Volume 2

354 Life of Jesus Christ
they allowed themselves to be quietly led away by their
friends. Then several possessed pressed raging through
the crowd as if to tear Jesus to pieces. He cast upon them
a single glance, and they fell like whining dogs at His
feet. With a word of command, He drove the devil forth.
They sank down unconscious, a dark vapor escaped from
them, and then they arose weeping and thanking and
were led to their homes by their friends. Jesus generally
ordered such persons to perform certain purifications. He
again taught from the pulpit on the brook, alluding in the
course of His instruction to Elias, to Moses, and to the
departure of the Israelites from Egypt. He spoke of the
cures that had just been effected in their midst, and of
the Prophecies which declared that in the Messiah's time
the dumb would speak and the blind see. He also made
allusion to those that saw these signs and yet would not
acknowledge them.
I saw on that occasion many things connected with
Elias. He was a tall, spare man with hollow, reddish
cheeks, a bright, piercing glance, a long, thin beard, and
a bald head with only a circle of hair around the back.
On the top of his head were three large protuberances
almost of the form of bulbs, one in the middle, two somewhat
toward the forehead. He wore a garment made of
two skins fastened together on the shoulder, open at the
sides, and bound around the waist with a cord. Over his
shoulders and around his knees hung the hair of the
beast's skin. He carried a staff in his hand. His shins
were far darker than his face. He was nine months in
Abila, and two years and three months in Sarepta with
the widow. While at Abila, he dwelt in a cave on the
eastern slope of the valley not far from the brook. I saw
how the bird brought him food. At first there arose a little
dark figure like a shadow out of the earth, holding in
its hand a thin cake. It was neither man nor beast, it was
the evil one come to tempt the Prophet. Elias would not