Article March 15, 1924 Issue

Elijah on Mount Horeb

DOROTHY I. LEE

In the nineteenth chapter of I Kings is an account of an experience through which the prophet Elijah passed; and the passage will well repay careful study by the student of Christian Science. During the earlier part of the prophet's ministry it seems as though he must have been a stern man, inspiring awe and possibly fear in the hearts of those with whom he came in contact, a man of unbending character, zealous for the Lord, but without that tender, loving compassion so necessary in dealing with the wayward.

In the opening of the above-mentioned chapter, we find the prophet at a crisis in his work,—the time had come when a much needed lesson had to be learned. Jezebel sent a message warning Elijah that his life was in jeopardy, for he had slain the prophets of Baal with the sword; and he who had realized so clearly for the widow's child at Zarephath that faith in the fact that God is man's Life would deliver even from death itself, now lost his hold on that great truth for himself, and fled, and went "a day's journey into the wilderness."

In the Glossary of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy we read (p. 597): "Wilderness. Loneliness; doubt; darkness;" and we realize as we study the chapter that that was indeed just where Elijah was. In the loneliness of false belief he thought he was the only one in Israel who stood for the truth. It seemed as though the burden was more than he could bear; and with it, perhaps, came the doubt as to whether his treatment of error had been right.

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