HE WAS THOROUGHLY IN EARNEST.
He was quite willing to go one hundred and fifty miles, and to take the advice of this little maid. A good many people say, “Oh, I don’t like such and such a minister; I should like to know where he comes from, and what he has done, and whether any bishop has laid his hands on his head.” My dear friends, never mind the minister, it is the message you want. Why, if some one were to send me a telegraph message, and the news were important, I shouldn’t stop to ask about the messenger who brought it. I should want to read the news; I should look at the message, and not at the boy who brought it.
And so it is with God’s message. The good news is everything, the minister nothing. The Syrians looked down with contempt on the Israelites, and yet this great man was willing to take the good news at the hands of this little maiden, and listened to the words that fell from her lips. Why, if I got lost in London, I should be willing to ask anybody which way to go, even if it were only a shoeblack boy; and, in point of fact, a boy’s word in such a case is often better than a man’s. It is the way I want, not the person who directs me.