for that is what they are. Think of that man. Think how much he had
suffered. I don't know how many years he had been away from his wife
and children and home; but there he was. He had put on a strange and
particular garb, so that anybody coming near him might know that he
was unclean. And when he saw any one approaching him he had to raise
the warning cry, "Unclean! unclean! unclean!" Aye, and if the wife of
his bosom were to come out to tell him that a beloved child was sick
and dying, he durst not come near her, he was obliged to fly. He might
hear her voice at a distance, but he could not be there to see his
child in its last dying moments. He was, as it were, in a living
sepulchre; it was worse than death. There he was, dying by inches, an
outcast from everybody and everything, and not a hand put out to
relieve him. Oh, what a terrible life! Then think of him coming to
Christ, and when Christ saw him, it says He was moved with compassion.
He had a heart that beat in sympathy with the poor leper, He had
compassion on him, and the man came to Him and said, "Lord, if Thou
wilt, Thou cant make me clean." He knew there was no one to do it but
the Son of God Himself, and