ld."

I can fancy Naaman's indignation as he asks, "Are not Abana and
Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?
May I not wash in them and be clean? Haven't I bathed myself
hundreds of times, and has it helped me? Can water wash away
leprosy?"

So he turned and went away in a rage.

It isn't a bad sign when a man gets mad if you tell him the truth.
Some people are afraid of getting other people mad. I have known
wives afraid to talk to their husbands, afraid of getting them mad.
I have known mothers who were afraid to talk to their sons because
they were

AFRAID THEY WOULD GET MAD.

Don't be afraid of getting them mad, if it is the truth that makes
them mad. If it is our foolishness that makes them mad, then we have
got reason to mourn over it. If it is the truth, God sent it, and it
is a good deal better to have a man get mad than it is to have him
go to sleep. I think the trouble with a great many nowadays is that
they are sound asleep, and it is a good deal better to rouse them
even if they do wake up mad.

The fact was, the Jordan never had any great reputation as a river.
It flowed into the Dead Sea, and that sea never had a harbor to it,
and its banks were not half so beautiful as those of the rivers of
Damascus. Damascus was one of the most beautiful cities in the
world. It is said that when Mahomet beheld it he turned his head
aside for fear it should divert his thoughts from heaven.

Naaman turned away in a rage. "Ah," he said, "here am I, a great
conqueror, a successful general on the battlefield, holding the very
highest rank in the army, and yet this prophet does not even come
out to meet me; he simply sends a message. Why, I thought he would
surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord
his God, and strike his hand over the place and recover the leper."

There it is. I hardly ever knew a man yet who, when talked to about
his sins, didn't say:

"Yes, but I _thought_ so and so."

"Mr. Moody," they say, "I will tell you what _I think;_ I will tell
you _my opinion_."

In the 55th chapter of Isaiah it says that God's thoughts are not
our thoughts, nor His ways our ways. And so it was with Naaman. In
the first place, he thought a good big doctor's fee would do it all,
and settle everything up. And besides that there was another thing
he thought; he thought going to the king with his letters of
introduction would do it. Yes, those were Naaman's first t