Editorial May 17, 1913 Issue

GAINING BY GIVING UP

John B. Willis

The story of Naaman, as told in the fifth chapter of II Kings, is of absorbing interest from any point of view, so full is it of movement, of events, of well-drawn characters, and of local color. We are made acquainted with a man of prominence and of parts, the favorite of a princely ruler, who had been honored as a great general, and whose ears were accustomed to the acclaim of the multitude. Commanding the emoluments of high office, he was surrounded, no doubt, by those who esteemed it a privilege to minister not only to his wants but to his whims.

In view of these things, he had naturally acquired great self-respect and pride of distinction, and yet his life seemed a tragedy, a hopeless defeat, for he was a leper. As such, he was fated in human belief to become an object of loathing and a social outcast, but in the hour of his approaching despair, word reached him of a prophet in Israel, whom by the counsel and with the royal gifts of the king he searched out. It is evident, however, that his thought of the man of God was distinctly patronizing, and the question of his healing a matter of barter, when with his horses and chariot he stood at the door of the prophet's humble lodging, evidently expecting him to be duly impressed with the opportunity offered him to exercise his healing power on some one who was worth while, and who could suitably reward him for his time and attention. But Naaman met with a severe and altogether exasperating rebuke, when Elisha refused even to see him, and ignoring both his distinctions and his gifts, sent him word that if he would be healed he must be clean, prescribing as a test of the sincerity and worthiness of his desire, that he go to the Jordan and wash seven times.

Naaman's anger and resentment, his final consent to try the experiment and the purification which followed his obedience, as they are told in the story, mark a very human experience and procedure. Naaman is by no means unique in his big feeling and folly, but rather our every-day familiar. The prophet had named a demand of Truth which is universal and uncompromising, and which is just as offensive to mortal sense today as it was when Jesus said, "How hardly shall they that have riches [the prized accretions of material sense] enter into the kingdom of God!"

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GAINING BY GIVING UP

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