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.