answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim.  Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table.  So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel.’  The tyrant’s guilty conscience makes a coward of him:  and he quails before the wild man out of the mountains, who has not where to lay his head, who stands alone against all the people, though Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, and they eat at the queen’s table; and he only is left and they seek his life:—­yet no man dare touch him, not even the king himself.  Such power is there, such strength is there, in being an honest and a God-fearing man.

Yes, my friends, this was the secret of Elijah’s power.  This is the lesson which Elijah has to teach us.  Not to halt between two opinions.  If a thing be true, to stand up for it; if a thing be right, to do it, whatsoever it may cost us.  Make up your minds then, my friends, to be honest men like Elijah the prophet of old.

For your own sake, for your neighbour’s sake, and for God’s sake, be honest men.

For your own sake.  If you want to be respected; if you want to be powerful—­and it is good to be powerful sometimes—­if God has set you to govern people, whether it be your children and household, your own farm, your own shop, your own estate, your own country or neighbourhood—­Do you want to know the great secret of success?—­Be honest and brave.  Let your word be as good as your thought, and your deed as good as your word.  Who is the man who is respected?  Who is the man who has influence?  The complaisant man—­the cringing man—­the man who cannot say No, or dare not say No?  Not he.  The passionate man who loses his temper when anything goes wrong, who swears and scolds, and instead of making others do right, himself does wrong, and lowers himself just when he ought to command respect?  My experience is—­not he:  but the man who says honestly and quietly what he thinks, and does fearlessly and quietly what he knows.  People who differ from him will respect him, because he acts up to his principles.  When they are in difficulty or trouble, they will go and ask his advice, just because they know they will get an honest answer.  They will overlook a little roughness in him; they will excuse his speaking unpleasant truths:  because they can trust him, even though he is plain-spoken.

For your neighbour’s sake, I say; and again, for your children’s sake; for the sake of all with whom you have to do, be honest and brave.  For our children—­O my friends, we cannot do a crueller thing by them than to let them see that we are inconsistent.  If they hear us say one thing and do another—­if, while we preach to them we do not practice ourselves, they will never respect us, and never obey us from love and principle.  If they do obey us, it will be only before our faces, and from fear.  If they see us doing only what we like, when our backs are turned they will do what they like.