ere shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word."
What arrogance before a king! Elijah, an utterly unknown man, in a
sheepskin mantle, apparently a peasant, dares to utter a curse on the
land without even deigning to give a reason, although the conscience of
Ahab must have told him that he could not with impunity introduce
idolatry into Israel.

Elijah doubtless attacked the king in the presence of his wife and
court. To the cynical and haughty queen, born in idolatry, he probably
seemed a madman of the desert,--shaggy, unwashed, fierce, repulsive. To
the Israelitish king, however, with better knowledge of the ways of God,
the prophet appeared armed with supernal powers, whom he both feared and
hated, and desired to put out of the way. But Elijah mysteriously
disappears from the royal presence as suddenly as he had entered it, and
no one knows whither he has fled. He cannot be found. The royal
emissaries go into every land, but are utterly baffled in their search.
The whole power of the realm was doubtless put forth to discover his
retreat, and had he been found, no mercy would have been shown him; he
would have been summarily executed, not only as a prophet of the
detested religion, but as one who had insulted the royal station. He was
forced to flee and hide after delivering his unwelcome message.

And whither did the prophet fly? He fled with the swiftness of a
Bedouin, accustomed to traverse barren rocks and scorching sands, to a
retired valley of one of the streams that emptied into the Jordan near
Samaria. Amid the clefts of the rocks which marked the deep valley, did
the man of God hide himself from his furious and numerous persecutors.
He does not escape to his native deserts, where he would most probably
have been hunted like a wild beast, but remains near the capital in
which Ahab reigns, in a deeply secluded spot, where he quenches his
thirst from the waters of the brook, and eats the food which the ravens
deposit amid the steep cliffs he knows how to climb.

The bravest and most undaunted man in Israel, shielded and protected by
God, was probably warned by the divine voice to make his escape, since
his life was needful to the execution of Providential purposes. He was
the only one of all the prophets of his day who dared to give utterance
to his convictions. Some four or five hundred there were in the kingdom,
all believers in Jehovah; but all sought to please the reigning power,
or timi