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He stood at gaze, his apostles and his disciples watching from a little distance, recalling the day his dog Coran refused to follow him, and seeing that the dog had something on his mind, he left his flock in charge of the other dogs and followed Coran to the hills above the Brook Kerith, down a little crumbling path to Elijah's cave.
Elisha was the only one among them whose prophetical powers were not diminished. On the contrary, they were strengthened, as a reward for the unhesitating readiness with which he obeyed Elijah's summons, and parted with the field he was ploughing, and with all else he possessed, in favor of the community. Thenceforward he remained Elijah's unwearying companion.
This was the natural outcome of all their sin and folly, of which we have been reading for the last few Sundays. Elijah's warnings had been in vain, and Elisha's warnings also. They liked, at heart, Ahab's and Jezebel's idolatries better than they did the worship of the true God. And why?
At length they reached a city by the sea, which was called Baruth; then they went on to Sarepta, once inhabited by the Sidonians, and made famous by Elijah's feeding of the widow; from there they went to Sur, and then to Acre, once the capital of Palestine.
I was satisfied with one or two kidneys a day when I first worked the trick, but my mess caught on, and then I had to steal by wholesale to satisfy them. Some days, when the guards were too watchful, I couldn't get very many, and then again when things were lax, 'Elijah's Raven' would get a kidney for each man in our mess.
That these improvements and changes were due to the influence of one man was undoubtedly true, but that he was necessarily a superior man did not follow. Elijah's success was due partly to the fact that he had been enabled to impress certain negative virtues, which were part of his own nature, upon a community equally constituted to receive them.
On the other hand, the public defeat was a sore trial; but it was clear to him that for the present at least the analogy of Elijah's struggle was imperfect: he must wait, and meanwhile bear his discomfiture with meekness. He prepared to retire. The victor was not, however, even now satisfied. "Take with you," she said, "yon idol that defaces the sacred oak!"
No wonder that Elijah's scorn broke forth vehemently at such a sight. Noon was the hour of the sun's greatest power, and, since Baal was probably a solar deity, it was the hour when, if ever, he would spare one of his abundant fiery beams to light the pyre. So Elijah's taunts came just when they were most biting, and none can say that they were undeserved.
The whole account of the wild invocations of the priests may suggest some of the characteristics of idolatry, and touch our hearts with pity, as well as with the sense of its absurdity, which animated Elijah's mockery. On the one hand, we hear the wild chorus echoing among the rocks; on the other, we feel the dead silence in the heavens.
The first point to be noted is the friendly relations between the king and the prophet. The whole tone of things is changed from the stormy days of Elijah. The prophet is frequently an inhabitant of the capital, and a trusted counsellor. No doubt much of this improvement was owing to Elijah's undaunted denunciation, but much, too, was due to Elisha's gentle persuasion.
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