went on"-upward, it may be, toward the eastern hills, talking as they went "behold there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder." This was the severance of the two friends.

career.

Then came a furious storm. "And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." In this inextricable interweaving of fact and figure, it is enough to mark how fitly such an act closes such a life. "My father, my father," Elisha cried, "the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." So Elijah had stood a sure defence to his country against all the chariots and horsemen that were ever pouring in upon them from the surrounding nations. So he now seemed, when he passed away, lost in the flames of the steeds and the car that swept him from the earth, as in the fire of his own unquenchable spirit-in the fire which had thrice blazed around him in his passage through his troubled earthly And as in its fiery force and energy, so in its mystery, the end corresponded to the beginning. He had appeared in the history we know not whence, and now he is gone in like manner. As of Moses, so of Elijah-"no man knoweth his sepulchre; no man knoweth his resting-place until this day." On some lonely peak or in some deep ravine the sons of the prophets vainly hoped to find him, cast away by the breath of the Lord, as in former times: "And they sought him three days, but found him not." He was gone, no more to be seen by mortal eyes, or, if ever again, only in far distant ages, when his earthly likeness should once again appear in that same sacred region, or when, on the summit of "a high mountain apart, by themselves," three disciples, like Elisha, should be gathered round a Master whose departure they were soon expecting, "and there appeared unto them Moses and Elijah talking with him." The ascension or assumption of Elijah stands out alone in the Jewish history as the highest representation of the end of a great and good career; of death as seen under its noblest aspect-as the completion and crown of the life which had preceded it as the mysterious

shrouding of the departed within the invisible world. By a sudden stroke of storm and whirlwind, or, as we may almost literally say of the martyrs of old, by chariots and horses of fire, the servants of God pass away. We know not where they rest; we may search high and low, in the height of the highest peak of our speculations, or in the depths of the darkest shadow of the valley of death. Legend upon legend may gather round them, as upon Elijah, but the sacred record itself is silent. One only mode or place there is where we may think of them, as of Elijah -in those who come afterward in their power and spirit, or in that one Presence which still brings us near to them, in the Mount of Transfiguration, in communion with the beloved of God.

XXIII.

ELISH A.

HE close of the career of Elijah is the beginning of the career of Elisha. It had been when he was ploughing, with a vast array of oxen before him, in the rich pastures of the Jordan valley, that Elijah swept past him. Without a word he had stripped off the rough mantle of his office and thrown it over the head of the wondering youth. Without a moment's delay he had stalked on as if he had done nothing. But Elisha had rushed after the prophet, and had obtained the playful permission to return for a farewell to his father and mother in a solemn sacrificial feast, and had then followed him ever since. He had seen his master to the end; he had uttered a loud scream of grief as he saw him depart; he had rent asunder his own garments, as in mourning for the dead. The mantle which fell from Elijah was now his. From that act and those words has been drawn the figure of speech which has passed into a proverb for the succession of the gifts of gifted men. It is one of the representations by which, in the Roman Catacombs, the early Christians consoled themselves for the loss of their departed friends. With the mantle he descends once more to the Jordanstream and wields it in his hand. The waters (so one version of the text represents the scene) for a moment hesitate: "they divided not." He invokes the aid of Him to whose other holy names he adds the new epithet of "The God of Elijah;" and then the waters "part hither and thither," and he passes over

and is in his own native region. In the western valley of the Jordan, in the gardens and groves of Jericho, now fresh from its recent restoration, he takes up his abode, as "the lord" of his new disciples. They see at once that "the spirit of Elijah rests upon Elisha,” and they "bow themselves to the ground before him."

From the earliest times the city of Jericho is associated with some of the most remarkable displays of a special providence, and of the divine blessing as accompanying a special people. The plain of Jericho, in which the city lay, is one extending for many miles from Scythopolis to the bay of the Dead Sea. It is encircled by ridges of rugged, barren mountains. The ancient city was situated to the north-east of Jerusalem about twenty miles, and six from the river Jordan. The road from Jericho to Jerusalem was through these desolate mountain-passes and deep defiles in all ages a most dangerous way, infested by banditti of the worst character. With beautiful appropriateness our Saviour spake the instructive parable of the good Samaritan in reference to this very hazardous road, showing not only what was too common in it-robbery with cruelty-but also the still greater necessity for assistance, and the true human sympathy of him who aided the injured traveler, as well as, in more condemnatory contrast, the hard-heartedness both of the priest and Levite.

It must have been a solemn spectacle, that of a whole people carrying the ark, the visible symbol of their covenant relation to their present and all-powerful God, marching for seven days in order around the city of Jericho, once every day for six days, and seven times on the last day, with no sound but the rough music of the rams' horns, accompanying it on the seventh day with a shout from the whole multitude, when immediately the city walls fell to the ground, and every man entered at the place opposite to him. The city, by divine appointment, being doomed, they set fire to it, consecrating all the gold, silver and brass, and from

amongst its inhabitants saving only Rahab and her family, because of her kindness to the spies. Joshua pronounced on it an anathema, not only as it then stood, but on him who should, on the same site, attempt to rebuild it. Very remarkably this was fulfilled. Hiel of Bethel, five hundred and thirty-seven years afterward, restored the city. At the laying of its foundations he lost his eldest son, Abiram, and when the gates were hung, his youngest son, Segub.

Another Jericho, however, was erected a short time after Joshua's destruction of the former. It stood in the same plain, and is that which, in the Book of Judges, is called "a city of palm trees." Here the ambassadors of King David remained after they had been maltreated by the Ammonites, till their beards were grown again, and near to it the prophet Elisha sweetened the waters. It is worthy of remark that Josephus mentions a plentiful spring whose streams made the fruits of the earth and of the trees to decay, and was also injurious to health; but being cured by Elisha, they were rendered as useful as they had been formerly deleterious. Elisha goes to Jericho to remain in the school of the prophets till he receives the commands of the Lord. God's servants are they who wait to know and to do his will. He is soon recognized as the successor of Elijah. What they could not ask of the one prophet-for they feared himthey had no difficulty in asking of the other. Here the milder and more attractive radiance of Elisha shines forth. The deputation that waited upon him from the city represent in few words its true condition-the situation as pleasant, but the ground as barren and the waters as bad. And what could possibly be worse? The most common of all God's mercies is water, and often the most despised. Still, what is a town or city without it but a scene of discomfort, disease and death? The fertility of the soil depends largely on the quantity and quality of water, whilst most assuredly it is Heaven's gift to man, both for his happiness and health. Would that men knew better its value,