that his skin became like that of a little child.

It was with a changed heart that he turned his horses' heads and drove
slowly back out of the valley, and up the road to the hills down which
he had just come clattering in his anger. When next he stood at the
door of the prophet's little house all the pride was gone out of him.

"Now I know," he said to the prophet, "that there is no God in all the
world but in Israel. I pray thee to take a present from thy servant."

Elisha stood before him in worn cloak and sandals, his head covered
with a striped kerchief, his eyes bright and piercing. The camels were
there, laden with presents in their saddle-bags.

"As God liveth, before whom I stand," exclaimed the old man, "I will
take nothing."

Gold and silver, fine clothing, sweet spices, scented oils, had no real
value for him. They were only a few of the many things he could quite
well do without. This Syrian chief had obeyed what was really the
command of the living God, and that was much more important. The
Syrian pressed him to take something, but the poor prophet would have
nothing. Naaman then asked leave to carry away two mule loads of earth
from Samaria, saying that he would never again offer sacrifice to idols
after the manner of his own people, but would sacrifice to God only.

Again Naaman shook the reins and cracked his whip as the horses sprang
forward with the light chariot, the wooden wheels clattering on the
stones. Outside the city walls his servants scraped the earth together
until they had filled two mule-sacks, and then the small band of
Syrians, shouldering their spears, set out on the homeward road.

Soon the eyes of the Syrian drivers saw the green palm-trees, the
spires of glittering brass, and the white walls of Damascus. They were
back again in their own country, bringing no camel-loads of plunder, no
droves of stolen cattle, no chains of weeping slaves--only two sacks of
earth from Samaria, and a chief with a healthy body and a grateful
heart. If his wife was glad to see him, so also was the little Jewish
maid; and we need not doubt that she would not be much longer a slave,
but free--set free as a sign that Naaman the Syrian had a grateful
heart for his little friend who had sent him to be healed by the
prophet of Israel.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's Children of the Old Testament, by Anonymous

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN