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abominations of heathenism. Its court was a horrible sink of iniquity, and God's judgment had gone forth against it and all its doings. Ahaziah must needs join hands and pledge friendship with his relatives, and for that purpose visited them--probably he did not intend to do more. It was just to look at the doings of this court, and have a taste of its pleasures, and then come back again. But once there he was led on from step to step--found Jehoram's company very attractive, entered into his plans, went out with him to battle, took part, no doubt, in the worship of his gods, and then while the two were going hand and glove together, the long-deferred judgment of God fell on Jezebel's house. The soldier raised up by God for that purpose swooped down upon the wicked king and his favourites with resistless force, making no distinction; and Ahaziah, being one of the band, shared in the general destruction. The destruction of Ahaziah, says the Book, was of God, by coming to Jehoram. By his coquetting with evil he was made to pay the last penalty. So runs the story, and it seems far removed from everything that concerns our lives--yet not so far--things of a similar kind are happening every day. Men who tread the ways of sinners, who enter into any sort of fellowship with them, often find themselves involved very strangely and suddenly in their shame and their punishment. You cannot go into ways of evil men, or visit any forbidden scenes, or lend your countenance in any way to their doings, even though you have no further intention than just to look on, but there is ever hanging over you the sword of detection. The policeman appears, or God's light is let down upon the scene, and you are discovered as having part in it, and your name is stained and your character gone, and your life marked with a perpetual stigma of disgrace. When God's Judgment comes on sin it always involves some who are just hovering on the edge of it, as well as those who are in the thick of it. You ought not to be there. Remember Ahaziah. And there are some evil natures and some evil things which a man cannot touch in even the slightest degree without being led on from step to step, as Ahaziah was, until he was in the thick of Jehoram's iniquity. A young woman cannot enter a gin-palace and drink her glass at the counter--as I see scores do any night--without gradually going further and losing all the modesty and grace of womanhood. A young man cannot touch gambling in any of its forms without almost inevitably being drawn under its fascinations, as one who is slowly involved in a wily serpent's coils. An English bishop thinks and has said that a little betting is allowable, that if you only indulge moderately in it, you may do it with impunity. He might as well have said that if you only steal coppers the law will smile upon you, but if you steal gold you will come in for its stripes. He might as well have said, "If you only put your little finger in this fire it will not hurt you, but if you thrust your whole hand in, it will burn." There can be no moderation in a thing which is essentially and in all its principles based on dishonesty and corruption, and evil excitement and evil greed. I am profoundly sorry that such a thing has been said by one whose word has so much authority and influence. It will be taken by thousands as an encouragement to do what they are only too prone and eager to do. Who shall curse what a father in Christ has condescended to bless? We need rather to have all Christian hands and voices raised in passionate and tearful denunciation of that which is doing more than anything else to demoralise our youth and eat away the very morals of the nation. We need to warn against it and denounce it in whatever form and degree it is practised, and to say, "Touch not, taste not, handle not the accursed thing." We must keep away altogether from the men who delight in evil paths, and from the things, the very touch of which defiles. Go not in their 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

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