fire; the place whence it must be fetched, heaven; the mood and figure, devotion; the conclusion, death to be overcome!

The prophets of Baal durst not, though with faint and guilty hearts, but embrace the condition; they dress their bullock, and lay it ready upon the wood, and send out their cries to Baal from morning until mid-day; 'O Baal, hear us.' What a yelling was here of four hundred and fifty throats tearing the skies for an answer! what leaping was here upon the altar, as if they would have climbed up to fetch that fire which would not come down alone! Mount Carmel might give an echo to their voice, heaven gave none; in vain do they roar out, and weary themselves in imploring a dumb and deaf deity. Grave and austere Elijah holds it not too light to flout their zealous devotion; he laughs at their tears, and plays upon their earnest : 6 cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is travelling, or he is sleeping, and must be awaked.'

Scorns and taunts are the best answers for serious idolatry; holiness will bear us out in disdainful scoffs, and bitterness against wilful superstition. No less in the indignation at these insulting frumps, than zeal of their own safety and reputation, do these idolatrous prophets now rend their throats with inclamations, and, that they may assure the beholders they were not in jest, they cut and slash themselves with knives and lancets, and solicit the fire with their blood.

How much painfulness is there in mis-religion! I do not find that the true God ever required or accepted the self-tortures of his servants; he loves true inward mortification of our corruptions, he loves the subduing of our spiritual insurrections by due exercises of severe restraint; he takes no pleasure in our blood, in our carcases: they mistake God that think to please him by destroying that nature which he hath made, and measure truth by rigour of outward extremities; Elijah drew no blood of himself, the priests of Baal did. How fain would the devil, whom these idolaters adored, have

answered the suit of his suppliants! What would that ambitious spirit have given, that as he was cast down from heaven like lightning, so now he might have fallen down in that form upon his altar!

God forbids it: all the powers of darkness can no more shew one flash of fire in the air, than avoid the unquenchable fire in hell. How easy were it for the power of the Almighty to cut short all the tyrannical usurpations of that wicked one, if his wisdom and justice did not find the permission thereof useful to his holy purposes.

These idolaters, now towards evening, grew so much more vehement, as they were more hopeless; and at last, when neither their shrieks, nor their wounds, nor their mad motions could prevail, they sit down hoarse and weary, tormenting themselves afresh with their despairs, and with the fears of better success of their adversary; when Elijah calls the people to him, the witnesses of his sincere proceedings, and taking the opportunity both of the time, the just hour of the evening sacrifice, and of the place (a ruined altar of God, now by him repaired), convinces Israel with his miracle, and more cuts these Baalites with envy, than they had cut themselves with their lancets.

Elijah lays twelve stones in his repaired altar according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob. Alas! ten of these were perverted to Baal. The prophet regards not their present apostasy, he regards the ancient covenant that was made with their father Israel; he regards their first station, to which he would reduce them he knew, that the unworthiness of Israel could not make God forgetful; he would, by this monument, put Israel in mind of their own degeneration and forgetfulness. He employs those many hands for the making a large trench round about the altar, and causes it to be filled with those precious remainders of water which the people would have grudged to their own mouths, neither would easily have parted with, but as those that pour down a pail-full into a dry pump, in the hope of fetching more. The altar, the trench is

full. A barrel-full is poured out for each of the tribes, that every tribe might be afterwards replenished. Ahab and Israel are no less full of expectation; and now, when God's appointed hour of the evening sacrifice was come, Elijah comes confidently to his altar, and looking up into heaven, says, 'Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day, that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word: hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God and that thou hast turned their hearts back again.'

The Baalites prayers were not more tedious than Elijah's was short; and yet more pithy than short, charging God with the care of his covenant, of his truth, of his glory. It was Elijah that spake aloud. O strong cries of faith, that pierce the heavens, and irresistibly make their way to the throne of grace! Israel shall well see, that Elijah's God, whom they have forsaken, is neither talking, nor pursuing, nor travelling, nor sleeping. Instantly the fire of the Lord falls from heaven and consumes the burnt-sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust, and licks up the water that was in the trench. With what terror must Ahab and Israel needs see this fire rolling down out of the sky, and alighting with such fury so near their heads; heads no less fit for this flame, than the sacrifice of Elijah! Well might they have thought, how easily might this fire have dilated itself, and have consumed our bodies, as well as the wood and stone, and have licked up our blood as well as that water! I know not whether they had the grace to acknowledge the mercy of God; they could do no less than confess his power, 'the Lord is God, the Lord is God.'-Contemplations.

ROBERT BURTON

1576-1640

THE POWER OF LOVE

BOCACE hath a pleasant tale to this purpose, which he borrowed from the Greeks, and which Beroaldus hath turned into Latin, Bebelius into verse, of Cymon and Iphigenia. This Cymon was a fool, a proper man of person, and the governor of Cyprus son, but a very ass; insomuch that his father being ashamed of him, sent him to a farm-house he had in the country, to be brought up; where by chance, as his manner was, walking alone, he espied a gallant young gentlewoman named Iphigenia, a burgomaster's daughter of Cyprus, with her maid, by a brook side, in a little thicket, fast asleep in her smock, where she had newly bathed her self. When Cymon saw her, he stood leaning on his staff, gaping on her immovable, and in a maze: at last he fell so far in love with the glorious object, that he began to rouse himself up; to bethink what he was; would needs follow her to the city, and for her sake began to be civil, to learn to sing and dance, to play on instruments, and got all those gentleman-like qualities and complements, in a short space, which his friends were most glad of. In brief, he became from an idiot and a clown, to be one of the most complete gentlemen in Cyprus; did many valorous exploits, and all for the love of Mistress Iphigenia. In a word I may say this much of them all, let them be never so clownish, rude and horrid, Grobians and sluts, if once they be in love, they will be most neat and spruce; for, Omnibus rebus, et nitidis nitoribus antevenit amor; they will follow the fashion, begin to trick up, and to have a good opinion of themselves; venustatum enim mater Venus; a ship is not so long a rigging, as a young gentlewoman

a trimming up herself, against her sweetheart comes. A painter's shop, a flowery meadow, no so gracious an aspect in Nature's storehouse as a young maid, nubilis puella, a Novitsa or Venetian bride, that looks for an husband; or a young man that is her suitor; composed looks, composed gait, clothes, gestures, actions, all composed; all the graces, elegancies, in the world, are in her face. Their best robes, ribbons, chains, jewels, lawns, linens, laces, spangles, must come on, præter quam res patitur student elegantiæ, they are beyond all measure coy, nice, and too curious on a sudden. "Tis all their study, all their business, how to wear their clothes neat, to be polite and terse, and to set out themselves. No sooner doth a young man see his sweetheart coming, but he smugs up himself, pulls up his cloak, now fallen about his shoulders, ties his garters, points, sets his band, cuffs, slicks his hair, twirls his beard, &c.-Anatomy of Melancholy.

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY

1581-1613

A FAIR AND HAPPY MILKMAID

Is a country wench, that is so far from making herself beautiful by art, that one look of hers is able to put all face-physic out of countenance. She knows a fair look is but a dumb orator to commend virtue, therefore minds it not. All her excellencies stand in her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge. The lining of her apparel, which is herself, is far better than outsides of tissue; for though she be not arrayed in the spoil of the silkworm, she is decked in innocence, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long in bed, spoil both her complexion