pure in his society.

And in so far as any of you are acting in this way you are doing a
prophet's work, and you, too, may claim to have been jealous for the Lord
God of Hosts. So the youngest boy and the oldest man may become fellow-
labourers--[Greek text]--fellow-labourers in the harvest-field of God,
and it is a great privilege to claim.

But the blessing of it is greater still. Very often, if you are known to
be thus jealous, even your presence will banish sin, silencing the evil
tongue, strengthening the weaker brother, and making the sunshine of a
new life to shine all round you.

But what if sometimes you feel that you are not equal to all this? if
when the voice cries, "What doest thou here?" you have no answer to give?
It is good for us in such a case to turn and see how God dealt with His
prophet, how He made him come forth and stand on the mount before him.
The Lord passed over him, revealing His presence in the wind, the
earthquake, and the fire, revealing it yet more intimately in the sound
of the still small voice. So He sent Him out again with a new
commission; and so we, too, may learn our lesson, if we care to learn it.
And the lesson is this, that God renews our wavering strength, that He
lifts up our drooping spirit, and opens our dull eyes and gives us afresh
the hearing ear, by communion with Himself. In the solitude of the mount
of God, through the symbols of His power, and in the sound of the inner
voices, in meditation, in prayer, we may find those refreshing influences
which give us new strength, new thoughts, new notions of God and duty,
and send us out afresh to do His work in new service to Him.

We may follow His teaching to Elijah a little further. The new message
to him began, "Return on thy way"--do such and such things. The new
message is, in fact, just as always, a new call to old duties--"Return on
thy way." And so it is for you and me. After the vision of God comes
the plain and homely work to do, as we walk in old ways, and have to meet
all our old dangers and difficulties. Has any one of us ever shrunk from
any post of duty in life, or strayed from any straight course? Then if
God has in His mercy visited us with the warning call, "What doest thou
here?" or laid the call of a new message upon us, it is almost sure to
have been a call to return and take the straight path, or to take our
stand at the deserted post. And if it should ever happen to us that the
duty whic