1 Kings 19:3

" He arose and went for his life ." Elijah, the intrepid apostle of Carmel, who had met the king without fear and faced the four hundred Baal prophets, and stood alone contra mundum, is seized with panic fear. The champion of the morning becomes the coward of the evening. We may well exclaim here, Quantum mutatus ab illo! well ask, "Lord, what is man?" Some have called man a demigod; have seen in him "the peer of the angels." "What a piece of work," says Hamlet, "is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!" In Elijah we see man at his best. He was one of the "first three." He is distinguished even from his brother prophets by the work he was called to do, by the powers with which he was entrusted, by the grace given to him, the care taken of him, the triumphant end granted to him. But how weak and unworthy does this elect messenger of God now appear. "Should such a man as I am flee?" ( Nehemiah 6:11 .) "How are the mighty fallen 1" How completely he is the sport of circumstances; how full of contradictions his conduct. At one moment he flees for his life ; at the next he requests for himself that he may die . "Doth be wish to be rid of his life because he feared to lose it?" (Hall.) Yesterday strong in faith, fearing neither man nor devil; today trembling before a woman, wretched and despairing. But more than that, we find him impatient, petulant, proud, arraigning the providence and wisdom of God. "Take away my life," this is the cry of a mortified ambition; of one who cannot trust himself in God's hands any longer. "I am not better than my fathers." What do these words reveal, but that he had thought himself better than they; that he had been "exalted above measure through the abundance of revelations"? ( 2 Corinthians 12:7 .) And this is Elijah, the restorer of the law, the express ambassador of heaven. It is well said that he was "a man subject to like passions as we are" ( James 5:18 ). "I have seen an end of all perfection." Here is humanity at its best, and how poor and weak it is. If man is "the glory" he is also "the scandal of the universe."

"Chaos of passions, passions all confused,

Still by himself abused or disabused,

Created half to rise and half to fall,

Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all:

Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,

The glory, jest, and riddle of the world."