“Agreed,” says Ahab. And away he goes to tell his priests and get ready for the trial.
I fancy that was a great day when this question was decided.
All the places of business were closed, and everybody was going up to Mount Carmel. There must have been more people on Mount Carmel than there are today at the races.[A] A better class of people, too.
[A] This was said on Derby Day, in Opera House, Haymarket, London.
There were eight hundred and fifty of the prophets and priests of Baal altogether. I fancy I can see them all, going up in a grand procession, with the king in his chariot at their head.
“Fine-looking men, aren’t they?” says one man to another, as they go by. “They will be able to do great things up there on the mountain.”
But there Elijah marched, all alone--a rough man, clad in the skins of beasts, with a staff in his hand. No banners, no procession, no great men in his train! But the man who could hold the keys of Heaven for three years and six months was not afraid to be alone.
Now, Elijah says to the people: “How long will ye halt between two opinions? Let the priests of Baal build them an altar and offer sacrifice, but put no fire under, and I will do the same; and the god that answereth by fire, let Him be God.”
So the priests of Baal build their altar.
I am sure that, if God had not held him back, Satan would have brought up a little spark out of hell to set that sacrifice on fire. But God would not let him.
Then they begin to pray: “O Baal, hear us! O Baal, hear us!”
Elijah might have said: “Why haven’t you prayed to Baal for water this dry weather? You might just as well have asked him for water as for fire.”
After a long time they begin to get hoarse.
“You must pray louder than that, if you expect Baal to hear you,” says the old prophet. “Maybe he is asleep. Pray louder, so as to wake him up.”
Poor fellows! They haven’t any voice left. So they begin to pray in blood. They now cut themselves with knives, and lift their streaming hands and arms to Baal. But no fire comes down.
The prophet of the Lord builds an altar. Mind you, he does not have any thing to do with the altar of Baal. He builds an entirely different one, on the ruins of the altar of the Lord, which had been broken down.