Now when they came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, and said, "Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness." And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

And Elisha said to them, "This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me, and I will take you to the man whom seek." But he led them to Samaria.

ye

And it came to pass, when they were come into Samaria, that Elisha said, "Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see." And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw; and, behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.

Then Jehoram the king of Israel said to Elisha, when he

saw them, "My father, shall I smite them? shall I smite them?"

But he answered, "Thou shalt not smite them: wouldst thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow? set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master."

So he prepared great provision for them; and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.34

ELISHA'S LAST WORDS TO KING JOASH

Though not loyal to Elisha's religious ideals, King Joash felt genuine grief when the prophet was about to die.

Now Elisha was fallen sick of the sickness whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over him, and said, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!"

And Elisha said to him, "Take bow and arrows." And he took a bow and arrows.

And he said to the king of Israel, "Put thy hand upon the bow." And he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands.

And he said, "Open the window eastward.”

opened it.

Then Elisha said, "Shoot!" And he shot.

And he

And he said, "The arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria! For thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them.

Then he said, "Take the arrows." And he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, "Smite upon the ground." And he smote thrice, and stopped.

But the man of God was angry with him, and said, "Thou shouldst have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou

smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice.

And Elisha died, and they buried him.

ELISHA

"Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall."

"Little chamber" built "upon the wall,"

With stool and table, candlestick and bed,
Where he might sit, or kneel, or lay his head,
At night or sultry noontide; this was all

A prophet's need: but in that chamber small
What mighty prayers arose, what grace was shed;
What gifts were given, potent to wake the dead,
And from its viewless flight a soul recall!

And still what miracles of grace are wrought
In many a lowly chamber with shut door,
Where God our Father is in secret sought,
And shows himself in mercy more and more!
Dim upper rooms with God's own glory shine,
And souls are lifted to the life divine.

-Richard Wilton

T

DANIEL

THE FEARLESS PRINCE OF JUDAH

HE story of Daniel was written down for us in order that it might

serve one of the noblest purposes to which a man may dedicate his genius, the raising of the morale of a people in a time of national crisis. The outlook when the book was written was indeed dark. Israel was a minor dependency of the Greek kingdom of Syria. The reigning monarch, Antiochus, had decreed that the Greek faith should become the one religion of his peoples. When he found resistance on the part of the Jews, he issued the edict that the Jewish religion should be annihilated, and he sent armies to accomplish that end. The conflict was fearful. Echoes of it are heard in the seventy-ninth Psalm:

"O Lord, the heathen are come into thine inheritance!

Thy holy temple have they defiled;

They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.

The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be food un

to the fowls of the heaven,

The flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.

Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem,

And there was none to bury them!"

To meet this crisis and to strengthen the heroic purpose of the Israelites

to put all their trust in God whatever disasters might come, the writer of the Book of Daniel recounted with consummate literary art the story of the man, the fearless prince of Judah, and his three friends, at a time of trial as momentous to their personal lives as was the present calamity to the life of the nation.

The parallels are certainly striking. In the first chapter Daniel and his friends resolve that they will not defile themselves with the king's meat and with the wine which he drank. So in the days of the Maccabees the Jews resolved that they would not eat swine's flesh, which had become with Antiochus the one specific test by which a Jew maintained or rejected the faith of his fathers. The emissaries of Antiochus went into every town of Judah, compelled the inhabitants to offer swine's flesh upon the altar, and to eat pork. If they yielded, their lives were saved; if not, they were killed. But as God blessed Daniel and his friends, so will he bless us if we are true to him.

The second chapter describing King Nebuchadnezzar's dream is a dramatic presentation of the Messianic hope of Israel. By it the great Babylonian overlord is made to realize that his kingdom is but a part of the divine plan, vaster and more significant than the life of any dynasty