II. THE FORCE OF INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCE. "And the Syrian had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid: and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, would God, my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy. And one went in, and told his lord saying, Thus and thus said the maid, that is of the land of Israel. This little girl, who had been torn from her native country and carried into the land of strangers by the ruthless hand of war, told her mistress of a prophet in Israel who had the power to heal lepers. This led the king of Syria to persuade Naaman to visit Judæa, and to give the leprous captain an introduction to the king; who, in his turn, introduced him to the prophet, who effected his healing.

The influence of this little slave girl should teach us three things. First, The magnanimity of young natures. Though she was an exile in the land of her oppressors, instead of having that revenge which would have led her to rejoice in the sufferings of her captors, her young heart yearned with sympathy for one of the ruthless conquerors. A poor child, a humble servant, a despised slave, may have a royal soul. Second, The power of the humblest individual. This poor girl, with her simple intelligence, moved her mistress; her mistress, the mighty warrior; then Syria's king was moved, by him the king of Israel is interested, and then the prophet of the Lord. Thus this little maid may have been said to have stirred kingdoms. No one, not even a child liveth to himself." Each is a fountain of influence. Third, The dependence of the great upon the small. The recovery of this warrior resulted from the word of this captive maid. Some persons admit the hand of God only in what they call great events. But what are great events? Great and small are but relative terms. And even what we call small often sways and shapes the great. One spark of fire may turn all London into a whiff of smoke.

III. THE FORCE OF SELF-PRESERVATION,

"And the king

of Syria said, "Go to; go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment. And he brought the letter to the King of Israel, saying, Now when this letter is come unto thee, behold I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy." It would seem that Naaman at once consulted Benhadad, the King of Syria, on the subject suggested by the captive maid, and having obtained an introduction to the king of Israel hurried off, taking with him "ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment"-great wealthwhich he was prepared to sacrifice in the recovery of his health. The instinct of self-preservation is one of the strongest in human nature. "Skin for skin; all that a man hath will he give in exchange for his life." Men will spend fortunes and traverse continents in order to rid themselves of disease and prolong life. This strenuous effort for recovery from disease reminds us of

First: The value of physical health. This man had lost it, and what was the world to him without it? Bishop Hall truly says of him, "The basest slave in Syria would not change skins with him." Health-this precious blessing→→→ is so lavishly given, that men seldom appreciate it till it is lost.

- Secondly: The neglect of spiritual health. This man was evidently morally diseased, that is, he neither knew of the true God nor had sympathy with Him. He was a moral invalid. A worse disease than leprosy infected his manhood and threatened the ruin of his being. Yet there is no struggling after spiritual recovery. This is a general evil.

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IV. THE FORCE OF CASTE-FEELING.

"And the King of

Syria said, Go to; go, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel." Why did the King of Syria send Naaman with the letter to the Monarch of Israel? Was it because he was given to understand that that king would work the cure?

No; for mention was made by the captive girl of no one who could effect the cure but "the prophet that is in Samaria." Or was it because he thought that Israel's monarch would discover the prophet and influence him on behalf of the afflicted officer? No; for in his royal letter he says, "Behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to thee that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy." Why, then? Simply because of caste-feeling. He forsooth was too great to know a prophet-too great to correspond with any one but a king. What was a prophet, though radiating with divine intelligence and nerved with divine energy, compared even to a soulless man if a crown encircle his brow?

First: Caste-feeling sinks the real in the adventitious. The man who is ruled by it so exaggerates externalisms as to lose sight of those elements of moral character which constitute the dignity and determine the destiny of man. He lives in bubbles.

Secondly. Caste-feeling curtails the region of human sympathies. He who is controlled by this feeling, has the circle of his sympathies limited not only to the outward of man, but to the outward of those only in his own sphere. All outlying his grade and class are nothing to him. Caste feeling, thirdly, antagonises the Gospel. Christ came to destroy that middle wall of partition that divides men into classes. The Gospel overtops all adventitious distinctions, and directs its doctrines, and offers its provisions to man as

man.

V. THE FORCE OF GUILTY SUSPICION. “And it came to pass when the King of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I a God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy ? Wherefore, consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me?" The construction that the monarch put upon the message of his royal brother, was, instead of being true and liberal, the most false and ungenerous. He ascribed evil motives where there were none, and saw malig

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nant intentions where there was nothing but a good-natured purpose. All this springs from that suspicion which is a prevalent and disastrous evil in the social life of this world. Where this suspicion exists, one of the two, if not the two following things, are always found. First, a knowledge of the depravity of society. The suspicious man has frequently learnt, either from observation, testimony, or experience, or all these, that there is such an amount of falsehood, and dishonesty in society, as will lead one man to take an undue advantage of another. However, whether he has learnt this or not, it is a lamentable fact, patent to all observant eyes. Secondly, the existence of evil in himself. The suspicious man knows that he is selfish, false, dishonest, unchaste, and he believes that all men are the same. If he were not evil, he would not be suspicious of others, even though he knew that all about him were bad. An innocent being, I trow, would move, amongst a corrupt age without any suspicion whatever. Being destitute of all bad motives himself, he would not be able to understand the corrupt motives of others. On the other hand, were society ever so holy, a bad man would still be suspecting all. An unchaste, selfish, fraudulent man, would suspect the purity, the benevolence, and the integrity of angels, if he lived amongst them. The greatest rogues are always the most suspicious; the most lustful husbands are always the most jealous of their wives, and the reverse. Well has our great dramatist said, "Suspicion haunts the guilty soul." A miserable thing, truly, is this suspicion. Heaven deliver us from suspicious people! Suspicion is the poison of all true friendship; it is that which makes kings tyrants-merchants, exactors-masters, rigorous, and the base-natured of both sexes, diseased with a jealousy that shatters connubial confidence, and quenches all the lights of connubial life.net cli

VI. THE FORCE OF REMEDIAL GOODNESS. Though the king could not cure, there was a remedial power in Israel equal to this emergency. That power, infinite goodness delegated to Elisha. God makes man the organ of his restorative powers.

cure.

It was so now with Elisha. It was pre-eminently so with Christ. It was so also with the apostles. The redemptive treasure is in "earthly vessels." The passage suggests several points concerning this remedial power. First: It transcends natural power. "When Elisha, the man of God, had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes,... he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him now come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel." The monarch felt his utter insufficiency to effect the Natural science knew nothing of means to heal the leper. Supernatural revelation reveals the remedy through Elisha. Herein is an illustration of Christianity. No natural science can cure the leprosy of sin; it tried for ages but failed. Second: It offends human pride. "So Naaman came with his horses, and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean, But Naaman was wroth, and went away and said, behold I thought he will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place and recover the leper." Naaman came in all the pomp of wealth and station to the prophet's door, expecting no doubt, that Elisha would hurry out to do him honour. But a true man is never moved by glitter. He did not even go out to meet the illustrious visitor, but sent a messenger to bid him go to the Jordan and there wash. But both the unbending independency of the prophet, and the simple method he prescribed so galled the proud heart of the Syrian warrior, that "he was wroth, and went away and said, Behold I thought he would surely come out to me," &c. Herein is an illustration of Christianity. It strikes at the root of pride, and requires us to become as little children.

Third: It clashes with popular prejudice. "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel May I not wash in them and be clean?" It is common for men to regard that which belongs