f
Elijah, and of one particular crisis in his life, the praying on Carmel's
tip-top. These three men are Israel's great men in the great crises of its
history. Moses was the maker and moulder of the nation. Samuel was the
patient teacher who introduced a new order of things in the national life.
Elijah was the rugged leader when the national worship of Jehovah was
about to be officially overthrown. These three men, the maker, the
teacher, the emergency leader are singled out in the record as peculiarly
men of prayer.

Now regarding these men it is most interesting to observe what _listeners_
they were to God's voice. Their ears were trained early and trained long,
until great acuteness and sensitiveness to God's voice was the result.
Special pains seem to have been taken with the first man, the nation's
greatest giant, and history's greatest jurist. There were two distinct
stages in the training of his ears. First there were the forty years of
solitude in the desert sands, alone with the sheep, and the stars,
and--God. His ears were being trained by silence. The bustle and confusion
of Egypt's busy life were being taken out of his ears. How silent are
God's voices. How few men are strong enough to be able to endure silence.
For in silence God is speaking to the inner ear.

"Let us then labour for an inward stillness--
An inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
In singleness of heart, that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do His will, and do that only."[34]

A gentleman was asked by an artist friend of some note to come to his
home, and see a painting just finished. He went at the time appointed, was
shown by the attendant into a room which was quite dark, and left there.
He was much surprised, but quietly waited developments. After perhaps
fifteen minutes his friend came into the room with a cordial greeting, and
took him up to the studio to see the painting, which was greatly admired.
Before he left the artist said laughingly, "I suppose you thought it queer
to be left in that dark room so long." "Yes," the visitor said. "I did."
"Well," his friend replied, "I knew that if you came into my studio with
the glare of the street in your eyes you could not appreciate the fine
colou