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She needed no calling. Her foot was on the stair while he yet spoke, so quick is a mother's heart, and she stood at the door of the little room, as she had often stood before, gazing, but afraid to enter. "Take up thy son," the prophet said. A glance was enough. One step and she fell half fainting at Elisha's feet, pouring out her soul in thanks to God and to the man of God.
Veracious, excellent, sometimes learned and acute persons, even philosophers of no mean pretensions, testify to the "levitation" of bodies much heavier than Elisha's axe; to the existence of "spirits" who, to the mere tactile sense, have been indistinguishable from flesh and blood; and, occasionally, have wrestled with all the vigour of Jacob's opponent; yet, further, to the speech, in the language of raps, of spiritual beings, whose discourses, in point of coherence and value, are far inferior to that of Balaam's humble but sagacious steed.
Perhaps Elisha's iron axe head did swim upon the water. I am prepared to believe almost anything after our spiritualistic mediums, and their exposers. Whether it did or did not concerns me no whit. I shrug my shoulders and read on. I cannot make out the historical fact which was at the basis of the Red Sea deliverance; nor do I care much to make out this or any other Old Testament miracle.
Elisha's dealing with the advancing host of Syria can only be rightly estimated by looking beyond the limits of the text. His object was to carry the whole army into Samaria, that they might there be won by giving them bread to eat and water to drink, and so heaping coals of fire on their head.
"Well, I hope their ferociousness has been tamed down since Elisha's time, else we may stand a fair chance of being served in a similar fashion." "No doubt we shall have many a scratch before we encounter the bears of Mount Lebanon. When we have obtained a robe from one of them, there will be nothing more for us to do but take the most direct route home.
One day, with the help of some steps which had been left in the room, he had clambered up to the picture and with a piece of bread and butter traced a greasy line right across it from the ravens to Elisha's mouth, after which he had felt more comfortable. Ernest's mind was drifting back to this youthful escapade when he heard his father's hand on the door, and in another second Theobald entered.
It is hard for selfish indifference to carry tender words without freezing them. The bearer of sympathy must be sympathetic. As Gehazi spoiled Elisha's message, so we Christians too often do our Master's, and cool it down to our own temperature.
But Elisha's gentleness is to be noted. He let them have their own way. Often that is the only plan for convincing people of their errors.
He was a Bismarckian, peppery man. Accustomed to command, he expected miracles to be done to order, and prophets to toe the line. And because he did not like Elisha's manner nor his prescription, he was on the point of returning to Syria in a rage. But he had servants that knew him through and through. They knew what note to sound, and they saved him from himself.
When Elisha kept his eyes fixed upon Elijah there came to him as the result the mantle of Elijah and he was clothed with power. When Gehazi followed Elisha's command and as he went to the home of the Shunammite saluted no one he became the forerunner of life to the child.
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