trouble, she happened to remember one
day that Elisha had cured people who were very ill, and done many
wonderful things, and she said to her mistress, "Would God my lord were
with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his
leprosy." Probably Naaman's wife questioned her closely about Elisha,
and got at all she knew about him, and so heard about the child that
fell sick among the reapers, and the poor widow whose two sons were to
be sold as slaves, and the mantle of Elijah, that Elisha had caught upon
the banks of the Jordan, with which he smote the waters. At any rate,
she heard enough to awaken some hope, and so told her husband what our
little maid had said. When people are hopelessly ill, they are willing
to try anything; a drowning man will catch at a straw, and Naaman caught
at this little straw of hope that the wind of war had blown across his
path. He thought it over and said to himself, "It is my only chance; no
one here can do anything for me. I will go down to Samaria and find
Elisha. I have often heard that the prophets there did wonderful things;
if what the little maid says of the boy among the reapers is true,
perhaps Elisha can cure me." And so he went; but it was very
humiliating. He thought of Israel and the little city of Samaria and the
Jordan in a scornful way, comparing them with his splendid Damascus, and
its green, beautiful plain, thirty miles wide, and the great river
Abana, that gushed from the side of the mountain, and flowed through and
all about the city, making the whole country one vast garden. He
despised, too, the people of Israel. They were rude and poor and
ignorant, while his own people were rich and cultivated. Perhaps he had
borne himself proudly when he was at war there; and now to go back and
ask favors--to ask for himself what he could not get at home--was
humiliating indeed. But he made the best of it; and to cover his pride
and make it seem as though he were not asking favors, he took with him
an immense amount of silver and gold, and ten suits of raiment--perhaps
of linen _damask_, that was first made in Damascus.

I shall not follow the story further, except to say that because Naaman
went in such a proud spirit, Elisha used every means to make him humble.
He seemed to be anxious to send Naaman home, not only a well, but a
better man, and to teach him that there were other things to be thought
of than great rivers, and fine cities, and temples of Rimmon.