The Healing Waters of Israel; Or, the Story of Naaman the Syrian. an Old Testament Chapter in Providence and Grace

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873. Excerpt: ... $am ai WLumiriQ, In the opening sentences of last chapter, we compared the new life, natural and spiritual, infused into the restored warrior, to the resuscitation of the earth, when, coming forth from her winter dormitory, she assumes her robes of spring, and all outer Nature, with its song-burst and flowerburst, participates in a common joy. In the verses, however, which are now to occupy our thoughts, that vernal sky is suddenly overcast; and we have to watch an unexpected cloud passing athwart the landscape. We seem almost to wish that the touching story of the Aramite general, so complete and unique in itself up to this point, had closed here without any supplementary incident--that the curtain had fallen as the Syrian caravan begins to move on its homeward way, and the good Prophet has poured his benediction on the head of its chief. Yet, too, ever and anon, with divine wisdom, does the Bible in its inspired narratives, by some qualifying statements--some sombre touches in its pictures, keep before us the memories and evidences of a present evil world, and of the spirit that still ruleth in the children of disobedience. Amid its notes of sweetest music, there steal, as if at measured intervals, strains of disharmony and dissonance, to remind us that the heart--yes, even the heart that has been moulded and disciplined by godly and godlike influences, is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it 1 (Jer. xvii. 9). We are mostly accustomed, doubtless, in pacing the sacred sculpturegallery, to contemplate its moral heroes;--elevated characters, who present us with a lofty ideal of the saintly and spiritual life. But, intermingled here and there, as if to impart value by contrast, we have specimens also of the depraved...