HE Old Testament history has here and there glimpses of romantic narrative, which open like flowery valleys among Alpine ranges. One of the prettiest of these is the record of a little captive Judæan girl, who had been taken and carried into slavery by a guerilla party of Syrians. The story is so brightly and dramatically given in the Bible, that it is a living picture of those far-off ages. In it we see, first, how the characteristic energy, brightness, and vigor of the Jewish female character come out even in this nameless captive child. Her quickness and ready wit had apparently gained for her a confidential position near the wife of the highest lord of the Syrian court, and, like the child Miriam before the princess of Egypt, she is forward, prompt, and busy with suggestion and advice. The great man to whose household she belonged, the prime minister and chief counselor of the king, was afflicted with the worst form of incurable leprosy. So the text says:"And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy. And one went in and told this lord, saying, Thus and thus saith the maid that is of the land of Israel." We can see in this story that the maid is an indulged pet in the establishment, free to speak her own little mind, and that she speaks in a way that attracts attention and wins respect. The whole power and flavor of a mighty oak is in every acorn, and this little seed of the Judæan stock carried the whole national dignity in her heart. Her people, she remembered, had a refuge វ 1 in such troubles, the power of Almighty God to heal and save was always vested in some mighty prophet, and O, would to God that her master were with the Prophet in Samaria! The reported words are caught up with the eagerness with which the drowning catch at straws. Leprosy to all ancient medicinal means was incurable; it was a way to death, slow, agonizing, and certain. The reputation of the Jews for miraculous wonders was current among surrounding nations, and the thing applicated to one of these prophets is deemed worth a trial. The King of Syria now appears in the foreground. Israel is his conquered tributary province, and if there is any healing to be had there he will order it up for his favorite. A splendid caravan is mustered, and with ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment, and a letter from the King of Syria to his vassal the King of Israel, the great lord journeys forth. The letter of the king is brief and to the point: “Behold I have herewith sent Naaman my servant unto thee that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy." Ahab, King of Israel, was a timorous, cowardly man, consciously out of favor with the God of his people, and with the Prophet who represented him at this time; so he rent his clothes and said, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man from his leprosy? See, how he seeketh a quarrel against me!" And when Elisha, the man of God, heard that he had rent his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, "Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a Prophet in Israel." Next, we have the scene where the prince, with his splendid caravan, is drawn up before the house of the Prophet. Without even coming to the door, the Prophet simply sends the message: "Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean." The lordly negligence of the message roused the indignation of the prince, "I thought he would come out to me, and stand and call on the name of Jehovah his God, and strike his hand THE LITTLE MAID OF ISRAEL. over the place and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage. We have a beautiful specimen of the domestic character of Oriental servitude in the language of his servant to the great man on this occasion: "My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith unto thee, Wash and be clean!" The good sense and fidelity of this rebuke is silently acknowledged, the Prophet's command obeyed, and in all the glow of restored life and health, the grateful prince comes back once more to the door of the Prophet. He comes with gifts, offerings of boundless gratitude; but the Prophet will take nothing. The grace of God is to be given, but can never be bought. For a prophet of Jehovah to accept a reward for the mercy dispensed through him was sacrilege; and though the prince urged with the passionate enthusiasm of gratitude, the Prophet was inflexible. The story now gives us a glimpse of the ignoble side of the Jewish character, the selfish trading shrewdness which has made the name of the Jew a proverb. Gehazi, the servant of the Prophet, however, will find his types in many a Yankee village, —a man without moral delicacy, incapable of seeing that there is anything too sacred to become a matter of trade and barter. His master, in his view, has let slip an opportunity, but there is no reason why he should not turn an honest penny! He pursues the grateful chief, and with a feigned tale of the sudden arrival of guests to his master, proposes to accept some of the offered wealth, and, having drawn largely on the generosity of the prince, he returns quietly with his ill-gotten spoils to his master's presence. The rest of the story is a most thrilling picture of what manner of man a Judæan prophet was: He went in and stood before his master. And Elisha said to him, "Whence comest thou, Gehazi?" And he said, "Thy servant went no whither." And he said unto him, "Went not my heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot to 1 |