an impossible thing as the cure of leprosy was but a pretext for renewing the war. But Eliseus, hearing of what was passing, sent to the king saying, " Send the man to me that he may know there is a prophet in Israel." The prophet lived with old Giezi, his man-servant, outside the town in a little cabin, before which the Syrian troop presently drew rein. By and by Giezi came forth with the prophet's message, bidding Naaman proceed some thirty miles farther to the banks of the Jordan where, after washing seven times, he would be healed. Then was Naaman angry, and turning about he started for home saying: " I thought the prophet himself would have come out to me, and invoked his God, and touched my leprosy with his hand and healed me. And why wash in the Jordan? Are not our Syrian rivers better than all the waters of Israel? " Naaman was willing to accept a favor from Israel's prophet and Israel's God, and he had come prepared to pay for it, and now to be treated as a person of no account and to be asked to do such silly things! He was indignant and mortified. But Eliseus knew the man's pride and conceit and that the first necessity was to humble him, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. When non-Catholics of great wealth or education or social influence join our faith, they not infrequently come to us in the spirit of Naaman, feeling they are honoring the Church and should be lionized accordingly. Pretentious Catholics are sometimes similarly disposed, and the pity of it is that they often find clerical sycophants to suit their
