Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1894 — A SICK SOLDIER. [ARTICLE]

A SICK SOLDIER.

Typical Leprosy of Gen, Naaman pf Syria, Sickness and SufferitvgitvTMe Worsts a Means of Eternal Salvation — Dr. Talmage’s Sermon for the Press. * The Rev. Dr. Talmage chose as the subject of his sermon through the press last Sunday ‘’The Sick General,” the text being II Kings v, 1: “He was a leper.” ’ Here we have a warrior sick, not with pleurisies or rheumatisms or consumptions, but with a disease worse than all these put all together. A. red mark has come out on the forehead, percursor of complete disfigurement and dissolution. I have something awful to tell you. Gen. Naaman, the commander-in-chief of all the Syrian forces, has the leprosy! It is on his hands, on his face, on his feet, on his entire person. The leprosy! Get out of the way of the pestilence! If his breath strike you, you are a dead man. The com-mander-in-chief of all the forces of Syria! And yet he would be glad to exchange conditions with the boy at his stirrupor the hostler that blankets his charge r. Yes. Everybody has something tie wishes he had not—David, an Absalom to disgrace him; Paul, a thorn to sting him; Job, carbuncles to plague him; Samson, a Delilah to shear him; Ahab, a Naboth to deny him; Haman, a Mordecai to irritate him; George Washington, a childlessness to afflict him; John Wesley,a termagant wife to {Tester him; Leah, weak eyes; Pope,’ a crooked back; Byron, a club foot; John Milton, blind eyes; Charles Lamb, an insane sister; and you and you and you and you something which you never bargained for and would like to get rid us. The reason of this is that God does not want this world to be too right. Otherwise We would always want to stay and eat these fruits and lie on these lounges and shake brands in this pleasant society. We are only in the vestibule of a grand temple. God does not want us to stay on the doorstep, and therefore he sends aches and annoyances and sorrows and bereavements of all sorts to push us on and push us up toward riper fruits and brighter society and more radiant prosperities. There was one person more sympathetic with Gen. Naaman than any other person. Namaan’s wife walks the floor wringing her hands and trying to think what she can do to alleviate her husband’s sufferings. All remedies have failed. The surgeongeneral and the doctors of the royal staff have met and they have shaken their heads, as much as to say, “No cure, no cure!” I think the office seekers had folded up their recommendations and gone home. Probably most of the employes of the establishment had dropped their work and were thinking of looking for some other situation. What shall now become of poor Namaan’s wife? : She must have sympathy somewhere, i Tn her despair she goes to a little Hebrew captive, a servant girl in her house, to whom she tells the whole story, as sometimes, when overborne by the sorrows of the 1 world and finding no sympathy anywhere else, you have gone out and found in the sympathy of some humble domestic —Rose or Dinah or Bridget—a help which the world could not give you.

What a scene it was! One of the grandest women in all Syria in cabinet council with a waiting maid over the declining health of the mighty General. “I know something,” says the little captive maid, “I know something,” as she bounds to her bare feet. “In the land from which I was stolen there is a certain prophet known by the name of Elisha who can cure almost anything, and I shouldn’t wonder if he could cure my master. Send for him right away.” Oh, hush!” you say. “If the highest medical talent in all the land cannot cure that leper, there is no need of your listening to any talk of a servant girl.” But do not scoff, do not sneer, The finger of that little captive maid is pointing in the right direction. She might have said: “This is a judgment upon you for stealing me from my native land. Didn’t they snatch me off in the night, breaking my father’s and mother’s hearts, and many a time I have lain and cried all night because I was so homesick.” Then, flushing up in childish indignation, she might have said: “Good forthem. I’m glad Naaman’s got the leprosy. I wish all the Syrians had the leprosy!” N’\ Forgetting her personal sorrows,she sympathizes with the sufferings of her master and commends him to the famous Hebrew prophet. No wonder the advice of this little Hebrew captive threw all Naaman’s mansion and Ben-hadad's palace into excitement. Goodby, Naaman! With face scarified and ridged and inflamed by the pestilence, and aided by those who supported him on either side, he staggers out to the chariot. Hold fast to the fiery coursers of the royal stable while the poor sick man lifts his swollen feet and pain-struck limbs into the vehicle. Bolster him up witb the pillows and let him take a lingering look at his bright apartment, for, perhaps, the Hebrew captive may be mistaken, and the next time Naaman comes to that place he may be a dead weight on the shoulders of those who carry him, an expired chieftain seeking sepulture amid the lamentations of an admiring nation. Goodby, Naaman! Let , the charioteer drive gently over the hills of Heraoa, lest he jolt the ia-

valid. Here goes the bravest man of al) bis day, a captive of a horrible disease. As tbe ambulance winds through tbe streets of Damascus tbe tears and prayers of al l the people go after the world renowned invalid. Gen. Naaman wakes up from a restless Sleep in the chariot, and he says to the charioteer, “How long before we shall reach tbe Prophet Elisha?” The charioteer sayS to a waysider, “How far is it to Elisha's house?” He says, “Two miles.” “Two miles?” Theo they whip up the lathered and fagged out horses. The whole procession brightens up at -the prospect of speedy arrival. They drive up to the door of the prophet. The charioteers shout “Whoa!” to the horses, and tramping hoofs and grinding wheels cease shaking the earth. Come out, Elisha, ' come out. You have company. The grandest company that ever came to your house has come to it now. No stir inside Elisha’s house. The fact was the Lord had informed Elisha that the sick captain was coming and just how to treat him. Indeed when you are sick and the Lord wants you to get well he always tells the doctor how to treat you, and the reason we have so many bungling doctors is because they depend upon their strength and instructions and not on the Lord God, and that always makes malpractice. Come out, Elisha, and attend to your business. General Naaman and his detinue waited and waited and waited. The fact was Naaman had two diseases—pride and leprosy. The one was as hard to get rid of as the other. Elisha sits quietly in his house and does not go out. After awhile, when he thinks he has humbled this proud man, he says to a servant, “Go out and tell General Naaman to bathe seven times in the river Jordan out yonder five miles, and he will get entirely well.” The message comes out. “What!” says the commander-in-chief of the Syrian forces, his eye kindling with an animation which it had not shown for weeks, and his swollen foot stamping on the bottom of the chariot, regardless of pain. “What! Isn’t he coming out to see me? Why, I thought certainly he would come and utter some cabalistic words over me, or make some enigmatical passes over my wounds. Why, I don’t think he knows who I am. Isn’t he coming out? Why, when the Shunamite woman came to him, he rushed out and cried: ‘ls it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it with thy child?’ And will he treat a poor unknown woman like that, and let me, a titled personage, sit here in my chariot and wait and wait? I won’t endure it any longer. Charioteer, drive on! Wash in the Jordan! Ha! ha! The slimy Jordan; the muddy Jordan; the monotonous Jordan! I wouldn’t be seen washing in such a river as that. Why, we watered our horses in a better river than that on our way here —the beautiful river, the jasper paved river of Pharpar. Besides that, we have in our country another Damascene river, Abaua, with foliage bank and torrent ever swift and ever clear, under the flick- i ering shadows of sycamore and oleander. Are not Abana and Phar- ; par, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?”

Well, Gen Naaman could not stand the -test. The charioteer gives a jerk to the right line until the bit snaps in the horse’s mouth, and the whir of the wheels and the flying of the dust show indignation of the great commander. “He turned and went away in rage.” So people often get mad at religion. They vituperate against ministers, against churches,against Christian people. One would think from their irate behavior that God had been studying how to annoy and and exasperate and demolish them. What has He been doing? Only trying to cure their death dealing leprosy. What is all. Yet they whip up their horses, they dig in the spurs, and they go away in a rage. So after all it seems that this health excursion of Gen. Naaman is to be a dead failure. That little Hebrew captive might as well have not told him of the prophet, and this long journey might as well not have been taken. Poor, sick, dying Naaman! Are you going away in high dudgeon and worse than when you came? As his chariot halts a moment his servants clamber upon it and coax him to do as Elisha said. They say: “It’s easy. If the prophet had told you to walk for a mile on sharp spikes in order to get nd of this awful disease, you would have done it. l£ is easy. Come,my lord, just get down and wash in the Jordan. You take a bath every day anyhow, and in this climate it is so hot that it will do you good. Do it on our account, and for the sake of: the nation that admires you. Come my lord, just try this Jordanic bath.” “Well,” he says, “to please you I will do as you say.” The rc- j tinue is driven to the brink of the Jordan. The horses paw and neigh to get into the stream themselves and cool their hot flanks. Gen. Naaman assisted by his attendants, gets down out of his chariot and painfully comes to the brink of the river and t steps in until the water comes to the ankle and goes on deeper until the water comes to the girdle, and now, standing so far down in the stream, just a Ijttle inclination of the head will thoroughly immerse him. He bows once into the flood and comes up and shakes the water out of nostril and eye, and his attendants look at him and say. “Why, general, how much better vou do look!” And he bows a second time into the flood and comes up, and the wild stare is gone out of his eye. He bows the third time into the flood and comes

up, and tbe shriveled flesh bas go| smooth again. . He bows tbe fourth time into tbe flood and cpmes up. t ,and the hair that had fallen out iff restored in thick locks again al) overthe brow. He bows the fifth timq into the flood, and comes up, anti tbe hoarseness has gone out of his throat. He bows the sixth time and comes up, and all the soreness; and anguish have gone out of the! limbs, “Why,” he says, “lam al-; most well, but I will make a complete; cure,” and be bows the seventh time into the flood, and he comes up, and not so ranch as a fester, or a scale, or an eruption as big as the head of a pin is to be seen on him. Now, my bearers, you know that this Gen. Naaman did two things ip order to get well. The first was, he got out of bis chariot. He might have stayed there, with his swollen feet on tbe stuffed ottoman, seated on that embroidered cushion, until his last gasp, be would never have got any relief. But he had not only to get down out of his chariot. He had to wash. “Oh,” you say, “1 am very careful with my ablutions. Every day J plunge into a bright and beautiful bath.” Ah, my hearer, there is a flood brighter than any that pours from these hills. It is the flood that breaks from the granite of the eternal hills. It is the flood of pardon and peace and' life and heaven. That flood started in the tears of Christ and the sweat of Gethsemane and rolled-on, accumulating flood until all earth and heaven could bathe in it. I suppose that was a great time at Damascus when General Naaman got back. But a gladder time than that it would be if your soul should be cured of its leprosy. The swiftest of white horses hitched to the king’s chariot would rush the news into the eternal city. Our loved ones before the throne would welcome the glad tidings. Your children on earth, with more emotion than the little Hebrew captive, would notice the change in your looks, and the change in your man • ner, and would put their arms around your neck and say: “Mother, I guess you must have become a Christian. Father, I think you have got rid of the leprosy.” O, Lord God of Elisha, have mercy on us!