WONDER whether any of you could explain to me what this picture is about? The title does not tell us much more than we can learn from the picture itself, for we can see plainly enough that the slave-girl, as she kneels beside her mistress, and offers her some sweetmeats, is speaking earnestly. Her mistress looks at her with attention, too—what can they be talking about?
Perhaps you will be more likely to guess aright if I tell you that the picture is about a story which is told in the Old Testament. I do not wish to tell you more, for you know that beautiful story very well, though, perhaps, you have never thought much about the little slave-girl, who lived in the time of Elisha, the prophet of God, and who is here speaking earnestly to her mistress about him.
Ah! now you know. This girl was the little captive maid who waited upon the wife of Naaman, the great Syrian general, and her story, as we read it in the Bible, is so sweet, that I am glad to see a picture about it, so that we may talk a little of her this afternoon.
And where was the little maid living when she waited upon her mistress, as you see her doing in the picture?
In the land of Syria—that country north of the land of Israel, where the sun is so hot that people are glad to lie down, and enjoy the cool evening breeze out of doors upon the housetop, as the lady in the picture does.
How did the little maid from the land of Israel come to this strange country to be a slave-girl?
Ah! that is a sad story. It was because the people of God had left off serving Him and obeying His word that God had allowed them to be beaten by their enemies. They had fled before them, and some had been taken captive; not only the fighting men, but the women and children; this was how the little maid from the land of Israel came to be in a strange land, away from her home.
Was it not sad for her? Why did God let such a dreadful thing happen to a child?
It was indeed sad for her. You who have been away from home only just for a few months, and who look to go back to it again when the holidays come, found it very sad and strange at first, even though you were only at school, and with people who tried to be kind to you. This child knew not that she should ever see her dear Israelitish home, or her father and mother, and brothers and sisters again, and she was a slave in a country where the language and the people were all strange.
You asked why God allowed such a sad thing to happen to a child. We do not know why a great many sad things are allowed to happen every day in this sad world, where sin and misery are on every hand, but we are quite sure it is not because the great God in heaven does not care for the sorrows even of little children. Perhaps He allowed this child to be carried away from her home that He might speak to her young heart when there was no one near to comfort her, and tell her not to fear, but to trust in Him.
But she was in a land where no one cared for the true God, and where they prayed to idols.
That is quite true, but in spite of all the wrong things which were going on around her, God kept faith in Himself alive in her heart. How do we know this?
Because of what she said to her mistress about the prophet of God, “Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy."
We do not know how long the child had been thinking, with pitiful longing, about her master, before she ventured to say this to her mistress; but at last she did take courage, and she had her reward.
What reward? Was she allowed to go back to her own home after Naaman was cured?
We are not told anything more about her except this wish, which she expressed in such a simple and beautiful way; but do you not think it must have been a glad day for even the little slave girl when word was brought that the master was coming home from his long journey, and when he at last came in with every trace of that dreadful leprosy gone, and his flesh fair and soft as the flesh of a little child?
Yes, it must have made her very happy, because she was so sorry for her master to be a leper; some people would have been almost glad, and would have said, "It serves him right for having taken me for a slave."
That is just what all our hearts would say, if God did not teach us something better. Remember, my dear child, that it was God who put into the captive maiden's heart this earnest wish for her master, that he might go to His prophet for healing and blessing. Is it not wonderful to think that she knew a secret about God's power and His goodness which was unknown to all the great people in the land of Syria? Yet not wonderful, for it is written, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him."
And Naaman learned about God too.
Yes, for he said to Elisha, “Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel."
How little the captive maiden knew what blessing would come from her words, so modestly yet so earnestly spoken! L.