1388 WEAKNESS OF CHARACTER.

and thy flesh shall come again unto thee,
and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was
wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, 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. Are not Abana and
Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all
the waters of Israel? may I not wash in
them, and be clean? So he turned, and went
away in a rage.”

Now this beautiful story may afford in-
struction to young people of our time; for,
like the Syrian captain, we all of us like to
do things in our own way ; and furthermore,
we like to perform certain duties rather than
others. )

The truth is this, that in almost all our
conduct, we permit our pride, our likes and’
dislikes, our tastes and aversions to govern
us, rather than our sense of duty. We very
seldom ask ourselves “what ought I to do
and how ought I to do it?” implicitly and
cheerfully acting according to the reply
which conscience gives. Even those who
mean to be governed by duty, are very apt