were sleepless
nights. Then came the great day of contest and victory. There was, of
course, no rest that day. And, in the exhilaration of victory, you
know how he ran before the chariot of Ahab from Carmel to Jezreel, a
distance of seventeen miles.

Arrived there, he got a message from Jezebel threatening his life. He
had expected, of course, that the men who had shouted "The Lord He is
God" would stand by him. But they did not. He had expected that even
Jezebel would be afraid to lift her voice in defense of the old
defeated heathenism of the past. But here again he was much mistaken.
In fact, instead of tamely acknowledging defeat she sends him this
word: "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life
as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time."

Jezebel's threat totally upset the prophet's sense of victory. He came
to feel that he had not won after all. For the first time he gave way
to fear. Cowardice rushed upon him and drove him, without rest, down
the road that led into the wilderness. The terminus of this road was,
quite naturally, the juniper tree.

So one source of his discouragement, one secret of his being in the
blues, was that he was utterly tired. It is hard indeed for a man to
be hopeful when his nerves are on edge. It is hard for him to keep out
of the blues when he is completely exhausted. As a tired body yields
at such times far more readily to physical disease, so does it yield
more readily to the exquisite torture of discouragement and depression.

A second reason for his collapse was a lost sense of the divine
fellowship. Up to this time Elijah's every step had been ordered of
the Lord. He had a sense of the Divine Presence that was continuous.
But Jezebel's threat had made him believe that he must look out for
himself. So he took his case into his own hands. And that is the road
that must always lead to the juniper tree.

Such a collapse is next to impossible as long as we keep on intimate
terms with God. Yonder is man named Paul on a ship that is going to
pieces. The sea "curls its lips and lies in wait with lifted teeth as
if to bite." The sailors' faces are ghastly with hunger and panic.
But while despair grips every other heart and while death laughs with
hollow laughter amidst the popping timbers of this wrecking ship, this
man steadies himself and shouts, "Be of good cheer." What is the
secret of his cheer? "There stood by me this