The heat in some parts of Judea has often proved fatal, even at a very early period of the year. In a battle fought by king Baldwin IV. near Tiberias in Galilee, as many are said to have died in both armies by the heat as by the sword; and an ecclesiastic of eminence, although carried in a litter, expired under mount Tabor, near the river Kishon, in consequence of the excessive heat. Shunem was in the neighbourhood of Tabor. [46] As soon as the Shunammite found that her son was dead, she took him to the prophet's chamber, and laying him on his bed, shut the door and departed. The only reason of this proceeding probably was, its being the most retired part of the house, and therefore the best suited to such a melancholy occasion. But who can express the yearnings of her maternal tenderness, when she left behind her this precious, but now insensible clay! That tongue which had so often pleased her by its innocent prattle, so often uttered ----"the fond name That wakes affection to a flame," was now silent in death; and those artless and attractive smiles, which to a mother's heart were more lovely than the looks of the morning, were subsided into the fixed and motionless aspect of one whose spirit has ceased to animate the body. An impatient temper might have invented many reasons for discontent, on this affecting occasion. It might have reproached the father for permitting the child to accompany him, at this sultry season, into the harvest field--the child for an infantine eagerness to go--or herself for indiscreetly allowing of so dangerous a gratification. A comparison of the happier lot of other families might have been drawn, whose children went out on the same day, and returned unsmitten by the infectious atmosphere, or the burning sun; and by aggravating the painful peculiarity of her own affliction, she might thus have driven the barbed arrow still deeper in her bosom, and censured, at least by implication, the Supreme Disposer. But we have to admire a conduct which bespeaks the fullest conviction that it was a _providence_ and not a _casuality_ that occasioned the death of her beloved offspring, and evinces the most entire acquiescence in the mournful event. While our attention is confined solely to second causes, the mind will be involved in a labyrinth of difficulties, in judging of the changes and trials incident to the present life; but when our faith ascends above this low and limited scene, to contemplate the arrangements of an universal Providence, the deepest mysteries become unravelled, and the greatest seeming inconsistencies in a considerable degree reconciled. Or, if we cannot develope the whole plan, and ascertain the reason of every movement of almighty Wisdom, we at least acquire a spirit of submission and obedience.