Article February 28, 1948 Issue

ARE YOU APPROACHABLE?

CATHERINE ANNETTE HUBBELL

The lesson of humility to be learned from the healing of Naaman, the leper, has often been emphasized. Naaman, we are told in the fifth chapter of II Kings, because he was captain of the host of the king of Syria and a great man, wanted Elisha himself to come and "strike his hand over the place." That he should wash in Jordan rather than in his own familiar rivers, Abana and Pharpar, seemed to Naaman almost an insult.

But his preconceived ideas about place and ceremony had to give way before he felt the cleansing power and unfailing reward of humility. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 323, 324) Mary Baker Eddy points out the necessity for this: "Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear,—this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony."

But there is something else in the story which is most sweet. And if it appears obscure, it is not really so. This second lesson is perhaps overshadowed by the keen drama of the first. It is the story of the servants, and of their actions, imbued with brotherhood.

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