heir
way, pass not by it. "If sinners entice thee, consent thou not."
Learn the lesson of Ahaziah's life, and how his fall came because he
consorted with wickeder men than himself, and was anxious to see their
doings.

GEHAZI

BY REV. J. MORGAN GIBBON

"The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy
seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as
snow."--2 KINGS v. 27.

Elisha and Gehazi were master and man. They were more. They were
almost father and son. Elisha calls him "_my heart_," just as Paul
calls Onesimus his heart. Yet they parted so.--"_He went out from his
presence a leper_." The punishment was terrible. Was it deserved?
Had the master a right to pass this sentence? "_The leprosy of
Naaman_"--yes! but had Gehazi caught nothing from Elisha?

Most commentators fall on Gehazi with one accord. He is pilloried as a
liar. He is branded as a thief. He is bracketed with Achan, and
coupled with Judas. They flatter the master, they are hard on the man.
But this is surely a very false reading of facts. By clothing the
prophet in spotless white, and tarring Gehazi a deep black all over, we
violate the truth of things and miss the lesson of the story, which,
like the sword-flames at Eden's gate, turn many ways.

To take but one out of its numerous suggestions, we have here a story
for servants of all sorts, and for masters and mistresses too, of all
kinds.

The section is rich in domestic interiors. Servants have always formed
important members of the household, and often their service has risen
to be a beautiful and holy ministry.

We see here, for example, a great Eastern lady, Naaman's wife, and her
little Jewish maid, whom the fortunes of war had swept from her home
"in the land of Israel." In the division of the spoil, this human mite
had fallen to Naaman's share, and drifted into his lady's service. The
slave-child has evidently reached the woman, perhaps the hungering
mother's heart, in her mistress; and the sorrow of the woman, for alas!
she is a leper's wife, has touched the servant's heart. The burning
sense of the wrong to herself is cooled and quenched by the pity she
feels for her master; and the expedition that brought health to Naaman,
and unspeakable joy to Naaman's wife, was the outcome of a word she
spoke. She knew of Elisha, she said what she knew, and great things
came of it.

She did this, not as a slave of Naaman'