155

THE LEPER CLEANSED.

BY THE REV. HUGH STOWELL.

"Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine?"

THRICE happy stranger, at the feet
Of Him who healed thee, as is meet,
In ecstasy, bowed low :

Twice blest! for thou art healed within,
Cleansed from the leprosy of sin-

The deepest, sorest woe.

Were there not ten who bent with thee,
In prayer for aid, the suppliant knee?
Where are the thankless nine?

In body cleansed, unclean in soul,

Not their's the faith that made thee whole,—

A living faith is thine.

But who shall cast the accusing stone?
Who has not made their part his own
Their graceless, godless part?

Who that has ne'er in sorrow sued,

And then, with dark ingratitude,
Withheld from God his heart?

Father of Mercies! whensoe'er

Thy goodness grants my plaintive prayer, O let such grace be mine,

That as this stranger I may be,

And yield myself in love to Thee

Unlike the faithless nine.

157

LUKEWARMNESS.

"Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice."-2 KINGS Xiii. 19.

If we would see the honours of this passing world, its mere circumstances of rank and lofty station, of wealth, and splendour, and power, all alike without dignity, and its earthly glory tarnished and degraded by its possessor, we have but to open the Bible at the book of Kings, and read of Jeroboam, and Ahab, and Jezebel, and others who filled the thrones of Israel and of Judah. We almost forget, at certain periods of their history, that they were persons of royal rank; and we turn away with loathing and abhorrence from the record of their awful wickedness, their bad passions, their base and sordid vices.

Joash was one of these kings: it is written of him that he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, but he walked therein. Joash was the son of Jehoahaz and the grandson of Jehu,

and in these three men were, we find, some lingering traits of noble qualities. They were all ungodly and evil men, but yet we read of the godly zeal of Jehu in his destroying Baal out of Israel, and the fervent prayer of Jehoahaz, and that God rewarded the zeal of the former, and answered the prayer of the latter, and sent a saviour to Israel from the oppression of Syria. Joash heard that the prophet Elisha was sick unto death: full of consternation and grief, he obeyed the impulse of his kindly feelings, and came down to the man of God. The stately king came a visitor to the little chamber of the dying prophet. It was perhaps the first visit he had ever paid him, and he had delayed it so long, that it was the last. This ungodly man had reigned sixteen years. The prophet was ninety years old, but he had been left in neglect and obscurity. His warnings and his counsels had been hitherto disregarded: he was dying, and at last the king of the country where he dwelt came to seek his counsel and his blessing. He came and wept and lamented over Elisha. It is a time even for kings to weep, when good men die. He had disregarded and despised the man of God while he was well and living, but now the king had awoke to a sense of the prophet's value. We begin to prize our blessings when we know that we are about to lose them.

We see the king in the silent chamber; we see the prophet lying motionless upon his dying bed, the chillness and feebleness of death creeping over his exhausted frame -the dulness and unconsciousness of death taking possession of his every sense and faculty; but he is suddenly awakened from his dull and dream-like insensibility, by the burst of grief which comes forth from the heart of the king, as he bends over the couch of the expiring saint, and gazes upon the piteous spectacle before him, he is roused by the tears which drop heavily upon his face, and the loud lamentations of the sorrowing monarch-" O my father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" A striking expression of lamentation, 'O my father, my father! the defence and the strength of Israel is passing away with thee!' The prophet rises from the languor and the torpor of death, and beholds the king of Israel weeping over his face. Perchance the sound of those wellremembered words-the same which had burst forth from his own lips when he saw his master Elijah taken away from him had awoke their echo in his heart.

Nothing could be more natural than the grief of the king! He beholds the man of God-the unflinching advocate of truth-the stern reprover of sin, but the tried and faithful friend-prostrate, feeble, and subdued upon the bed of death; the films of death dimming his eagle