The Progress., 1894-11-24
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
THE SICK GENERAL" AS A
SERMONS SUBJECT
Full of Happiness, Lest We Should
Want to Remain Here-The Sorrows
of Every Life -

" ilcIS AAiS SoAAo"o |
of Every Life
BROOKLYN. y. Y. Nov. lS. 1879
Here we have a warrior sick. not
with pleurisies or rheumatism or con-
sumption, but with disease worse
than all of these put together. red
mark has come out on the foreheao'
precursor Of complete disagreement
and dissolution. | have something
awful to tell you. General Naaman,the
commander in chief of all the Syrian
forces has the leprosy. 1t is on his
hands. on his face, on his feet, on his
entire person. The leprosy. Get out
of the way of the pestilence. II us
breath strike you. you are a dead man.
! The commander in chief Of all the
forces of Syria. And yet he would be
glad to exchange conditions with the
boy at his stirrup or the hostler who
! blankets his charger. The news goes
like wildfre all through the realm,
and the people are sympathetic, ana
they cry out: is it possible that our
great hero, who slew Ahab and around
whom We came with such moderation
when he returned from victorious
battlc-can it be possible that our
grand and glorious Naaman has the
leprosy?n Yes. Everybody has some
thing he wishes he had not. David, an
Absalom to disgrace him: Paul,
thorn to sting him; Job, carbuncles to
plague him; Samson, Delilah to shear
him; Ahab, a Naboth to deny him.;
Hannah, a Mordecai to irritate HIM;
George Washington, childlessness to
aflict him: John Wesley, a tcrmagant
l wife to poster him; Leah, weak eyes;
Pope, crooked back; Byron, club
, foot; John Milton, blind eyes; Charles
. Lamb, an insane sister; and you, and
, YOU, and you, and you, something
,, which you never bargained for and
:. would like to get rid Of The reason
S Of this is that God does not want TINS
!, world to be too bright; otherwise, we
would always want to stay and ea'
| these fruits, and lie on these lounges
and shake hands in this pleasant SO
ciety. We are only in the vestibule O
g a grand temple. God does not want u
o to stay or the doorstep. and therefore
he sends aches, and annoyances, an'
sorrows. and bereavements OF all sort
to push us on, and push us up TOWARD
ripper fruits, and brighter society, AM
more radiant properties God
only whipping us ahead. The rea
son that Edward Payson and Rob
crt Hall had more rapturous view
of heaven than other people MAJ
was because, through their ache
and pains, God pushed them neare
up to it. If God dashes out one
your pictures, it is only to show you
brighter one. If he sting your TOO
with govt, your brain with neuralgia
your tongue with an inextingulshao 81
thirst, it is only because he is prepa7
ing TO substitute better than yo
ever dreamed of, when the mortf
shall put on immortality. 1T IS to pus
4 Won on, and to push you up toWar
N something grander and better, tina
+. God sends upon you, as he did upo
h General Naaman. something youdo ne
" want. Seated in his Syrian mansion
to all the walls glittering with the shield
st which he had captured in battle; tt
id corridors crowded with admiring vlsl
le ors. who Just wanted to see him one
music and mirth and banquetlng M
y inc all the mansion from tessellatt
" floor to pictured ceiling, Naaman wou
y have forgotten that there was anythlr
a better, and would have been glad
w. u, stav there 10000 years. But o, no
~ the shields dim, and how the vlslto
nd fv the hall, and how the music dro
al dead from the string, and how t.
d. oates of the mansion slam shut WI
k sepulchral bang as you read the clc
I'M inc words of the eulogium: HE w
q leper. He was leper!''
lg- There was one person more symI
IN tbetic with General Naaman than al
up other person. Naaman's wife wal
ny the floor. wringing her hands, and IL
ss, inc to think what she can do to allie
'o' ate her husbands suffering. All rem
dies have failed. The surgeon-genel
= and the doctors of the royal staff ha
4 met, and they have shaken their hea'
as much as to say: "No cure; no cur'
}. T think that the Office seekers had
s u folded up their recommendations a
lion gone home. Probably most OF the
Pre- ployes of the establishment n
dronped their work and were Think
. of looking for some other situate
What shall now become OF poor M
~ mans wife? She must have sympat
oisI somewhere. In her despair she e.
An to a little Hebrew captive, serv;
"a girl in her house, to whom she te
~ The whole story; as sometimes, WI
j. overborne by the sorrows OF the wor
81 and finding no sympathy anywh
= else. you have gone out and 1onno
the sympathy of some humble dom
tic-Rose, or Dinah, or Bridget h
and which the WOrld coulu ho' Sfo w
cry. What a scene it was: one OF
SOo0 crandest women in all Syria in cabl
:, lend ID council with waiting maid
a B. the declining health of the mig