THE LEPER.
See that poor leper! Do you know what an awful thing leprosy is? A disease so terrible that it separates its victim from all the world, and makes him an outcast, even from his home. Every one is afraid of him. His disease is so contagious that to touch him or even to breathe the air near him is dangerous; and so these poor, afflicted wretches have to go away and live in cave or desert all alone.
They sit by the wayside afar off, calling to the passers-by for charity—who sometimes throw them a piece of money and hurry off, lest they also come into that terrible plight.
Here is a poor man who finds the marks of what he thinks is this terrible disease upon his body. According to the law, he must go to the priest and be examined.
Alas! The priest says it is leprosy—nothing else.
Now the poor man, with broken heart, turns away from the Temple. He goes to his house, to say good-by to his wife and to take his children in his arms once more before he goes away to spend the long years in the wilderness alone, or with other lepers like himself, until death shall come to deliver him from his sufferings.
What a sorry house is that! Surely, this is worse than death itself.
He goes out of his door with no hope of ever entering it again. He walks the street by himself, and if any one comes near he lifts up his voice in that mournful cry:
“Unclean! Unclean!”
Out of the gates of the city he goes, away from all his friends and acquaintances, carrying with him the sorrow of separation and the seeds of death.
One day he sees a crowd passing along the road, but he dares not go near enough to inquire what it is. All at once he happens to think it may be that Prophet of Nazareth whom he had heard of—that same Man that, people said, could open the eyes of blind men, make lame men to walk, and who had even raised the son of the widow from death, over there at Nain. If only He were passing! At any rate, he will take the chances, and cry out after Him; and so he shouts, at the top of his voice:
“Have mercy upon me!”
All the rest of the crowd are afraid of him, but Jesus, who is in the midst, hears some one calling; and, just as He always did when any one wanted any thing of Him, He stopped to find out what it was.
He is not afraid of the leper; and so, while the rest of the crowd stand apart by themselves, He calls the poor fellow up to Him, and asks him what he wants.
The leper, with his heart full of anxious hope, makes answer:
“Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.”
Jesus says: “I will; be thou clean.”
A strange sense of health and strength comes suddenly over the man. He looks at his hands, and finds the leprosy all gone. He begins to pour out his heart in thanks to Jesus, who sends him away to the priests, saying: “Go, show thyself to the priests, and offer the gift that Moses commanded.”
Now, I seem to see that cleansed leper, hurrying off to show himself to the priest, to be pronounced cured, according to the law; and then hastening to his little home, to see his wife and children once more. He bursts into the house, weeping for joy. He stretches out his arms to his wife and little ones, saying: “I am clean! Jesus did it—Jesus of Nazareth.”