Two religious fanatics became especially conspicuous about 918 B.C., Elijah and later Elisha. The antagonism and hostility between the leaders of factions was now very intense. Jezebel slaughtered the prophets of her opponents, and Elijah, who was the leader of the Jehova faction, cursed and raved, and many hundred prophets of Baal were slaughtered (1 Kings xviii, 19, 40). It was brutality against brutality, crime against crime, savagedom against savagedom. The bloody struggle continued right along, the slaying being employed on any and every occasion. Thus he caused the killing of the several fifties, as related in 2 Kings i. Elijah was a zealot; harsh, bitter, and merciless to the opponents of his faith. As to the miracles, they answered the purpose well enough for a lot of ignorant, half-civilized country people. We have had similar tricks repeated by priests all along, deluding, cheating, and defrauding the poor simple-minded, ignorant classes. "And it came to pass as they still went on and talked, that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (2 Kings ii, 11). How could a man go up to heaven? The atmosphere around this terrestrial globe is about two to three hundred miles in hight. The law of gravitation prevents the smallest particle from leaving the earth's surface, much more a body of the weight of a man. The whirlwind belongs to the earth, and never reaches beyond a certain hight. Besides, everything taken up by a whirlwind or cloud in due time returns to mother earth. As for the horses and chariot of fire, in later days pious persons pretend to have seen similar appearances. A man sitting before a fire fancies he sees all kinds of pictures and faces; they are the reflections of his mind. So when one fancies representations of figures and objects in the clouds, or in the moon, they are either delusions of vision, or the fancied picture of the imagination. There are delusions of hearing. An unsound condition of the nervous system may produce hallucinations of such a nature; a disease or a mental derangement may occasion this sort of nervous disturbances. A new feature was introduced by these men--the healing art, resuscitating the supposed dead, casting out evil spirits, laying on hands, etc. A sillier piece of charlatanism was never put in print than Elisha's miraculous resuscitating trick on a child in a cataleptic fit (2 Kings iv, 34, etc.). A craftier or more cunning piece of business was exciting Jehu, King Ahab's general, to rebel, and to slaughter the whole of the king's family. Elisha sends a young prophet to Jehu to pour oil on his head and anoint him king, on his promise to exterminate the king's family (2 Kings ix): "For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel" (2 Kings ix, 8).