THE NAAMAN HOSPITAL FOR THE LEPROSY.
Naaman, the Leper—His Visit to Elisha—The Prophet’s Command—Naaman
Cured—House Turned into a Leper Hospital—Off to the Lepers’
Den—Origin, History and Nature of Leprosy—Arrival at the
Gloomy Prison—Abraham, “I Didn’t Promise to Go into the Tomb
with You”—“Screw your Courage to the Sticking Point”—Johnson’s
Reply—Suspicious of the Arab Gate-Keepers—A Charge to
Abraham—Life in Johnson’s Hands—Mamie and the Currant-Bush—Among
the Lepers—Judgment Come—Graves Open—Living Corpses—Walking
Skeletons—Strewing out Coins—An Indescribable Scene—An Indelible
Picture—Horrible Dreams.
NAAMAN lived in Damascus. “Now Naaman, captain of the host of Syria,
was a great man” with his Master, and “honorable, because by him the
Lord had given deliverance unto Syria; he was also a mighty man of
valor, but he was a leper.” So Naaman left Damascus, and went down to
Samaria to see Elisha, that the prophet might heal him of the leprosy.
Elisha told Naaman to go and dip himself seven times in the Jordan. The
haughty Syrian became indignant at the idea, and it was natural that
he should. The people of Damascus are now, and have always been, proud
of their rivers. They sing about Abana and Pharpar, as also about the
shades, fruits and flowers of the valley.
Old Naaman was a true Damascene. So, when told to bathe in the Jordan,
he said: “Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, are they not better
than all the waters of Israel?” He wanted to go back to his own native
city, and there bathe in the fountain of the gods, whose pearly waters
had rolled themselves through his heart and cut their channels there.
Finally Naaman was persuaded to follow Elisha’s directions, and was
healed of his leprosy. But, strangely enough, his house in Damascus was
turned into a leper hospital, and remains one to this day.
Having heard so much of this loathsome disease, I am anxious to see it.
So I call out, “Abraham, Abraham.”
“Sir?”
“Bring out the horses, and let’s go to the hospital.”
“Yes, sir.”
He brings out three horses—ears about fifteen inches long—and
Johnson, Abraham and I are off for the “lepers’ den.” On the way,
Johnson says: “Whittle, how long has the leprosy existed?” My reply is,
“History traces the disease back to twelve or fifteen hundred years
before the Christian era.”
Johnson. “Where did it originate?”
I explain that the origin of the leprosy is, to some extent, shrouded
in mystery; that I was reading the other day from Strabo, a Greek
author, who says that leprosy was generated in Egypt among the Jews,
while they were in bondage under the Pharaohs. He says the Jews were
banished to rock-quarries, where they had been getting stone to build
pyramids and walled cities; that, having double burdens to perform,
and half rations to live upon, they killed and ate diseased hogs which
gave rise to a disease among the people known as the leprosy. For this
reason the Jews passed a law that all Hebrews should ever after abstain
from eating flesh of swine. That law, we know, is still observed, but
Strabo’s account of the origin of the leprosy is probably a myth.
Johnson asks: “Does the Bible throw no light upon this subject?”
“None at all. The Good Book has much to say about the disease, and
the ceremonial law concerning the treatment of lepers is strict and
explicit. As to its origin, however, not a word is said.”
Leprosy is the most fearful disease that was ever visited upon the
human family. Never yet has a case of it been cured without the direct
intervention of God. Man’s skill is powerless to stay its ravages
on the human frame and system. If there were no leprosy on earth
to-day, probably there never would be any. It is not now, so far as
can be ascertained, generated anew and afresh. It is inherited from
one’s parents, and in this way it is handed down from generation to
generation. It is absolutely impossible for leprous parents to give
birth to a child who will not die of leprosy, unless, perchance, the
babe die before the disease breaks out. The child may possibly remain
sound and healthy until he is six or even sixteen years old; but the
fearful disease is in his bones and blood and system, and it is coming
to the surface—it is coming to stay, to eat up the body and “steal
away the life o’ the building.”
Leprosy warns its victim of its approach by a cold and chilly
sensation, which alternates with fever. Then a purple fleck or blotch,
with a hard lump under it, comes on the face. The blotches now come
thick and fast. Blotch meets blotch, until the bloated face is covered,
and the cheeks look like purple clusters of grapes. The blotches
finally swell, itch, fester, burst and pour forth an immense amount of
pus and corruption. Then they heal up for a while, only, however, to
itch, swell and burst again.
About a mile and a half from the centre of the city, we see a great
rock wall, enclosing twenty or more acres of land, rising up like the
walls of a penitentiary, twenty-five or thirty feet high. Pointing to
this wall, Abraham says: “There is the hospital.”
I respond, “Yes, there it is, but I want to go in it.”
“Want to go in it?” said he.
“Yes, Abraham, and I want you to go with me.”
With a strange look in his face, and a tremor in his voice, he answers,
“You don’t mean that, do you?”
“Most emphatically, I do. I want you to go in with me.”
“Well, sir,” he continues, “I can’t do it.”
“But,” said I, “look here, Abraham, I have paid you my money. You are
my guide. You have promised to show me through the city.”
“Yes, sir, but I didn’t promise to go into the tomb with you,” was his
response.
Turning to Johnson, I request him to accompany me. I show him a
book which says that it is questionable whether leprosy is at all
contagious; that it is possible for one to shake hands with a leper
without any ill effects. Besides, I tell him that we will arm ourselves
so as to keep them away from us—that we will fill our pockets with
coins, and, if the lepers come close to us, will strew them like seed
corn on the ground, and while they stop to gather them up, we will get
a good look at them. I explain further to my companion that even if the
lepers were disposed to come up to us, we could fight them off with our
heavy canes.
After placing these arguments before him, I make a final appeal;
“Johnson, don’t desert me. Nerve yourself and go in with me.” Seeing
that he is wavering and hesitating, I say: “Johnson, screw your courage
to the sticking point, and let’s go in.”
He responds: “It won’t stick.”
“Try it again!”
He repeats, “_It won’t stick!_”
By this time we are at the heavy, iron gate which is locked, and
guarded by two strong and stalwart Arabs. I say to one of them: “Will
you let me in?”
“Yes,” was the reply.
“Will you let me out?”
After a long pause, he responds in a deep, husky voice, “Y-e-s.”
I repeat the question, and receive the same significant frown and
gutteral sound as an answer. I hardly know what is meant. I do not know
but that the idea is to get me in, and then lock the gate and exact so
much money before letting me out. I have not “so much money” to give.
Turning to my guide, I say, “Abraham, Abraham, I charge you by the
money I have paid you, by your sense of honor and manhood; I charge you
by him whose name you bear, let not this gate close until I come out.”
With an honest emphasis, he responds, “I will guard the gate.”
Laying my hand upon my companion’s shoulder, I address him thus:
“Johnson, I, to some extent, commit my life into your keeping. I charge
you by the sacred memory of mother, home and Heaven, by the golden ties
of friendship, I charge you, Johnson, let not this gate close until I
come out.”
With tears in his eyes, and his great heart welling without him, he
replies: “Whittle, if necessary, I will block this gate open with my
dead body until you come out.”
My mind is now made up. I am determined to enter. You naturally ask,
“Why go into such a place?” I can hardly tell you why, unless forsooth,
I am something like Mamie. Mamie wanted to go into the garden and see
the flowers. Her mother said, “Well, my child, you may go into the
garden to see the flowers, but you must not eat any of those berries on
the currant-bush.”
“No, ma’am, I won’t.”
Twenty minutes later Mamie emerges from the garden, licking out her
tongue and smacking her lips, while her face is stained with the
berries.
“Did you eat any of those berries, Mamie?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Come, my child, don’t tell me a story.”
Crying and trembling with fear, Mamie says, “Well, mamma, I did eat a
few of ‘em.”
“Why did you disobey mother?”
“Because I couldn’t help it,” was Mamie’s response.
“Why could you not help it?” said the mother.
“‘Cause the devil tempted me.”
Mother. “Why did you not say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan’?”
Mamie. “I did say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ and he got behind me
and pushed me right into the bush.”
So I am tempted, not like Mamie, by one, but by a half dozen devils.
I say: “Get thee behind me, satans.” At this, some get behind, while
others get before me. The spirit of adventure, or something else,
catches hold of the lapels of my coat. Now they push and pull and shove
and drag me in, until finally I wake up on the inside of a living tomb.
Going in some distance from the gate and around one or two houses, I
see a great number of lepers, lying on the ground, sunning themselves.
A few of the miserable creatures are sitting up. Seeing me, they make a
strange and hideous noise. This arouses the others.
They rise—three here, four there, a half dozen, yea, a dozen,
yonder—still they rise. It looks almost as if judgment had come;
as if the tombs are opening and the graves are giving up their dead
skeletons. They form a semi-circle about me. Ah, what a ghastly sight!
Men, women and children in all stages of the leprosy. Some of them look
more like fiends than human beings. Skin and flesh gone from their
hands and arms, from their brows and cheeks! The working of their
jaw-bones can be seen, as they vainly attempt to talk.
Here they are—gums swollen, teeth gone, palates fallen, one eye, or
one ear missing. One finger—two fingers—may be all the fingers gone
from one hand, or, perchance, the hand itself is off at the wrist,
or the arm at the elbow. What arms and limbs and fingers they have,
are frequently gnarled and twisted like grape-vines. They are close
enough. Rushing my right hand into my pocket, I strew the coin far and
wide like seed wheat. The poor diseased creatures, with pewter plates
in hand, hobble around here and there as best they can, pushing and
shoving each other right and left, each trying to get all the coins and
to keep his neighbor from getting any.
Stepping forward, I strew out more coin and then recede. On come
the victims of this loathsome disease. Oh, what a ghastly sight!
Flesh gone, bones exposed and all twisted out of shape, great knots
protruding from the face and body, joints decaying and dropping
away,—human beings coming unjointed and falling to pieces! On they
come, until I find myself half surrounded by hideous, dreamlike
spectres! horrible hobgoblins! living corpses! walking skeletons!
green-eyed monsters! fiery-eyed fiends! coming up, crowding up around
me, thrusting out their long arms and bony fingers, apparently eager
and anxious to hug me, like a phantom, to their loathsome and rotting
bosoms!
For the first time in life, I am rooted to the earth. My blood,
like Hamlet’s, is curdled in my veins. My knees, like the knees of
Belshazzar, smite one against the other. My hair, like the quills
of the fretted porcupine, stands on end. My mind wanders, my heart
sickens, my body reels, and I stand “like a ruin among ruins,
meditating on decay.” In gesture, as well as in words, I say: “Avaunt!
avaunt! and quit my sight! Let the earth hide you! Your bones are
marrowless; your blood is cold; and ye have no eyes in those sightless
sockets with which ye do glare at me!”
I feel that I would give all that I have, or hope to have, if I could,
once for all, blot this awful scene from my mind. But no; it is there.
It is indelibly stamped upon the landscape of memory. And often,
instead of sleeping soundly, I will dream about it. I will dream that I
am still in here; that the gate is locked and barred, and that I am a
doomed man; that these decaying folk have entirely surrounded me, and
are intertwining their arms and limbs with mine, almost like hissing
serpents in the hair!
O, my dying fellow mortal, do you know that leprosy is typical of sin?
How, oh! how, would a man feel, if, while sitting in his parlor, a half
dozen lepers should come in, reeling and staggering—falling to pieces?
He would shrink back and call upon the earth to swallow him, or the
mountains to fall upon and hide him from the face of nature.
How, then, I ask, would God and the angels feel, if one unconverted
soul should enter into Heaven, into the presence of that God who can
not look upon sin? One sinner, walking the golden streets, falling to
pieces with moral putrefaction, would cause the redeemed to shudder,
the angels to flee away; at his approach, darkness would surround the
throne and Heaven would be turned into hell.
But, O friend, my heart thrills with joy akin to that which the angels
feel in Heaven, when I say:
“There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins,
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.”
So, when the gospel is proclaimed in your hearing, go not to the
Jordan, as Naaman did; but go fling yourself into that stream opened
up in the house of David for the cleansing of the human family. After
Naaman had dipped in the river, his skin and flesh grew back as the
skin and flesh of a little child. So you, when you have bathed yourself
in the stream of God’s forgiving mercy, will be clad in the spotless
robes of Christ’s righteousness. You will be sinless as a little child.
And I am sure the angels will strike their golden harps, and the music
will go ringing and reverberating adown the aisles of eternity, as they
shout, “Halleluiah, halleluiah, one more sinner redeemed—washed in the
blood of the Lamb.”