THE WIFE OF JEROBOAM AND AHIJAH.

Not long after the withering and restoration of Jeroboam's hand, as described in the thirteenth chapter of the First Book of Kings, the son of Jeroboam, a prince of great promise, fell sick. The father, anxious to know the probable fate of his child, prevailed upon his queen to disguise herself in the dress of an ordinary person, and repair to Shiloh, to inquire of the prophet Ahijah what was likely to be the issue of the prince's disorder. As the venerable man was blind, she conceived there could be little likelihood of his detecting her, her person more than probably being unknown to him, and consequently expressed no reluctance in acceding to the king's wishes. The whole matter, however, had been revealed to the prophet by a divine communication, and therefore "it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings*." The indignant old man now upbraided Jeroboam with ingratitude to God, who had made him king, and distinguished him by such signal displays of his benefaction; charged him with impiety and apostacy in setting up images as objects of religious worship; foretold the extinction of his race, and the death of the child then sick; threatened grievous calamities to his people for their wickedness in conforming to the idolatrous worship which he had introduced among them, and then dismissed his royal visiter. On her return to the palace, she found the young prince in the agonies of death. This calamity did not deter the king from his impious career, and he was shortly after cut off in the midst of his sins. The print represents the venerable Ahijah, seated in his chair in a state of prophetic rapture, raising his hand and imprecating the divine malediction upon the race of Jeroboam. The queen has fallen to the earth under the shock of her feelings at hearing the awful denun. ciation of God's judgments. The attendant stands in mute astonishment at hearing his master declare the presence of the queen.

ELIJAH AND THE WIDOW'S SON.

AFTER Elijah had announced to Ahab the famine with which God was about to visit his people on account of their apostacy from the true religion, the prophet, as soon as the divine threat was realised, retired to the brook Cherith, where he continued concealed for the space of a whole year, in order to avoid the persecution of Ahab's wicked queen. Here he was miraculously supplied with food every day by ravens, and the brook furnished him with a wholesome and refreshing beverage. At length, from the long continuance of drought, the brook dried up, and Elijah was in danger of perishing for want of water, when the Almighty commanded him to repair to Zarephath, or, as it is called in the New Testament, Sarepta, a city of the Sidonians, situated between Tyre and Sidon, where he had appointed a poor widow to entertain him. The prophet immediately took his journey to Zarephath, where the famine had already reached and spread over the whole neighbouring country. As Elijah approached the city, he met the poor widow without the walls, gathering sticks, and, upon asking her to give him a little water and a morsel of bread, she replied that the famine had reduced her to the last state of destitution, having only a handful of meal, and a little oil in a cruse, which she was going to make into a cake for herself and child, being the last meal she should be able to provide. The prophet, however, desired her to do his bidding; at the same time assuring her that she and her son should be supported during the famine by the merciful interposition of that God who had visited the land with dearth and drought. Relying upon the promise of the holy man, she obeyed his commands, after which she, her son, and Elijah, lived upon the meal and oil for the space of two years. During this period the widow's son fell sick and died, when she upbraided the prophet as the cause of her calamity: then "he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed *." Having offered up a prayer to Heaven, "the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived †."

*

1 Kings, chapter xvii., verse 19.

Ibid., verse 22.