THE PROPHET'S MANTLE.

I. AT ABEL-MEHOLAH.

1 KINGS, xix. 19, 20.

"So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him. And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again: for what have I done to thee?"

THE captain of the host of the king of Syria was submissively executing the commands of his master, and so, also, was the captain of the host of the king of Israel-neither of them dreaming, perhaps, of the likelihood of attaining a higher station —when Elijah the prophet received a mandate to go and anoint them in the name of God, each to

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bear sovereign sway in that land in which he had formerly acted the part of a servant.

There was yet another man of a far humbler position, and he, too, was plying his vocation, ploughing in the field at the head of his father's servants, his eye intent upon the furrow, and his thoughts for the future not reaching further, it may be, than the harvest-home. But that man was also to be anointed, and he was to be prophet in the room and stead of Elijah. This was Elisha, the son of Shaphat, a man appointed to act a far more important part than any of the contemporary kings. This command reached the prophet when he abode in the cleft of the rock of Horeb, whither he had been directed to betake himself by the angel of the Lord, when he lay under the junipertree pleading with God that he might be permitted to die like other men, and that he might not be suffered to fall into the hands of Jezebel, the wicked wife of Ahab, who sought his life.

We are left to conjecture the manner in which Elijah performed the two commissions first mentioned. It is not upon record whether it was before or after the call of Elisha that they were executed; but we may be sure he did not deviate in aught from his instructions without the same authority as that by which they had been given.

He would by no means tamper with God's service; and yet, perhaps, we may doubt whether he officiated personally in the anointing of Jehu, as it does not appear why that ceremony should have been repeated in his case, and it is certain that the young man sent by Elisha anointed him at Ramoth-Gilead.

In due time Elijah, after a long journey, but now no longer depressed in spirit as he had been when he fled, came to Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was to succeed him as the accredited prophet of Israel. This man Shaphat was of no inconsiderable estate. He is Shaphat of Abel-Meholah, a place of note-where the Midianites, centuries before his time, when fleeing before Gideon and his three hundred, had been met by the men of Manasseh, and by them turned aside-a place noted, too, in the days of Solomon, as a landmark not to be mistaken. Of this place, spoken of still in Elijah's time as one of which everybody had heard, Shaphat is mentioned as no mean citizen—a man well known in those parts. Doubtless he was one of the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal, nor done him any homage; and the Lord's people were easily numbered at that unhappy period, and were well known to each other. Shaphat might not be heard of at court-and well

for him that he was not-but all the faithful knew him; and on coming to Abel-Meholah, where he dwelt, and where his son Elisha was to be found, Elijah came upon the man he sought ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen-eleven yoke driven by the hired servants, whilst Elisha took the lead with the twelfth yoke. Shaphat appears not upon the scene at all. Either he is old and infirm, and must remain at home, his son taking the oversight in his absence, or perhaps other matters require his presence. In any case, he is the master of twelve yoke of oxen, and is altogether a man of means and substance in the land.

In all the circumstances of the call, the hand of God was specially manifested. Who could have supposed, from ordinary occurrences, that Elisha would have consented so willingly to leave his parents at the advanced stage of life they had probably arrived at, when his presence had become all but indispensable? Could any one, in ordinary cases, have anticipated that a person thus situated would have left all the busy operations of the farm or estate, and have followed Elijah, he knew not whither ?-for we are to remember that piety was at a low ebb in the land of Israel at that time. Elijah had been complaining that the people universally had forsaken God's covenant,