mantle falls. Which of us will pick it up and
wear it? Elijah's garment will fit any of us, and will always be new if
we pray. It grows threadbare and shabby when worn by those who prefer
the table to the altar, and love the pleasures of the world better than
the companionship of angels.

My brothers, shall we not become mighty in prayer? This is a talent all
have received, put it out to interest at once. Lose no time in its use.
Satan will gladly lend you a napkin, but then he will have your soul as
the pledge. To cease to pray is to drift towards hell. Is there not a
needs be for crying mightily to God? Can we look around our
congregations and not feel that it is high time we went up the hill to
cry to God for the rain that means revival? Let us each ask the
question, Am I most like the man who lived to gratify his desires, or the
man who lived to pray for others?

WITH WHOM SHALL I SPEND MY ETERNITY, WITH ELIJAH OF AHAB?

If the angels see us on our face, crying for rain, they will know that
some day they will have to meet us and take us home in the chariot of
fire. If they see that we are those who eat and drink when they should
pray, they will know that our possessions, like Ahab's chariot, will
become a hearse, and that we are riding to hell in that which we have
chosen for comfort.

XXXVII. "THE WIDOW WOMAN WAS THERE."
I KINGS xvii. 10.

Of course she was. All God's trains meet at the junction. They don't
have to wait for one another. Elijah had left Cherith because the brook
had dried up, and his first request shewed that he was in need of water.
The poor widow seems to have been relieved that water was all the prophet
asked, but he called to her to fetch a bit of bread as well. This broke
her down. "Ah, Master, we have not so much as a cake. I have only a
handful of meal, and I had come out to gather some sticks that I might
bake a little cake for me and the lad, and then we shall have to die of
hunger!"

"Never fear, God has sent me, and with His servant there shall come a
blessing.

MAKE ME A CAKE FIRST,

and then make for thyself, and God will keep on supplying our wants."

The woman did so, and never wanted. If she had gone on the principle of

TAKE CARE OF NUMBER ONE,

she would soon have been in her grave, and the lad too, but the way to
live is to care for others. "He that loseth his life shall save it."
While we are writing this, we are thinking of the great num