In an age when noise and bustle seem the rule, and quiet, restful thought the exception, it is well to pause and consider the import of this silent utterance which came to the prophet above the tumult of the "strong wind," the "earthquake," and the "fire." (1 Kings 19:11, 12.) These material elements seemed in their force and fury to be omnipotent, and yet they failed utterly to meet the heart's great need of Elijah, weary, dejected and alone, in the cave at Mount Horeb, whither he had fled for refuge from those who sought his life. He had been standing fearless and alone, as he thought, in a time when the greatest forms of idolatry had usurped the place of the simple worship of God as established by Moses.
In his zeal he had slain four hundred prophets of Baal, hoping thereby to annihilate the error of idolatry. This action in Truth called out a corresponding claim in evil, which Science explains as the revenge of mortal mind upon the destroyer of sin.
When error's louder scream through queen Jezebel—the introducer of Baal-worshp in Israel—rose defiantly against him, he quailed for a moment before its seeming power. As Moses, called by God to his great mission as deliverer and lawgiver for Israel, shrank from the responsible work, and fled before the serpent of his own fear, so Elijah fled before this more malicious manifestation of evil. It seemed to threaten not merely his personal sense of life, but far more, the reign of the spiritual idea in Israel, which he had so zealously sought to restore. Hear his "intercession" . . . "against Israel." "I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." 1 Kings 19: 10.
