2 Kings 2:9

ELIJAH’S FAREWELL TO ELISHA

‘Elijah said to Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.’

2 Kings 2:9

‘I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.’ Elisha’s words to his master are a noble expression of the ideal relationship which ought to exist not only between teacher and taught, but between young and old, between the waning and the rising generation. Could there be a finer statement of the true principle of progress?—a more excellent motto for the guidance of human affairs? The transmission of spiritual heritage is a concern of our individual lives: the relationship of father to son, of young to old, of those who are passing away to those who are to take their place. A relationship of some kind there must be; and it concerns us all. The next generation will consist of the children of this generation; and these children will largely owe their characters to their parents’ example and precepts. Elijah might be conscious of his failures, but Elisha could carry on his work.

I. The duty is one of general and universal application.—All of us, in our respective stations, are influencing the character of the next generation. There is nothing which more entirely brings its own reward than sympathy with the young. Old age divides men sharply into two strongly contrasted classes. Amongst some we find isolation and querulousness; amongst others, geniality and contentment. Strive so to walk that the last wish of others towards you may be, ‘I pray that a double portion of thy spirit may be upon me.’

II. The following practical hints will enable us to use our influence aright in the most intimate relationships of life, especially in connection with the young.

(1) Beware of beginning to treat a young man with a sympathy which you are not prepared to carry beyond a certain point. In dealing with the young, try to recognise all the good that is in them. Do not be intolerant of enthusiasms which once appealed to yourself, and which you reluctantly abandoned. Be willing to think that what you were not strong enough to do another may accomplish. You cannot really influence another, unless you are ready to deal with him as an equal.

(2) Beware of demanding gratitude from the young. It is selfish to expect it; it is useless to demand it. Take it thankfully when it is proffered. The young are always ungrateful on account of their inexperience. They do not know, and so they cannot appreciate, the acts of self-sacrifice of which they have been the objects from their earliest days. Let the sincerity of your own efforts for their good be its own reward; let the motive of your action be the sense of duty that you owe to the future of your race.

(3) Do not aim at making the young mere copies of yourself. Years are rolling on, and opinions are changing. The world is not the same as it was in the old man’s youth; it’s problems are different in many ways; new difficulties require new armour; new dangers, new precautions. Do not try to alter, try rather to direct, the development of a young heart. The pessimism of old age is proverbial: ‘Things are not as they used to be when I was young,’ says every old man; but he has not thereby proved that they are worse. Let him set himself to understand these differences, and remember that his duty is to increase the good and to combat the evil in the world. Let us see that we are not possessed by an exclusive wish that nothing be done save in our own way, but hope and pray and work that those who come after us may have a double portion of our spirit, and be better and wiser than ourselves.

No subject so much repays our study as the development of the young mind. We see in it the germs of the future, and the sight strengthens us to look more trustfully, more hopefully on the present. Think of the last thanksgiving of Jesus: ‘Of those whom Thou gavest Me have I lost none.’ How beautiful! And God commits others to our charge. Let us accept the gift for the Giver’s sake, and try to realise its greatness. Let us set ourselves to illumine by our example the path of those who are to come; to aid them by our precepts; to strengthen them by our love; striving to hand on to sturdier runners in the race of life the torch which we have borne with too unequal steps.

—Bishop Creighton.

Illustrations

(1) ‘Elisha, being bidden to ask a boon, craves a double portion of Elijah’s spirit (v. 9). He does not ask twice as much power as Elijah had. That would have been a dishonouring request. But he asks that he might be like Elijah’s first-born, and get the two parts of the inheritance that fell, by the law of Moses, to the first-born son (Deuteronomy 21:17).’

(2) ‘Frequently we find a wall of separation between the old and young. The young complain that the old are hard, unsympathetic, unreasonable, interfering, exacting. The old complain that the young are ungrateful, arrogant, disrespectful: too often the father complains that he does not understand his son; the son, that he can find no sympathy from his father. A gulf once formed soon widens, and the natural link between generations is unnaturally severed. Much might be said in either case in excuse of one or the other. The duties of children to parents are perhaps sufficiently emphasised; let us not forget the duties of the old towards the young. The old are masters of the situation; if the young break away from them, the fault must be largely theirs.’