Significant, also, is the dismay of Joram, King of Israel, when he
received the letter bidding him find healing for Naaman. So little
did he believe in Elisha's power that he concluded the King of Syria
sought to pick a quarrel with him by asking him for a favour he knew
he could not grant. But while the king is helplessly tearing his
clothes in a passion of despair, Elisha sends him a message which, at
least for the present, gives him some calmness: "Why hast thou rent
thy clothes? Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is
a prophet in Israel." Elisha is ashamed that the King of Israel
should have exhibited such weakness before a foreign potentate. He
feels that the honour of Israel's God is implicated, and boldly takes
upon himself the responsibility of the cure. Bold it certainly was,
and tells of a confident faith that God will be faithful to His
servants. The king had no such faith. There was a power resident in
Israel of which he took no account. Like many other governments, this
Israelitish monarchy was unaware of its own resources, because it did
not condescend to reckon what was spiritual. Frequently in civil
history you find governments brought face to face with matters for
which they are, with all their resources, incompetent. In modern
Europe, and as much in our own country as in others, everything gives
place to politics. Nothing stirs so much excitement. Differences in
religion do not sever men as differences in politics do. We should,
therefore, recognise what is here suggested, and should
counter-balance an undue regard for political movements and political
power by the remembrance that the hardest tasks of all are
accomplished by quite another power, and by a power which the
politician often overlooks. What have we seen time after time in our
own Parliament, but the civil power rending its garments over evils
which it cannot cure? Are not the remedies which have been proposed
for prevalent vices absurdly incompetent? And it is the Church's