strong man in a
moment of weakness ready to give up the hopeless struggle, crying to God,
"It is enough, now, O Lord, take away my life;" and then it shows us how
God dealt with him in that solitude; we hear the Divine voice pleading in
him again, bearing its Divine witness, putting its searching questions,
teaching him the universal lesson that despondency, weakness, solitude,
shrinking and retiring, if they have any place in our life, are only for
a time, and must not be allowed to rule in it.

That Divine vision which came to Elijah in the recesses of the mountain
is, in fact, the voice of God summoning him back to the duties that were
waiting for him, and the renewal of his strength for the new work he had
to do. And the interest of such a vision never fails, because, like
Elijah, all men come to times when they too lie under the juniper tree in
the wilderness longing to be set free from the burden which is too heavy
for them, be it the burden of some call, or work, or duty, or of
resistance to some temptation, or the struggle against sin or vice. It
comes to all of us, and not once only, but many times over, this hour of
darkness; and it will continue to come so long as the flesh is weak. And
it is at such moments that a man is the better for going with the prophet
into this Horeb, the mount of God, making Elijah's vision his own vision,
and renewing his strength, at the same Divine source. How often it
happens to men, to boys, to all alike, that they flee into the desert,
away from the post of present duty, away from the face of difficulties
which they cannot or will not stand up against, away from the moments of
trial and discipline. And, seeing that our life is not and cannot be a
solitary thing, seeing that the pulsations of each individual's life are
creating other pulsations which answer them back in other lives, we know
not where or how many, whenever we thus shrink away from our duty, when
we turn our back upon it, or despond about it, when we become deaf to the
higher calls, we are, in fact, crying to God to be relieved of our
service to Him and to our fellows. And it is a happy thing for our life
if He does not answer us according to our cry, and let us go into the
wilderness, and leave us alone there.

This voice, following us with the question, "What doest them here?" is
the evidence that God has not abandoned us.

"What doest thou here, Elijah?" How often must this voice have followed
the monk