Elijah appeared with only one attendant, and soon his voice rang out. "How long halt you between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him."
The amazed people stood speechless. Then Elijah spoke again, saying he was hut one prophet, while before him were four hundred and fifty of Baal's prophets. Then he proposed a test of powers.
CULTIVATING THE LAND IN PALESTINE TO-DAY.
From a photograph.
He asked that two bullocks might be provided. The priests of Baal should take one, and prepare it for sacrifice by laying it on the wood upon the altar to their god, but they were to put no fire tinder it. The other bullock he would prepare in the same way.
Then the priests of Baal were to call upon their god, and he would call upon his God, and the God, that answered by sending fire to consume the sacrifice offered to him, was to be the God of the people. The answer of the people, dejected with long endurance of misery, was ready, and as one man they shouted, "It is well spoken."
The altar to Baal was prepared, with the sacrifice arranged upon it in proper form. Only fire was lacking. Loudly the priests of Baal prayed. Wildly they leaped around the altar, crying again and again, "O Baal, hear us." The morning wore away, and there was no response; no fire appeared to consume the sacrifice.
About noon, Elijah mocked the frantic priests, saying to them, "Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened."
The priests of Baal accepted this advice in earnest. They supplicated and raved more wildly, and wounded themselves in their frenzy, continually calling on Baal to hear them. And so the afternoon passed.
