odds against him, is immeasurably great. Milton has pictured such a one in the angel Abdiel, who unconsciously accompanies the host of rebel angels to their council, knowing nothing of their fell designs and who, when he discovers it, stands up alone amid thousands of foes and denounces their treason against God

"Amid the faithless faithful only he :
Amid innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified

His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal :

Nor number nor example with him wrought

To swerve from truth, nor change his constant mind
Though single."

The Christian battle is a double one, namely, the fight of the individual Christian against the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil in his own life, and his fight as a soldier in the army of Christ in the common battle against the evils of the world at large. The personal battle is a tremendous reality and it has never been described with greater vividness than in the contest between Christian and Apollyon in the Pilgrim's Progress: "In this combat," says the author, "no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard it as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made all the time of the fight; he spake like a dragon; and on the other side what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived that he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then, indeed, he did smile and look upward, but it was the dreadfullest fight that I ever saw."

No doubt Bunyan was describing his own spiritual struggles, but every one who has set himself honestly to fight the evil in himself will recognise the truth of the description and the reality of the battle.

The sense of spiritual comradeship and the need of fighting in the Christian ranks shoulder to shoulder with other soldiers of Christ in the common battle against the evil in the world, has unhappily been too little brought home to English churchmen, among whom the sense of fellowship in a common cause is singularly lacking. It is

notoriously difficult to get church people to combine in any great aggressive movement against evil, even when they individually deplore it; and they are painfully lacking in that willingness to submit to discipline without which any great concerted effort is impossible.

We may well conclude these thoughts with Wordsworth's picture of the Happy Warrior

"Whom neither sense of danger can dismay
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who not content that former worth stand fast
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better daily self-surpassed:

Who whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must go to dust without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name,
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:
This is the happy warrior; this is he

Whom every man in arms should wish to be."

IX.-SITTING UNDER AN OAK

He found him sitting under an oak.-1 KINGS XIII. 14.

ΟΝ

N the death of King Solomon the break up of his kingdom was almost inevitable as soon as the strong hand was withdrawn. It had been apparently prepared for even before the fatuous insolence of his son Rehoboam gave immediate occasion for the rupture. The great tribe of Ephraim to the north of Jerusalem had always been jealous of the new capital, and the tribal independence still persisted in spite of the efforts of David and Solomon to weld together the Jews into a single united kingdom. Autocratic government was not popular with people long used to tribal rule, and above all the heavy taxation pressed

upon the people, for Solomon required immense sums of money for the maintenance of his splendid court, his powerful army, and his magnificent buildings. The population was small and not very wealthy, and it is little wonder that they complained of the heavy burden laid upon them. When the ten tribes revolted against the rule of Solomon's weak and foolish son Rehoboam, they chose as king a former official of Solomon named Jeroboam, an active and capable man who had become known for his plots against Solomon, and for the prophet Ahijah's prophecy of his future greatness.

The new king found himself in a difficult position. He had no hereditary rank or tradition to support him. Kingship was not very popular, and those who had just discarded one king might very well discard another, by the simple process of killing him. An upstart is always confronted by the difficulty of making his position secure.

Jeroboam was threatened by one especial danger. It was the custom for all Israel to go up once a year at least if not oftener to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple. Jeroboam realised at once the danger of this to himself. If the people continued this custom, they were in great peril of being drawn away from allegiance to himself, and making Jerusalem again their political as well as their religious centre. There was only one way to counteract the danger, and that was to make a religious centre in his own kingdom.

To accomplish this he set up two gold covered images of young bulls at Bethel in the south, and Dan in the north, and scraped together a priesthood of sorts, and determined to inaugurate his new political religion with a religious ceremony of such magnificence as to obliterate the memory of the great feasts at Jerusalem. It seems quite clear that the bulls did not represent the Egyptian beast worship, for there the living bull was worshipped and it would have been absurd for Jeroboam to say: "Behold thy gods (i.e. the two representations of thy God), which brought thee out of the land of Egypt." The bulls were undoubtedly intended to be representations of the true God, Jehovah,

typifying His strength and power; but it was a fatal thing to substitute a material image for the old purely spiritual conception of God, and Jeroboam justly incurred the stigma of causing Israel to sin the sin of idolatry.

The great day came and an immense crowd was gathered before the altar in front of the gilded bull. The new priests were there in their magnificent new robes, and throngs of worshippers were drawn together by curiosity and the hope of largesse; at the altar stood the king, surrounded by his guards, censer in hand, about to make the sacrifice on the success of which his future and even his life depended.

Suddenly the whole ceremony was arrested by a loud cry of protest, as the man of God, a simple rude figure in ordinary attire, poured out his denunciation of idolatry and prophesied that the altar which was the centre of so many political hopes should be destroyed, and the bones of its priests burnt upon it.

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We know little of the history of the man of God. He came from Judah, the frontier of which was here only a few miles away, and he had doubtless watched with growing horror the apostasy of the neighbouring kingdom. At last there had come to him an unmistakable message, a word of the Lord," bidding him go and make his protest, and to make it more emphatic he was to take no food while in the idolatrous land, nor return by the same road by which he went to it. Nobly did he perform his task. It was no light thing to brave the fury of the king and the jealous rage of the priests. Yet he acted not only with dauntless courage but with real humility, for when the king's threatening arm was miraculously paralysed, he meekly prayed for him that it might be restored. Then, sternly refusing the king's offer of refreshment and reward, he obediently set off for his home by another road. Up to this time his conduct had been perfect. He had carried out the work committed to him as a true servant and representative of the Most High God with entire obedience and faithfulness.

Then he sat down under an oak tree. It was an act of tragic folly. He had only a few miles to go, and he could

then have rested and refreshed himself in safety to sit down before his work was done was sheer folly; but he was suffering from that reaction which so often follows on high resolve and resolute action. He forgot God and thought only of himself, how weary and exhausted he was. Something was due to himself, and the shade was inviting. He was depressed and dissatisfied. He knew that he ought to go on and complete his witness, but just a little rest would make no difference; so he sat down under the oak. He must have remained there an hour at least, and it was there the old prophet found him, and made him an easy victim of his lying persuasions. So he went back with him, and destroyed the effect of his brave witness by his disobedience, and came to a shameful and dishonoured end. It is clear that he was already predisposed to give way and was easily persuaded. The old prophet's lying message only professed to come from an angel, whereas the man of God had had his orders from God Himself. Had he not sat down under the oak he would have been already over the border, or so near to it that the tempter could have made no appeal to him. All the good was destroyed by a single little act of folly, which laid him open to temptation.

We do not know what was the motive of the old prophet. Probably he was ashamed of his own compliance and failure to protest against the idolatry and he wished to justify himself by showing that the man, who had done what was right, was after all not so much better than himself. If so he was punished by having to denounce his guest at his own table, and to make clear his own ignoble and lying methods. But it is with the tragedy of the man of God that we are concerned. Few men in the Bible show more splendidly till the moment for action is over and the task done; few end more pitiably.

The story, which you should read in full, is a tremendous warning against the dangers of reaction and of thinking that because we have gained a victory we can safely sit down and take our ease. After all excitement, even the excitement of conflict and danger incurred in the service of God, there follows a time of depression, a time when we