NAAMAN'S SERVANTS.

AAMAN was a man of high rank and great power, being no less than "Captain

of the host of the king of Syria "-commander-in-chief to that mighty king. He was a great man with his master, and honourable". very high in favour-" because by him the Lord had given deliverance [or victory] unto Syria." We are not to suppose indeed that either he or his master traced his success to Jehovah; but it was in truth all from God, who used the Syrians as His instrument for punishing Israel; and so the sacred writer records it. He was also a man of great personal bravery-"a mighty man in valour." The king was first in the kingdom; doubtless Naaman. was second.

"But he was a leper." That was a sad drawback. Not indeed so great a drawback to greatness and happiness as it would have been in Israel; for in Syria there was no law that the leper should live apart. But the disease was generally incurable, and Naaman would, we may be sure, have

parted with much of his greatness to be clean like other men.

Thus he had a great and constant trouble; but he had also a great advantage: he was well served. This appears by two instances.

1. There was in his household a little maid, who waited on his wife. She was an Israelite, and a slave-girl. For in one of their forays the Syrians had brought her away captive out of the land of Israel, and she had fallen to Naaman as part of his share of the booty. Though in captivity, there is no reason to think she was treated harshly; on the contrary, she seems to have been kindly used, and to have been admitted to some degree of intimacy. We may think of her as a favourite with her mistress; and that, through her good behaviour.

This little maid took to heart her master's affliction. It is not likely that she had been long in captivity, for she was still "a little maid ;" but she had been long enough one of the family to enter into the chief family trouble, and she did truly feel for her lord. Again, she had not been so long in that heathen land as to forget the God of Israel. If she had not known the prophet Elisha personally, she had heard of the wonderful works God had wrought by him; perhaps she knew about the Shunamite's son being restored to life, and about the pottage being made wholesome, and about the feeding of a hundred men with a few loaves;1 at 2 Kings iv.

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all events she had heard enough to make her believe that Elisha, the prophet of God, could cure Naaman of his leprosy. The gods of Syria were but idols; they, she knew, could do nothing; and all the doctors of the land had doubtless tried their skill in vain that also the little maid knew, for no doubt it was the talk of the house; but she was acquainted with a power of which the rest were ignorant; if the power of God were but put forth, her master might yet be made well. Such was her faith -the faith of a little slave-girl in a heathen land.

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There was a vast distance between this little slave-girl and her master-the commander-inchief, the great court-favourite; perhaps she had never once spoken to him, or been noticed by him. But with her lady she was more at her ease; and to her she ventured to speak her mind. "Would God," she said, "my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy." The words made some impression on her mistress, and when she told Naaman of them, some hope, it appears, was revived in him too, for he went in and told the king what the little maid had said, that so he might get leave to go to the prophet. It is in this way that we are to understand the words, "one went in and told his lord:" it was Naaman himself, who (having himself been told by his wife) went in and told his lord the king.

We cannot but be struck here with the happy effects of kind treatment. If the girl had not been

kindly treated, she would never have dared to open her lips to her mistress, nor would she have cared for her master's affliction. It is not too much to suppose that she had been kindly treated, and felt grateful. Whatever may be said to the contrary, true kindness does usually meet with gratitude; and none can tell to what valuable service gratitude may lead. It is not only the high that can do good to the low; an inferior may often do important good to a superior. Love is a precious thing; the more of it we can win, the better. But for this little servant, Naaman would never have been healed, and never have known the Lord; and had not her gratitude been won by kindness, she would never have spoken.

2. But now, for the present, let us leave her, and pass on to other servants of Naaman-those who went with him on his journey to Samaria.

Though this great captain was willing so to humble himself as to take this journey in search of a cure, yet his pride nearly lost him the cure; and now, once more, he owed much to servants. What kind of servants they were, we do not know; but it is likely that, on so important a business, he would take some of the highest that he had; and besides, he probably wished to impress the king of Israel with his dignity; he went in great state; he took with him valuable presents, "ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment," and trusty servants, no doubt, in charge of the treasure, and when he went from

the king to the prophet, he "came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha."

Now, were these servants Syrians, and therefore heathen? There is nothing to show the contrary. Of the little maid we are expressly told that she was of Israel; but nothing is said of these. Yet it is not impossible that, living in the same household, they may have learnt something from her. If she spoke of the prophet to her mistress, had she never spoken of him to her fellow-servants? If, as is plain, she kept her faith in Jehovah, the God of Israel, was not this known to those of the same household? Nothing is told us; we must not therefore build much on this: but it is not unlikely that these older and higher servants had felt the influence of the Israelitish maid, and that the wisdom of their advice was partly owing to her. Evil spreads like leaven; but happily good has somewhat of the same quality. A young Christian servant has often the happiest influence in a house. A walk with God will always tell on those around. None need complain of want of opportunity of doing good. To walk humbly with God, to lead a Christian life, to "adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things "2-this will surely do good, and God places none in circumstances in which they may not by His grace thus walk and live: those very words of St. Paul to Titus were written about servants.

2 Titus ii. 10.