Elisha sounded the great Elijah-note, "if the Lord is God, follow Him,
but if Rimmon, then follow him," perhaps the germ of temptation would
not have found Gehazi even quite such an easy prey,

Mind, I am not whitewashing him or mitigating his crime. I am trying
to get at the forces that conspired to make him what he was, and among
these I have no doubt at all that his master's complaisant permission
of compromise was a very potent force. Of course he was wrong, of
course there is no logical connection between what the master allowed
in the Syrian general and the great lie Gehazi told. And yet there was
a sort of ghastly logic in this poor wretch's procedure. There are
many commandments. But duty is one thing, and if you weaken a man's
sense of duty by breaking one commandment yourself, you must not be
surprised if you find him breaking another commandment later on.
Gehazi was cured of the leprosy of Naaman. The prophet's angry word
was not countersigned on high, and one hopes that he also shook off by
God's assisting grace the ill-effects of Elisha's complacency. For the
greater danger lay in _that_. And does it not still lie there?

Our young people, our children, our servants that minister to our
comfort, our assistants and clerks that multiply our personal
activities and help to build up our fortunes, is there no danger to
their spiritual life in being exposed as they are to the spiritual
influences which we give off every hour? They see the cavalcades of
wealth, they gaze at the ingots of gold and the great white silver
bars; they look with longing eyes at the silks with colours that come
and go like the iris on the dove's neck. The luxuries of meat and
drink appeal to them. The temptation to live for these things assaults
them.