And this same principle brings peace and quiet and tranquillity to men. Elijah shook once, we know, but only once. Every time we see him on the public stage, no matter whom he is confronting――Jezebel, Ahab, Obadiah, Ahaziah――he is standing with confident soul, quiet and still. We can be sure that if on that day at Mount Carmel we could have first mingled with those four hundred and fifty priests of Baal who knew that their day of doom had come, and then have gone over and stood by the side of the old man, we should have found the old man the most quiet and placid person on the mountainside and his heart beat the calmest. And we may be sure that we can go in the same tranquillity and calm and steadfastness in which the old Tishbite lived, if we will believe as deeply as he did in a Lord God Who is alive, and will live our lives before His face with as little compromise and fear. And it is a great conviction like this of Elijah’s that steadies men in the hour of their trial and that when they fall redeems them again. The old prophet fell down. He ran from a woman’s threats, and beneath the juniper tree and then on Horeb, he shook and was afraid. But God, Who was alive before, was alive still, and He came to Mount Horeb, where the man lay in his spiritual petulance and fear, and He was not in the great wind, and He was not in the great earthquake, and He was not in the great fire, but at last in the still small voice of life He spoke to Elijah, and Elijah rose up on his feet once more and went out to complete his work in unfaltering triumph. It works that way still. There is a letter of Abraham Lincoln, the original of which is preserved in the state capitol at Albany. It is a letter Lincoln wrote granting a pardon to a deserter. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, October 4, 1864. Upon condition that Roswell McIntyre of Company E, Sixth Regiment of New York Cavalry, returns to his regiment and faithfully serves out his term, making up for lost time, or until otherwise lawfully discharged, he is fully pardoned for any supposed desertion heretofore committed; and this paper is his pass to go to his regiment. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. On the side of it is indorsed: “Quartermaster’s Office, New York City, October 22, 1864. Transportation furnished to Baltimore, Maryland. H. Brownson”; and at the bottom in a different hand is this indorsement: “Taken from the body of R. McIntyre at the Battle of Five Forks, Virginia, 1865.” So he went back and died like a man, with his pardon on his person. And to-day, to the coward and the deserter and the traitor, the man who has compromised and the man who has run away, the same Lord God Who set Elijah on his feet is speaking, and He is able to send him back to be faithful, even unto death. Thanks be to a God Who does not compromise and Who is still alive. LECTURE V