"The greatest calamity of a leper was not his leprosy; it was his divorce from his fellowman. It was not his physical disease that divorced him; it was the belief in his moral contagion. His greatest cry was for some one to touch him -- to bridge the river of separation. It was easy to get the touch after he was healed. But the hard thing was to get contact before healing -- to receive touch before receiving the mandate, "Be thou clean!" His fellow-men would not grant him that favor. Doubtless they prayed for his recovery, but they would not touch him before he recovered. God could have healed them in answer to their prayers, but He wanted to heal him in answer to their contact, their touch."   George Matheson.