These young men were very nearly being poisoned. There was a famine in the land. Elisha came to Gilgal, where there was a school or college of young men in training for the sacred office of teaching others. Perhaps they were not skilled in the art of making the most of the vegetables which grew round about them, and were badly off for food. Elisha ordered his servant to put on the great pot, and make some pottage, or thick broth, for the hungry students. One of the young men went out to gather herbs for the purpose. There is a species of wild gourd or melon, called Cucumis prophetarum, which is common in the hill country, and which, when green, is sliced and boiled as a vegetable. But in the plains near Gilgal there is a plant extremely similar in appearance, but very different in its qualities. It was probably this - the colocynthus, or squirting cucumber - that is called the "wild gourd" in this chapter, and that the young men gathered and sliced down into the large pot of broth (see Thomson, 'The Land and the Book'). When the pottage had been poured out, the young men began to eat of it, but, alarmed by its bitter taste, and probably suspecting then that poisonous herbs had been put into it, they cried out to Elisha, "O thou man of God, there is death in the pot! ' From this incident we may show that, while there is many an enjoyment, many a course of conduct, as pleasant to the eye and apparently as safe as those poisonous herbs appeared to be, yet there is need for caution. "There is death in the pot." "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

I. THIS MAY BE SAID OF FRAUDULENT PRACTICES. "There is death in the pot." They nearly always begin in ways that seem perfectly safe and harmless. A man takes a little from his employer's desk, intending to return it again. But in nine cases out of ten he never returns it. He has touched what is not his own. The brand of the thief is on his brow and the curse of the thief is on his life. A young man who had been well brought up went from home to enter a bank in a large city. It was noticed, when he returned home, that he was beginning to dress very extravagantly. Each time he returned, some fresh extravagance was noted. He had already begun to spend money faster than he made it, for his salary was but small He was a smart young man, and would soon have got on well in his business, for he was a general favorite. But in a foolish hour he began to abstract some of the bank money. Little by little it went on, until his defalcations were very considerable. At last he was discovered, dismissed in disgrace from the bank, and it was only the intervention of an influential friend of his family that prevented his arrest. He broke his mother's heart, and brought down his father's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Fraudulent practices may be very often traced to the habit of gambling or betting. This was testified once more quite recently in London by Mr. Vaughan, the Bow Street magistrate, on a charge which came before him. There was a cashier in the receipt of a salary of £150 a year, with prospects of advance. For eight or nine years he had filled his post creditably; but having got behind in his home expenses, he took a few shillings, and invested them in batting. As he was lucky, from taking shillings he proceeded to pounds; and having once started, he found that it was impossible for him to stop. He had always the hope of winning some day by a stroke of luck, and of thus being able to pay back again the sums which he had embezzled. But the "luck" never came, and he had at last to confess to his employers that he had defrauded them to the extent of £250. "I wish," said Mr. Vaughan, "that the clerks in mercantile houses would come to this court, and see what I see, and hear what I hear. This is only one of a multitude of cases in which prisoners have confessed that their robberies are entirely due to betting, 'I regard it as a curse to the country.' Beware of dishonesty in any form. "There is death in the pot." It means death to a man's reputation, death to his worldly prospects, death to his peace of mind, for he must live in constant terror of discovery; and if he should escape discovery and judgment upon earth, how can he endure the thought of that day when the secrets of every life shall be disclosed, and when he shall stand condemned at the judgment-seat of God?

II. THIS MAY BE SAID ALSO OF PRACTICES OF IMPURITY. "There is death in the pot." Temptations to it abound on every side. A corrupt press sows broadcast its demoralizing stories, with its suggestive pictures. The theatre, with its brilliant lights and strains of sweetest music - so often dedicated to the service of the devil - lures men into the way of the tempter, and into the den of the destroyer. It appears an innocent, harmless amusement. But "there is death in the pot." For one who comes unscathed and safe out of the theatre, there are scores who come out of it morally and spiritually the worse for its influence. Let men say what they like about the influence of the drama as a teacher of morals - and there is nothing to be said against the drama in itself - is there a single case of a man made better by going to the theatre? Where is he? Let him be produced. And even if one or two could be produced, what would they be as a testimony in favor of the theatre, compared to the testimony against it of the thousands it has ruined? "It might do good, but never did. Beware impurity in any form: Beware of impure books, impure songs, the impure jest, impure companions. "There is death in the pot." There is no sin that brings a more speedy or more terrible retribution in this life, than impurity of thought or deed. In a diseased body and a diseased mind it leaves its deadly marks. The impure man is a walking sepulcher. He is digging his own grave. Above all, he is destroying all hope of entering that pure and holy heaven where God is, and into which there shall in no wise enter anything that defileth.

III. THIS MAY BE SAID ALSO OF HABITS OF INTEMPERANCE. "There is death in the pot." We need not take an extreme position on the subject of alcohol any more than on any other subject. But it is right that, as intelligent beings, with a reason and a conscience, as Christian men and women with God's Word to guide us, we should look facts in the face. Medical opinion is often resorted to by those who make too free in their use of alcohol. Let us hear the latest and best medical opinion on the subject. At the last meeting of the British Medical Association (Dublin, 1887), one of the most interesting papers was the report of a special committee which had been appointed by the association to inquire into the connection of disease with habits of intemperance. Here are some of the conclusions which the committee, after most careful investigation, arrived at:

(1) That habitual indulgence in alcohol beyond the most moderate amounts has a distinct tendency to shorten life, the shortening being on the average fairly proportional to the degree of indulgence;

(2) that the strictly temperate who have passed the age of twenty-five live on the average at least ten years longer than the intemperate." Is not this an important proof of our statement? "Habitual indulgence in alcohol beyond the most moderate amounts has a distinct tendency to shorten life." The man who drinks alcohol to any considerable extent is slowly killing himself. "There is death in the pot." If we turn from the assembly of doctors to the experience of everyday life, we get similar proofs. What terrible madness and infatuation drink causes! What fearful havoc it has made! What hopes it has blighted! What homes it has wrecked! What lives it has mined," There is death in the cup of intoxicating drink, as many a man has proved when it has been too late. But absence of wrong-doing will never make you fight. As Elisha cast the meal into the pot, wholesome and nourishing food in place of the deadly poison, so be it yours to fill your mind with the teaching of God's Word, and your life with holy and useful deeds. The great Teacher is Jesus Christ. Ask him to enter into your life, to purify your heart and your desires. Ask him for time and for eternity to save your soul. - C.H.I.

Elisha had returned to Gilgal, the seat of a school of the prophets; he had come thither once more on his early circuit, and during the famine which prevailed in the land. As the students sat before their master, he discerned in their emaciated forms the terrible effects upon them of the famine.

I. Here is the ministry of severe trial. "There was a dearth in the land." A destitution of those provisions essential to the appeasement of hunger and the sustentation of life is undoubtedly one of the greatest trials. Such destitution is of two kinds, the avoidable and the unavoidable. The former is common.. The latter kind of destitution, viz., the inevitable, is that recorded in these verses; it arose out of the sterile condition into which nature was thrown.

II. HERE IS THE MINISTRY OF GROSS IGNORANCE. "The sons of the prophets," says Matthew Henry, "it would seem were better skilled in divinity than philosophy, and read their Bibles more than their herbals." What they put into the pot tended to produce death rather than to strengthen life. Every day men are afflicted through the gross ignorance of themselves and others. The cook, the doctor, the brewer, the distiller, how much death do they bring into the "pot" of human life! Through ignorance, too, men are everywhere putting "death in the pot" in a spiritual sense. Man's ignorance of God and His claims on the soul, its nature, laws, and necessary conditions of true spiritual progress, is the minister of death.

III. HERE IS THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN KINDNESS. "And there came a man from Baal-shalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof." Whoever this man was he was an heaven-inspired philanthropist. Mercy, the highest attribute of heaven, was in him, and he left his home and came forth to minister to the needs of his suffering race.

IV. HERE IS THE MINISTRY OF SUPERNATURAL POWER. Supernatural power through Elisha comes to the relief of these sufferers. The supernatural was manifested in two ways.

1. In counteracting the death tendency of what was in the pot. A supernatural power is required to counteract the pernicious in life. If the Almighty allowed evil to take its course free and full, death would run riot and reduce the whole race to extinction. The supernatural was manifested.

2. In increasing the supplies of life. Elisha commanded his servant to distribute amongst his starving pupils the provisions which the man that came from Baal-shalisha had brought. As the pot of oil increased in the pouring, so the provisions increased in the eating. It has been said of old of God that He will abundantly bless the "provisions of His people, and satisfy the poor with bread." It is true that the tendency of moral goodness, truth, and justice, skill, prudence, and diligence, has a tendency to increase everywhere the provisions of human life, and it is doing so every day.

(Homilist.)