hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in
a cave, and fed them with bread and water.'

That has followed Obadiah; for by it we know him, now two thousand
years and more after his death, here in a distant land of the name
of which he never heard. By that good deed he lives. He lives in
the pages of the Holy Bible; he lives in our minds and memories; and
more than all, by that good deed he lives for ever in God's sight;
he is rewarded for it, and the happier for it, doubt it not, at this
very moment, and will be the happier for it for ever.

Oh blessed thought! that there is something of which death cannot
rob us! That when we have to leave this pleasant world, wife and
child, home and business, and all that has grown up round us here on
earth, till it has become like a part of ourselves, yet still we are
not destitute. We can turn round on death and say--'Though I die,
yet canst thou not take my righteousness from me!' Blessed thought!
that we cannot do a good deed, not even give a cup of cold water in
Christ's name, but what it shall rise again, like a guardian angel,
to smooth our death-bed pillow, and make our bed for us in our
sickness, and follow us into the next world, to bless us for ever
and ever!

And blessed thought, too, that what you do well and lovingly, for
God's sake, will bless you here in this world before you die! Yes,
my friends, in the dark day of sorrow and loneliness, and fear and
perplexity, you will find old good deeds, which you perhaps have
forgotten, coming to look after you, as it were, and help you in the
hour of need. Those whom you have helped, will help you in return:
and if they will not, God will; for he is not unrighteous, to forget
any work and labour of love, which you have showed for his name's
sake, in ministering to his saints. So found Obadiah in that sad
day, when he met Elijah.

For he was in evil case that day, as were all souls, rich and poor,
throughout that hapless land. For three weary years, there had been
no drop of rain: the earth beneath their feet had been like iron,
and the heavens above them brass; and Obadiah had found poverty,
want, and misery, come on him in the midst of all his riches: he
had seen his fair gardens wither, and his olives and his vines burnt
up with drought;--his cattle had perished on the hills, and his
servants, too, perhaps, in his house. Perhaps his children at home
were even then crying for food and water, and crying in vain,