The famine was so bad in the land that this was the last bread that poor widow would be able to get. But God knew all about it, and He had arranged it all in His loving way. So Elijah, hungry and thirsty as he was, gave her God's message. "Fear not," he said; "go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel: The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth." And she went and did as the Prophet told her, and he, and her house, had enough to eat all the while the famine lasted. And since then there are many widows, and many distressed and anxious families, who have found the God of Elijah the same loving, providing God that this poor widow did. But by and by there came a still harder trial to that widow's heart. Her precious little boy, who had been kept alive all through the famine, was very ill, and died. Then the poor widow was utterly hopeless, and she blamed Elijah and said it was his fault that this dreadful sorrow had come to her. Doubtless Elijah had told her much about the Holy God who cannot bear sin, and she began to look at her past life, and one particular sin came up before her! She told him that he had come to bring this sin to remembrance, and to slay her son! But Elijah said, "Give me thy son." And he took him out of her bosom and carried him up to the loft where he lived, and laid the child upon his own bed. And Elijah cried to the Lord. (You see he was a man who lived in close touch with God!) And he said: "O Lord my God, hast Thou brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?" Then he stretched himself upon the child three times. And again he cried to the Lord God, and said: "O Lord my God, I pray Thee, let this child's soul come into him again!" "And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived." "And Elijah took the child, and brought him down . . . and delivered him unto his mother, and said, 'See! Thy son liveth!'" "And the woman said to Elijah, 'Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the Word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.'" [Illustration] [Illustration] XXII. RUTH A LONG time ago we read of something most interesting about Bethlehem. In the time of the Judges of Israel, before Saul or David had been made kings, there was a man living at Bethlehem whose name was Elimelech. He had a wife called Naomi, and two sons called Mahlon and Chilion. But there came a famine in Bethlehem, and Elimelech and his wife and two sons went out of Canaan and journeyed into the land of Moab. Here the family of Elimelech settled down for ten years. But Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. These sons married wives in Moab, but both of them died, and Naomi was then left a desolate widow.