g. which records his double sin of adultery and murder, aggravated by circumstances of

No. 58. THIRD SERIES.

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