this prophet Elisha's?" The charioteer says to a waysider, "How far is it to Elisha's house?" He says, "Two miles." "Two miles." Then they whip up the lathered and faggedout horses. The whole procession brightens up at the prospect of speedy arrival.

By and by the charioteers shout, "Whoa!" to the horses, and the 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 own strength and instruction, and not on the Lord God; and that always makes malpractice. Come out, Elisha, and attend to your business. General Naaman and his retinue 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 a while, when he thinks he has humbled this proud man, he says to a servant, “Go out and tell Gen eral Naaman to bathe seven times in the River Jordan, out yonder five miles, and he will get entirely well."

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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? 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 by any one 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 jaspar-paved river of Pharpar. Besides that, we have in our country another Damascene river, Abana, with foliaged bank and torrent ever swift and ever clear, under the flickering shadows of sycamore and oleander. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?"

I suppose Naaman felt very much as we would feel if, by way of medical prescription, some one should tell us to go and wash in the Danube or the Rhine. We would answer, "Are not the Connecticut or the Hudson just as good?" Or, as an Englishman would feel if he were told, by way of medical prescription, he must go and wash in the Mississippi or St. Lawrence. He would cry out, "Are not the Thames and the Mersey just as well?" The fact was that haughty Naaman needed to learn what every Englishman and every American needs to learn-that when God tells you to do a thing, you must go and do it, whether you understand the reason or not.

Well, General 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 whirr of the wheels and the flying of the dust show the indignation of the great commander. "He turned and went away in a rage.' So people now often get mad at religion, and go away in a rage. So, after all, it seems that this health excursion of General 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 up in 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 rid of this awful disease you would have done it. It 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 army you command, 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 retinue drive to the brink of the Jordan. The horses paw and neigh to get into the stream themselves and cool their hot flanks. General Naaman, assisted by his attendants, gets down out of the chariot and painfully comes to the brink of the river, and steps in until an inclination of the head will thoroughly immerse him. He bows once into the flood, and comes up and shakes the water out of nostrils and eyes; and his attendants look at him and say, "Why, general, how much better you 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 in the flood and comes up, and the shrivelled flesh has got smooth again. He bows the fourth time into the flood and comes up, and the hair that had fallen out is restored in thick locks again all over the brow. He bows the fifth time into the flood and comes up, and the 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, "I am almost well, but I will make a complete cure," and he bows the seventh time into the flood; and he comes up, and not so much as a fester, or scale, or an eruption as big as the head of a pin is to be seen on him. He steps out on the bank and says, "Is it possible?" And the attendants look and say, "Is it possible?" And as, with the health of an athlete he bounds back into the chariot and drives on, there goes up from all his attendants a wild "Huzza! huzza!"

WHAT TO DO.

You notice that this General Naaman did two things in order to get well. The first was-he got out of his chariot. He might have stayed there with his swollen feet on the stuffed ottoman, seated on that embroidered cushion, until his last gasp, he would never have got any relief. He had to get down out of his chariot. And you have got to get

down out of the chariot of your pride if you ever become a Christian. You cannot drive up to the cross with a coachand-four, and be saved among all the spangles.

But he had not only to get down out of his chariot. He had to wash. O my hearer, there is a flood brighter than any other. Zechariah called it the "fountain open for sin and uncleanness." William Cowper called it the "fountain filled with blood." Plunge once, twice, thrice, four times, five times, six times, seven times. It will take as much as that to cure your soul. Oh, wash, and be clean!

I suppose that was a great time at Damascus when General Naaman got back. The charioteers did not have to drive slowly any longer, lest they jolt the invalid; but as the horses dashed through the streets of Damascus, I think the people rushed out to hail back their chieftain. Naaman's wife hardly recognized her husband; he was so wonderfully changed she had to look at him two or three times before she made out that it was her restored husband. And the little captive maid, she rushed out, clapping her hands, and shouting, "Did he cure you? Did he cure you?" Then music woke up the palace, and the tapestry of the windows was drawn away, that the multitude outside might mingle with the princely mirth inside, and the feet went up and down in the dance, and all the streets of Damascus that night echoed and re-echoed with the news, "Naaman is cured! Naaman is cured!"

But a gladder tune than that it would be if the soul should get cured of its leprosy. The swiftest white horse 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 look, and the change in your manner, 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!

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CHAPTER XIX.

The Well at the Gate.

Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate." II SAM. 23:15.

WAR, always distressing, is especially ruinous in harvesttime. When the crops are all ready for the sickle, to have them trodden down by cavalry horses, and heavy supplytrains gullying the fields, is enough to make any man's heart sick. When the last great war broke out in Europe, and France and Germany were coming into horrid collision, I rode past their golden harvest-fields and saw tents pitched and the trenches dug in the very midst of the ripe fields, the long scythe of battle sharpening to mow down harvests of men in great winrows of the dead. It was at this season of harvest that the army of the Philistines came down upon Bethlehem. Hark to the clamor of their voices, the neighing of their chargers, the blare of their trumpets and the clash of their shields!

Let David and his men fall back! The Lord's host sometimes loses the day. But David knew where to hide. He had been brought up in that country. Boys are inquisitive, and they know all about the region where they were born and brought up. If you should go back to the old homestead, you could, with your eyes shut, find your way to the meadow, or the orchard, or the hill back of the house, with which you were familiar thirty or forty years ago. So David knew the Cave of Adullam. Perhaps, in his boyhood days, he had played "hide-and-seek" with his comrades all about the old cave; and though others might not have known it, David did. Travellers say there is only one way of getting into that cave, and that is by a very narrow path; but David was stout and steady-headed and steady-nerved;

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