{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_9103/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_9103","id":"gutenberg_9103","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9103","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Jesus Christ -- Miracles"],"text":"Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Graham Smith and Distributed\nProofreaders. HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD\n\nBY\n\nGeorge MacDonald\n\n\nTHE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD\n\n1870\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n    I. INTRODUCTION\n   II. THE BEGINNING OF MIRACLES\n  III. THE CURE OF SIMON'S WIFE'S MOTHER\n   IV. MIRACLES OF HEALING UNSOLICITED\n    V. MIRACLES OF HEALING SOLICITED BY THE SUFFERS\n   VI. MIRACLES GRANTED TO THE PRAYER OF FRIENDS\n  VII. THE CASTING OUT OF DEVILS\n VIII. THE RAISING OF THE DEAD\n   IX. THE GOVERNMENT OF NATURE\n    X. MIRACLES OF DESTRUCTION\n   XI. THE RESURRECTION\n  XII. THE TRANSFIGURATION\n\n\n\n\nI. INTRODUCTION.\n\n\nI have been requested to write some papers on our Lord's miracles. I\nventure the attempt in the belief that, seeing they are one of the modes\nin which his unseen life found expression, we are bound through them to\narrive at some knowledge of that life. For he has come, The Word of God,\nthat we may know God: every word of his then, as needful to the knowing\nof himself, is needful to the knowing of God, and we must understand,\nas far as we may, every one of his words and every one of his actions,\nwhich, with him, were only another form of word. I believe this the\nimmediate end of our creation. And I believe that this will at length\nresult in the unravelling for us of what must now, more or less, appear\nto every man the knotted and twisted coil of the universe.\n\nIt seems to me that it needs no great power of faith to believe in the\nmiracles--for true faith is a power, not a mere yielding. There are far\nharder things to believe than the miracles. For a man is not required to\nbelieve in them save as believing in Jesus. If a man can believe that\nthere is a God, he may well believe that, having made creatures capable\nof hungering and thirsting for him, he must be capable of speaking a\nword to guide them in their feeling after him. And if he is a grand\nGod, a God worthy of being God, yea (his metaphysics even may show the\nseeker), if he is a God capable of being God, he will speak the clearest\ngrandest word of guidance which he can utter intelligible to his\ncreatures. For us, that word must simply be the gathering of all the\nexpressions of his visible works into an infinite human face, lighted up\nby an infinite human soul behind it, namely, that potential essence of\nman, if I may use a word of my own, which was in the beginning with God.\nIf God should _thus_ hear the cry of the noblest of his creatures, for\nsuch are all they who do cry after him, and in very deed show them his\nface, it is but natural to expect that the deeds of the great messenger\nshould be just the works of the Father done in little. If he came to\nreveal his Father in miniature, as it were (for in these unspeakable\nthings we can but use figures, and the homeliest may be the holiest), to\ntone down his great voice, which, too loud for men to hear it aright,\ncould but sound to them as an inarticulate thundering, into such a still\nsmall voice as might enter their human ears in welcome human speech,\nthen the works that his Father does so widely, so grandly that they\ntranscend the vision of men, the Son must do briefly and sharply before\ntheir very eyes.\n\nThis, I think, is the true nature of the miracles, an epitome of God's\nprocesses in nature beheld in immediate connection with their source--a\nsource as yet lost to the eyes and too often to the hearts of men in the\nfar-receding gradations of continuous law. That men might see the will\nof God at work, Jesus did the works of his Father thus.\n\nHere I will suppose some honest, and therefore honourable, reader\nobjecting: But do you not thus place the miracles in dignity below the\nordinary processes of nature? I answer: The miracles are mightier far\nthan any goings on of nature as beheld by common eyes, dissociating them\nfrom a living Will; but the miracles are surely less than those mighty\ngoings on of nature with God beheld at their heart. In the name of him\nwho delighted to say \"My Father is greater than I,\" I will say that his\nmiracles in bread and in wine were far less grand and less beautiful\nthan the works of the Father they represented, in making the corn\nto grow in the valleys, and the grapes to drink the sunlight on the\nhill-sides of the world, with all their infinitudes of tender gradation\nand delicate mystery of birth. But the Son of the Father be praised,\nwho, as it were, condensed these mysteries before us, and let us see\nthe precious gifts coming at once from gracious hands--hands that love\ncould kiss and nails could wound.\n\nThere are some, I think, who would perhaps find it more possible to\naccept the New Testament story if the miracles did not stand in the way.\nBut perhaps, again, it would be easier for them, to accept both if they\ncould once look into the true heart of these miracles. So long as they\nregard only the surface of them, they will, most likely, see in them\nonly a violation of the laws of nature: when they behold the heart of\nthem, they will recognize there at least a possible fulfilment of her\ndeepest laws.\n\nWith such, however, is not my main business now, any more than with\nthose who cannot believe in a God at all, and therefore to whom a\nmiracle is an absurdity. I may, however, just make this one remark with\nrespect to the latter--that perhaps it is better they should believe in\nno God than believe in such a God as they have yet been able to imagine.\nPerhaps thus they are nearer to a true faith--except indeed they prefer\nthe notion of the Unconscious generating the Conscious, to that of a\nself-existent Love, creative in virtue of its being love. Such have\nnever loved woman or child save after a fashion which has left them\ncontent that death should seize on the beloved and bear them back to the\nmaternal dust. But I doubt if there can be any who thus would choose a\nsleep--walking Pan before a wakeful Father. At least, they cannot know\nthe Father and choose the Pan.\n\nLet us then recognize the works of the Father as epitomized in the\nmiracles of the Son. What in the hands of the Father are the mighty\nmotions and progresses and conquests of life, in the hands of the Son\nare miracles. I do not myself believe that he valued the working of\nthese miracles as he valued the utterance of the truth in words; but all\nthat he did had the one root, _obedience_, in which alone can any son\nbe free. And what is the highest obedience? Simply a following of the\nFather--a doing of what the Father does. Every true father wills that\nhis child should be as he is in his deepest love, in his highest hope.\nAll that Jesus does is of his Father. What we see in the Son is of the\nFather. What his works mean concerning him, they mean concerning the\nFather.\n\nMuch as I shrink from the notion of a formal shaping out of design in\nany great life, so unlike the endless freedom and spontaneity of nature\n(and He is the Nature of nature), I cannot help observing that his first\nmiracle was one of creation--at least, is to our eyes more like creation\nthan almost any other--for who can say that it was creation, not knowing\nin the least what creation is, or what was the process in this miracle?\n\n\n\n\nII. THE BEGINNING OF MIRACLES.\n\n\nAlready Jesus had his disciples, although as yet he had done no mighty\nworks. They followed him for himself and for his mighty words. With his\nmother they accompanied him to a merry-making at a wedding. With no\nretiring regard, with no introverted look of self-consciousness or\nself-withdrawal, but more human than any of the company, he regarded\ntheir rejoicings with perfect sympathy, for, whatever suffering might\nfollow, none knew so well as he that--\n\n  \"there is one\n  Who makes the joy the last in every song.\"\n\nThe assertion in the old legendary description of his person and habits,\nthat he was never known to smile, I regard as an utter falsehood, for to\nme it is incredible--almost as a geometrical absurdity. In that glad\ncompany the eyes of a divine artist, following the spiritual lines of\nthe group, would have soon settled on his face as the centre whence\nradiated all the gladness, where, as I seem to see him, he sat in the\nbackground beside his mother. Even the sunny face of the bridegroom\nwould appear less full of light than his. But something is at hand which\nwill change his mood. For no true man had he been if his mood had never\nchanged. His high, holy, obedient will, his tender, pure, strong heart\nnever changed, but his mood, his feeling did change. For the mood must\noften, and in many cases ought to be the human reflex of changing\ncircumstance. The change comes from his mother. She whispers to him that\nthey have no more wine. The bridegroom's liberality had reached the\nlimit of his means, for, like his guests, he was, most probably, of a\nhumble calling, a craftsman, say, or a fisherman. It must have been a\npainful little trial to him if he knew the fact; but I doubt if he heard\nof the want before it was supplied.\n\nThere was nothing in this however to cause the change in our Lord's mood\nof which I have spoken. It was no serious catastrophe, at least to him,\nthat the wine should fail. His mother had but told him the fact; only\nthere is more than words in every commonest speech that passes. It was\nnot his mother's words, but the tone and the look with which they were\ninterwoven that wrought the change. She knew that her son was no common\nman, and she believed in him, with an unripe, unfeatured faith. This\nfaith, working with her ignorance and her fancy, led her to expect the\ngreat things of the world from him. This was a faith which must fail\nthat it might grow. Imperfection must fail that strength may come in its\nplace. It is well for the weak that their faith should fail them, for\nit may at the moment be resting its wings upon the twig of some brittle\nfancy, instead of on a branch of the tree of life.\n\nBut, again, what was it in his mother's look and tone that should work\nthe change in our Lord's mood? The request implied in her words could\ngive him no offence, for he granted that request; and he never would\nhave done a thing he did not approve, should his very mother ask him.\nThe _thoughts of_ the mother lay not in her words, but in the expression\nthat accompanied them, and it was to those thoughts that our Lord\nreplied. Hence his answer, which has little to do with her spoken\nrequest, is the key both to her thoughts and to his. If we do not\nunderstand his reply, we _may_ misunderstand the miracle--certainly we\nare in danger of grievously misunderstanding him--a far worse evil. How\nmany children are troubled in heart that Jesus should have spoken to his\nmother as our translation compels them to suppose he did speak! \"Woman,\nwhat have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.\" His hour for\nworking the miracle _had_ come, for he wrought it; and if he had to do\nwith one human soul at all, that soul must be his mother. The \"woman,\"\ntoo, sounds strange in our ears. This last, however, is our fault: we\nallow words to sink from their high rank, and then put them to degraded\nuses. What word so full of grace and tender imagings to any true man as\nthat one word! The Saviour did use it to his mother; and when he called\nher _woman_, the good custom of the country and the time was glorified\nin the word as it came from his lips _fulfilled_, of humanity; for those\nlips were the open gates of a heart full of infinite meanings. Hence\nwhatever word he used had more of the human in it than that word had\never held before.\n\nWhat he did say was this--\"Woman, what is there common to thee and me?\nMy hour is not yet come.\" What! was not their humanity common to them?\nHad she not been fit, therefore chosen, to bear him? Was she not his\nmother? But his words had no reference to the relation between them;\nthey only referred to the present condition of her mind, or rather the\nnature of the thought and expectation which now occupied it. Her hope\nand his intent were at variance; there was no harmony between his\nthought and hers; and it was to that thought and that hope of hers that\nhis words were now addressed. To paraphrase the words--and if I do so\nwith reverence and for the sake of the spirit which is higher than the\nword, I think I am allowed to do so--\n\n\"Woman, what is there in your thoughts now that is in sympathy with\nmine? Also the hour that you are expecting is not come yet.\"\n\nWhat, then, was in our Lord's thoughts? and what was in his mother's\nthoughts to call forth his words? She was thinking the time had come for\nmaking a show of his power--for revealing what a great man he was--for\nbeginning to let that glory shine, which was, in her notion, to\nculminate in the grandeur of a righteous monarch--a second Solomon,\nforsooth, who should set down the mighty in the dust, and exalt them of\nlow degree. Here was the opportunity for working like a prophet of old,\nand revealing of what a mighty son she was the favoured mother.\n\nAnd of what did the glow of her face, the light in her eyes, and the\ntone with which she uttered the words, \"They have no wine,\" make Jesus\nthink? Perhaps of the decease which he must accomplish at Jerusalem;\nperhaps of a throne of glory betwixt the two thieves; certainly of a\nkingdom of heaven not such as filled her imagination, even although\nher heaven-descended Son was the king thereof. A kingdom of exulting\nobedience, not of acquiescence, still less of compulsion, lay germed in\nhis bosom, and he must be laid in the grave ere that germ could send\nup its first green lobes into the air of the human world. No throne,\ntherefore, of earthly grandeur for him! no triumph for his blessed\nmother such as she dreamed! There was nothing common in their visioned\nends. Hence came the change of mood to Jesus, and hence the words that\nsound at first so strange, seeming to have so little to do with the\nwords of his mother.\n\nBut no change of mood could change a feeling towards mother or friends.\nThe former, although she could ill understand what he meant, never\nfancied in his words any unkindness to her. She, too, had the face of\nthe speaker to read; and from that face came such answer to her prayer\nfor her friends, that she awaited no confirming words, but in the\nconfidence of a mother who knew her child, said at once to the servants,\n\"Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.\"\n\nIf any one object that I have here imagined too much, I would remark,\nfirst, that the records in the Gospel are very brief and condensed;\nsecond, that the germs of a true intelligence must lie in this small\nseed, and our hearts are the soil in which it must unfold itself; third,\nthat we are bound to understand the story, and that the foregoing are\nthe suppositions on which I am able to understand it in a manner worthy\nof what I have learned concerning Him. I am bound to refuse every\ninterpretation that seems to me unworthy of Him, for to accept such\nwould be to sin against the Holy Ghost. If I am wrong in my idea either\nof that which I receive or of that which I reject, as soon as the fact\nis revealed to me I must cast the one away and do justice to the other.\nMeantime this interpretation seems to me to account for our Lord's words\nin a manner he will not be displeased with even if it fail to reach\nthe mark of the fact. That St John saw, and might expect such an\ninterpretation to be found in the story, barely as he has told it, will\nbe rendered the more probable if we remember his own similar condition\nand experience when he and his brother James prayed the Lord for the\nhighest rank in his kingdom, and received an answer which evidently\nflowed from the same feeling to which I have attributed that given on\nthis occasion to his mother.\n\n\"'Fill the water-pots with water.' And they filled them up to the brim.\n'Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast.' And they bare\nit. 'Thou hast kept the good wine until now.'\" It is such a thing of\ncourse that, when our Lord gave them wine, it would be of the best, that\nit seems almost absurd to remark upon it. What the Father would make and\nwill make, and that towards which he is ever working, is _the Best;_ and\nwhen our Lord turns the water into wine it must be very good.\n\nIt is like his Father, too, not to withhold good wine because men abuse\nit. Enforced virtue is unworthy of the name. That men may rise above\ntemptation, it is needful that they should have temptation. It is the\nwill of him who makes the grapes and the wine. Men will even call Jesus\nhimself a wine-bibber. What matters it, so long as he works as the\nFather works, and lives as the Father wills?\n\nI dare not here be misunderstood. God chooses that men should be tried,\nbut let a man beware of tempting his neighbour. God knows how and how\nmuch, and where and when: man is his brother's keeper, and must keep him\naccording to his knowledge. A man may work the will of God for others,\nand be condemned therein because he sought his own will and not God's.\nThat our Lord gave this company wine, does not prove that he would have\ngiven any company wine. To some he refused even the bread they requested\nat his hands. Because he gave wine to the wedding-guests, shall man dig\na pit at the corner of every street, that the poor may fall therein,\nspending their money for that which is not bread, and their labour for\nthat which satisfieth not? Let the poor man be tempted as God wills, for\nthe end of God is victory; let not man tempt him, for his end is his\nneighbour's fall, or at best he heeds it not for the sake of gain, and\nhe shall receive according to his works.\n\nTo him who can thank God with free heart for his good wine, there is a\nglad significance in the fact that our Lord's first miracle was this\nturning of water into wine. It is a true symbol of what he has done for\nthe world in glorifying all things. With his divine alchemy he turns not\nonly water into wine, but common things into radiant mysteries, yea,\nevery meal into a eucharist, and the jaws of the sepulchre into an\noutgoing gate. I do not mean that he makes any change in the things or\nways of God, but a mighty change in the hearts and eyes of men, so that\nGod's facts and God's meanings become their faiths and their hopes. The\ndestroying spirit, who works in the commonplace, is ever covering the\ndeep and clouding the high. For those who listen to that spirit great\nthings cannot be. Such are there, but they cannot see them, for in\nthemselves they do not aspire. They believe, perhaps, in the truth and\ngrace of their first child: when they have spoiled him, they laugh\nat the praises of childhood. From all that is thus low and wretched,\nincapable and fearful, he who made the water into wine delivers men,\nrevealing heaven around them, God in all things, truth in every\ninstinct, evil withering and hope springing even in the path of the\ndestroyer.\n\nThat the wine should be his first miracle, and that the feeding of the\nmultitudes should be the only other creative miracle, will also suggest\nmany thoughts in connection with the symbol he has left us of his\nrelation to his brethren. In the wine and the bread of the eucharist, he\nreminds us how utterly he has given, is giving, himself for the gladness\nand the strength of his Father's children. Yea more; for in that he is\nthe radiation of the Father's glory, this bread and wine is the symbol\nof how utterly the Father gives himself to his children, how earnestly\nhe would have them partakers of his own being. If Jesus was the son of\nthe Father, is it hard to believe that he should give men bread and\nwine?\n\nIt was not his power, however, but his glory, that Jesus showed forth\nin the miracle. His power could not be hidden, but it was a poor thing\nbeside his glory.\n\nYea, power in itself is a poor thing. If it could stand alone, which it\ncannot, it would be a horror. No amount of lonely power could create.\nIt is the love that is at the root of power, the power of power, which\nalone can create. What then was this his glory? What was it that made\nhim glorious? It was that, like his Father, he ministered to the wants\nof men. Had they not needed the wine, not for the sake of whatever show\nof his power would he have made it. The concurrence of man's need and\nhis love made it possible for that glory to shine forth. It is for this\nglory most that we worship him. But power is no object of adoration, and\nthey who try to worship it are slaves. Their worship is no real worship.\nThose who trembled at the thunder from the mountain went and worshipped\na golden calf; but Moses went into the thick darkness to find his God.\n\nHow far the expectation of the mother Mary that her son would, by\nmajesty of might, appeal to the wedding guests, and arouse their\nenthusiasm for himself, was from our Lord's thoughts, may be well seen\nin the fact that the miracle was not beheld even by the ruler of the\nfeast; while the report of it would probably receive little credit from\nat least many of those who partook of the good wine. So quietly was it\ndone, so entirely without pre-intimation of his intent, so stolenly, as\nit were, in the two simple ordered acts, the filling of the water-pots\nwith water, and the drawing of it out again, as to make it manifest that\nit was done for the ministration. He did not do it even for the show\nof his goodness, but _to be good_. This alone could show his Father's\ngoodness. It was done because here was an opportunity in which all\ncircumstances combined with the bodily presence of the powerful and the\nprayer of his mother, to render it fit that the love of his heart should\ngo forth in giving his merry-making brothers and sisters more and better\nwine to drink.\n\nAnd herein we find another point in which this miracle of Jesus\nresembles the working of his Father. For God ministers to us so gently,\nso stolenly, as it were, with such a quiet, tender, loving absence of\ndisplay, that men often drink of his wine, as these wedding guests\ndrank, without knowing whence it comes--without thinking that the giver\nis beside them, yea, in their very hearts. For God will not compel the\nadoration of men: it would be but a pagan worship that would bring to\nhis altars. He will rouse in men a sense of need, which shall grow at\nlength into a longing; he will make them feel after him, until by their\nsearch becoming able to behold him, he may at length reveal to them the\nglory of their Father. He works silently--keeps quiet behind his works,\nas it were, that he may truly reveal himself in the right time. With\nthis intent also, when men find his wine good and yet do not rise and\nsearch for the giver, he will plague them with sore plagues, that the\ngood wine of life may not be to them, and therefore to him and the\nuniverse, an evil thing. It would seem that the correlative of creation\nis search; that as God has _made us_, we must _find_ him; that thus our\naction must reflect his; that thus he glorifies us with a share in the\nend of all things, which is that the Father and his children may be one\nin thought, judgment, feeling, and intent, in a word, that they may\nmean the same thing. St John says that Jesus thus \"manifested forth\nhis glory, and his disciples believed on him.\" I doubt if any but his\ndisciples knew of the miracle; or of those others who might see or hear\nof it, if any believed on him because of it. It is possible to see a\nmiracle, and not believe in it; while many of those who saw a miracle of\nour Lord believed in the miracle, and yet did not believe in him.\n\nI wonder how many Christians there are who so thoroughly believe God\nmade them that they can laugh in God's name; who understand that God\ninvented laughter and gave it to his children. Such belief would add a\nkeenness to the zest in their enjoyment, and slay that sneering laughter\nof which a man grimaces to the fiends, as well as that feeble laughter\nin which neither heart nor intellect has a share. It would help them\nalso to understand the depth of this miracle. The Lord of gladness\ndelights in the laughter of a merry heart. These wedding guests could\nhave done without wine, surely without more wine and better wine. But\nthe Father looks with no esteem upon a bare existence, and is ever\nworking, even by suffering, to render life more rich and plentiful.\nHis gifts are to the overflowing of the cup; but when the cup would\noverflow, he deepens its hollow, and widens its brim. Our Lord is\nprofuse like his Father, yea, will, at his own sternest cost, be lavish\nto his brethren. He will give them wine indeed. But even they who know\nwhence the good wine comes, and joyously thank the giver, shall one day\ncry out, like the praiseful ruler of the feast to him who gave it not,\n\"Thou hast kept the good wine until now.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII. THE CURE OF SIMON'S WIFE'S MOTHER.\n\n\nIn respect of the purpose I have in view, it is of little consequence in\nwhat order I take the miracles. I choose for my second chapter the story\nof the cure of St Peter's mother-in-law. Bare as the narrative is,\nthe event it records has elements which might have been moulded with\nartistic effect--on the one side the woman tossing in the folds of the\nfever, on the other the entering Life. But it is not from this side that\nI care to view it.\n\nNeither do I wish to look at it from the point of view of the\nbystanders, although it would appear that we had the testimony of three\nof them in the three Gospels which contain the story. We might almost\ndetermine the position in the group about the bed occupied by each of\nthe three, from the differences between their testimonies. One says\nJesus stood over her; another, he touched her hand; the third, he lifted\nher up: they agree that the fever left her, and she ministered to\nthem.--In the present case, as in others behind, I mean to regard the\nmiracle from the point of view of the person healed.\n\nPain, sickness, delirium, madness, as great infringements of the laws of\nnature as the miracles themselves, are such veritable presences to the\nhuman experience, that what bears no relation to their existence, cannot\nbe the God of the human race. And the man who cannot find his God in the\nfog of suffering, no less than he who forgets his God in the sunshine of\nhealth, has learned little either of St Paul or St John. The religion\nwhose light renders no dimmest glow across this evil air, cannot be more\nthan a dim reflex of the true. And who will mourn to find this out?\nThere are, perhaps, some so anxious about themselves that, rather than\nsay, \"I have it not: it is a better thing than I have ever possessed,\"\nthey would say, \"I have the precious thing, but in the hour of trial it\nis of little avail.\" Let us rejoice that the glory is great, even if we\ndare not say, It is mine. Then shall we try the more earnestly to lay\nhold upon it.\n\nSo long as men must toss in weary fancies all the dark night, crying,\n\"Would God it were morning,\" to find, it may be, when it arrives, but\nlittle comfort in the grey dawn, so long must we regard God as one to be\nseen or believed in--cried unto at least--across all the dreary flats of\ndistress or dark mountains of pain, and therefore those who would help\ntheir fellows must sometimes look for him, as it were, through the eyes\nof those who suffer, and try to help them to think, not from ours, but\nfrom their own point of vision. I shall therefore now write almost\nentirely for those to whom suffering is familiar, or at least well\nknown. And first I would remind them that all suffering is against the\nideal order of things. No man can love pain. It is an unlovely, an\nugly, abhorrent thing. The more true and delicate the bodily and mental\nconstitution, the more must it recoil from pain. No one, I think, could\ndislike pain so much as the Saviour must have disliked it. God dislikes\nit. He is then on our side in the matter. He knows it is grievous to\nbe borne, a thing he would cast out of his blessed universe, save for\nreasons.\n\nBut one will say--How can this help me when the agony racks me, and the\nweariness rests on me like a gravestone?--Is it nothing, I answer, to be\nreminded that suffering is in its nature transitory--that it is against\nthe first and final will of God--that it is a means only, not an end?\nIs it nothing to be told that it will pass away? Is not that what you\nwould? God made man for lordly skies, great sunshine, gay colours, free\nwinds, and delicate odours; and however the fogs may be needful for the\nsoul, right gladly does he send them away, and cause the dayspring from\non high to revisit his children. While they suffer he is brooding over\nthem an eternal day, suffering with them but rejoicing in their future.\nHe is the God of the individual man, or he could be no God of the race.\n\nI believe it is possible--and that some have achieved it--so to believe\nin and rest upon the immutable Health--so to regard one's own sickness\nas a kind of passing aberration, that the soul is thereby sustained,\neven as sometimes in a weary dream the man is comforted by telling\nhimself it is but a dream, and that waking is sure. God would have us\nreasonable and strong. Every effort of his children to rise above\nthe invasion of evil in body or in mind is a pleasure to him. Few, I\nsuppose, attain to this; but there is a better thing which to many, I\ntrust, is easier--to say, Thy will be done.\n\nBut now let us look at the miracle as received by the woman.\n\nShe had \"a great fever.\" She was tossing from side to side in vain\nattempts to ease a nameless misery. Her head ached, and forms dreary,\neven in their terror, kept rising before her in miserable and aimless\ndreams; senseless words went on repeating themselves ill her very brain\nwas sick of them; she was destitute, afflicted, tormented; now the\ncentre for the convergence of innumerable atoms, now driven along in an\nuproar of hideous globes; faces grinned and mocked at her; her mind\never strove to recover itself, and was ever borne away in the rush of\ninvading fancies; but through it all was the nameless unrest, not an\naching, nor a burning, nor a stinging, but a bodily grief, dark, drear,\nand nameless. How could they have borne such before He had come?\n\nA sudden ceasing of motions uncontrolled; a coolness gliding through\nthe burning skin; a sense of waking into repose; a consciousness of\nall-pervading well-being, of strength conquering weakness, of light\ndisplacing darkness, of urging life at the heart; and behold! she is\nsitting up in her bed, a hand clasping hers, a face looking in hers. He\nhas judged the evil thing, and it is gone. He has saved her out of her\ndistresses. They fold away from off her like the cerements of death. She\nis new-born--new-made--all things are new-born with her--and he who\nmakes all things new is there. From him, she knows, has the healing\nflowed. He has given of his life to her. Away, afar behind her floats\nthe cloud of her suffering. She almost forgets it in her grateful joy.\nShe is herself now. She rises. The sun is shining. It had been shining\nall the time--waiting for her. The lake of Galilee is glittering\njoyously. That too sets forth the law of life. But the fulfilling of the\nlaw is love: she rises and ministers.\n\nI am tempted to remark in passing, although I shall have better\nopportunity of dealing with the matter involved, that there is no sign\nof those whom our Lord cures desiring to retain the privileges of\nthe invalid. The joy of health is labour. He who is restored must be\nfellow-worker with God. This woman, lifted out of the whelming sand of\nthe fever and set upon her feet, hastens to her ministrations. She has\nbeen used to hard work. It is all right now; she must to it again.\n\nBut who was he who had thus lifted her up? She saw a young man by her\nside. Is it the young man, Jesus, of whom she has heard? for Capernaum\nis not far from Nazareth, and the report of his wisdom and goodness must\nhave spread, for he had grown in favour with man as well as with God. Is\nit he, to whom God has given such power, or is it John, of whom she has\nalso heard? Whether he was a prophet or a son of the prophets, whether\nhe was Jesus or John, she waits not to question; for here are guests;\nhere is something to be done. Questions will keep; work must be\ndespatched. It is the day, and the night is at hand. She rose and\nministered unto them.\n\nBut if we ask who he is, this is the answer: He is the Son of God come\nto do the works of his Father. Where, then, is the healing of the\nFather? All the world over, in every man's life and knowledge, almost\nin every man's personal experience, although it may be unrecognized\nas such. For just as in certain moods of selfishness our hearts are\ninsensible to the tenderest love of our surrounding families, so the\ndegrading spirit of the commonplace _enables_ us to live in the midst of\nministrations, so far from knowing them as such, that it is hard for us\nto believe that the very heart of God would care to do that which his\nhand alone can do and is doing every moment. I remind my reader that I\nhave taken it for granted that he confesses there is a God, or at least\nhopes there may be a God. If any one interposes, saying that science\nnowadays will not permit him to believe in such a being, I answer it\nis not for him I am now writing, but for such as have gone through a\ndifferent course of thought and experience from his. To him I may be\nhonoured to say a word some day. I do not think of him now. But to\nthe reader of my choice I do say that I see no middle course between\nbelieving that every alleviation of pain, every dawning of hope across\nthe troubled atmosphere of the spirit, every case of growing well again,\nis the doing of God, or that there is no God at all--none at least in\nwhom _I_ could believe. Had Christians been believing in God better,\nmore grandly, the present phase of unbelief, which no doubt is needful,\nand must appear some time in the world's history, would not have\nappeared in our day. No doubt it has come when it must, and will vanish\nwhen it must; but those who do believe are more to blame for it, I\nthink, than those who do not believe. The common kind of belief in God\nis rationally untenable. Half to an insensate nature, half to a living\nGod, is a worship that cannot stand. God is all in all, or no God at\nall. The man who goes to church every Sunday, and yet trembles before\nchance, is a Christian only because Christ has claimed him; is not a\nChristian as having believed in Him. I would not be hard. There are so\nmany degrees in faith! A man may be on the right track, may be learning\nof Christ, and be very poor and weak. But I say there is no _standing_\nroom, no reality of reason, between absolute faith and absolute\nunbelief. Either not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him, or there\nis no God, and we are fatherless children. Those who attempt to live in\nsuch a limbo as lies between the two, are only driven of the wind and\ntossed.\n\nHas my reader ever known the weariness of suffering, the clouding of the\ninner sky, the haunting of spectral shapes, the misery of disordered\nlaws, when nature is wrong within him, and her music is out of tune and\nharsh, when he is shot through with varied griefs and pains, and it\nseems as there were no life more in the world, save of misery--\"pain,\npain ever, for ever\"? Then, surely, he has also known the turn of the\ntide, when the pain begins to abate, when the sweet sleep falls upon\nsoul and body, when a faint hope doubtfully glimmers across the gloom!\nOr has he known the sudden waking from sleep and from fever at once, the\nconsciousness that life is life, that life is the law of things, the\ncoolness and the gladness, when the garments of pain which, like that\nfabled garment of Dejanira, enwrapped and ate into his being, have\nfolded back from head and heart, and he looks out again once more\nnew-born? It is God. This is his will, his law of life conquering the\nlaw of death Tell me not of natural laws, as if I were ignorant of them,\nor meant to deny them. The question is whether these laws go wheeling\non of themselves in a symmetry of mathematical shapes, or whether\ntheir perfect order, their unbroken certainty of movement, is not the\nexpression of a perfect intellect informed by a perfect heart. Law is\ntruth: has it a soul of thought, or has it not? If not, then farewell\nhope and love and possible perfection. But for me, I will hope on,\nstrive on, fight with the invading unbelief; for the horror of being the\nsport of insensate law, the more perfect the more terrible, is hell and\nutter perdition. If a man tells me that science says God is not a likely\nbeing, I answer, Probably not--such as you, who have given your keen,\nadmirable, enviable powers to the observation of outer things only, are\ncapable of supposing him; but that the God I mean may not be the very\nheart of the lovely order you see so much better than I, you have given\nme no reason to fear. My God may be above and beyond and in all that.\n\nIn this matter of healing, then, as in all the miracles, we find Jesus\ndoing the works of the Father. God is our Saviour: the Son of God comes\nhealing the sick--doing that, I repeat, before our eyes, which the\nFather, for his own reasons, some of which I think I can see well\nenough, does from behind the veil of his creation and its laws. The cure\ncomes by law, comes by the physician who brings the law to bear upon us;\nwe awake, and lo! I it is God the Saviour. Every recovery is as much his\nwork as the birth of a child; as much the work of the Father as if\nit had been wrought by the word of the Son before the eyes of the\nmultitude.\n\nNeed I, to combat again the vulgar notion that the essence of the\nmiracles lies in their power, dwell upon this miracle further? Surely,\nno one who honours the Saviour will for a moment imagine him, as he\nentered the chamber where the woman lay tormented, saying to himself,\n\"Here is an opportunity of showing how mighty my Father is!\" No. There\nwas suffering; here was healing. What I could imagine him saying to\nhimself would be, \"Here I can help! Here my Father will let me put forth\nmy healing, and give her back to her people.\" What should we think of a\nrich man, who, suddenly brought into contact with the starving upon his\nown estate, should think within himself, \"Here is a chance for me! Now I\ncan let them see how rich I am!\" and so plunge his hands in his pockets\nand lay gold upon the bare table? The receivers might well be grateful;\nbut the arm of the poor neighbour put under the head of the dying man,\nwould gather a deeper gratitude, a return of tenderer love. It is heart\nalone that can satisfy heart. It is the love of God alone that can\ngather to itself the love of his children. To believe in an almighty\nbeing is hardly to believe in a God at all. To believe in a being\nwho, in his weakness and poverty, if such could be, would die for his\ncreatures, would be to believe in a God indeed.\n\n\n\n\nIV. MIRACLES OF HEALING UNSOLICITED.\n\n\nIn my last chapter I took the healing of Simon's wife's mother as a\ntype of all such miracles, viewed from the consciousness of the person\nhealed. In the multitude of cases--for it must not be forgotten that\nthere was a multitude of which we have no individual record--the\nexperience must have been very similar. The evil thing, the antagonist\nof their life, departed; they knew in themselves that they were healed;\nthey beheld before them the face and form whence the healing power had\ngone forth, and they believed in the man. What they believed _about_\nhim, farther than that he had healed them and was good, I cannot pretend\nto say. Some said he was one thing, some another, but they believed in\nthe man himself. They felt henceforth the strongest of ties binding his\nlife to their life. He was now the central thought of their being. Their\nminds lay open to all his influences, operating in time and by holy\ngradations. The well of life was henceforth to them an unsealed\nfountain, and endless currents of essential life began to flow from it\nthrough their existence. High love urging gratitude awoke the conscience\nto intenser life; and the healed began to recoil from evil deeds and\nvile thoughts as jarring with the new friendship. Mere acquaintance with\na good man is a powerful antidote to evil; but the knowledge of _such_\na man, as those healed by him knew him, was the mightiest of divine\ninfluences.\n\nIn these miracles of healing our Lord must have laid one of the largest\nof the foundation-stones of his church. The healed knew him henceforth,\nnot by comprehension, but with their whole being. Their very life\nacknowledged him. They returned to their homes to recall and love\nafresh. I wonder what their talk about him was like. What an insight\nit would give into our common nature, to know how these men and women\nthought and spoke concerning him! But the time soon arrived when they\nhad to be public martyrs--that is, witnesses to what they knew, come of\nit what might. After our Lord's departure came the necessity for those\nwho loved him to gather together, thus bearing their testimony at once.\nNext to his immediate disciples, those whom he had cured must have been\nthe very heart of the young church. Imagine the living strength of such\na heart--personal love to the personal helper the very core of it. The\nchurch had begun with the first gush of affection in the heart of the\nmother Mary, and now \"great was the company of those that published\" the\ngood news to the world. The works of the Father had drawn the hearts of\nthe children, and they spake of the Elder Brother who had brought those\nworks to their doors. The thoughtful remembrances of those who had heard\nhim speak; the grateful convictions of those whom he had healed;\nthe tender memories of those whom he had taken in his arms and\nblessed--these were the fine fibrous multitudinous roots which were to\nthe church existence, growth, and continuance, for these were they which\nsucked in the dews and rains of that descending Spirit which was the\nlife of the tree. Individual life is the life of the church.\n\nBut one may say: Why then did he not cure all the sick in Jud\u00e6a? Simply\nbecause all were not ready to be cured. Many would not have believed in\nhim if he had cured them. Their illness had not yet wrought its work,\nhad not yet ripened them to the possibility of faith; his cure would\nhave left them deeper in evil than before. \"He did not many mighty works\nthere because of their unbelief.\" God will cure a man, will give him a\nfresh start of health and hope, and the man will be the better for it,\neven without having _yet_ learned to thank him; but to behold the healer\nand acknowledge the outstretched hand of help, yet not to believe in the\nhealer, is a terrible thing for the man; and I think the Lord kept his\npersonal healing for such as it would bring at once into some relation\nof heart and will with himself; whence arose his frequent demand of\nfaith--a demand apparently always responded to: at the word, the\nflickering belief, the smoking flax, burst into a flame. Evil, that is,\nphysical evil, is a moral good--a mighty means to a lofty end. Pain is\nan evil; but a good as well, which it would be a great injury to take\nfrom the man before it had wrought its end. Then it becomes all evil,\nand must pass.\n\nI now proceed to a group of individual cases in which, as far as we\ncan judge from the narratives, our Lord gave the gift of restoration\nunsolicited. There are other instances of the same, but they fall into\nother groups, gathered because of other features.\n\nThe first is that, recorded by St Luke alone, of the \"woman which had a\nspirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in\nno wise lift up herself.\" It may be that this belongs to the class of\ndemoniacal possession as well, but I prefer to take it here; for I am\nvery doubtful whether the expression in the narrative--\"a spirit of\ninfirmity,\" even coupled with that of our Lord in defending her and\nhimself from the hypocritical attack of the ruler of the synagogue,\n\"this woman--whom Satan hath bound,\" renders it necessary to regard\nit as one of the latter kind. This is, however, a matter of small\nimportance--at least from our present point of view.\n\nBowed earthwards, the necessary blank of her eye the ground and not\nthe horizon, the form divine deformed towards that of the four-footed\nanimals, this woman had been in bondage eighteen years. Necessary as it\nis to one's faith to believe every trouble fitted for the being who has\nto bear it, every physical evil not merely the result of moral evil, but\nantidotal thereto, no one ought to dare judge of the relation between\nmoral condition and physical suffering in individual cases. Our Lord has\nwarned us from that. But in proportion as love and truth prevail in\nthe hearts of men, physical evil will vanish from the earth. The\nrighteousness of his descendants will destroy the disease which the\nunrighteousness of their ancestor has transmitted to them. But, I\nrepeat, to destroy this physical evil save by the destruction of its\ncause, by the redemption of the human nature from moral evil, would be\nto ruin the world. What in this woman it was that made it right she\nshould bear these bonds for eighteen years, who can tell? Certainly it\nwas not that God had forgotten her. What it may have preserved her\nfrom, one may perhaps conjecture, but can hardly have a right to utter.\nNeither can we tell how she had borne the sad affliction; whether in the\nlovely patience common amongst the daughters of affliction, or with\nthe natural repining of one made to behold the sun, and doomed ever to\nregard the ground upon which she trod. While patience would have its\nglorious reward in the cure, it is possible that even the repinings\nof prideful pain might be destroyed by the grand deliverance, that\ngratitude might beget sorrow for vanished impatience. Anyhow the right\nhour had come when the darkness must fly away.\n\nSupported, I presume, by the staff which yet more assimilated her to the\nlower animals, she had crept to the synagogue--a good sign surely, for\nthe synagogue was not its ruler. There is no appearance from the story,\nthat she had come there to seek Jesus, or even that when in his presence\nshe saw him before the word of her deliverance had gone forth. Most\nlikely, being bowed together, she heard him before she saw him.\n\nBut he saw her. Our translation says he called her to him. I do not\nthink this is correct. I think the word, although it might mean that,\ndoes mean simply that he _addressed her_. Going to her, I think, and\nsaying, \"Woman, thou art loosed from thy infirmity,\" \"he laid his hands\non her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.\" What\nan uplifting!--a type of all that God works in his human beings.\nThe head, down-bent with sin, care, sorrow, pain, is uplifted; the\ngrovelling will sends its gaze heavenward; the earth is no more the\none object of the aspiring spirit; we lift our eyes to God; we bend no\nlonger even to his will, but raise ourselves up towards his will, for\nhis will has become our will, and that will is our sanctification.\n\nAlthough the woman did not beg the Son to cure her, she may have prayed\nthe Father much. Anyhow proof that she was ready for the miracle is not\nwanting. She glorified God. It is enough. She not merely thanked the man\nwho had wrought the cure, for of this we cannot doubt; but she glorified\nthe known Saviour, God, from whom cometh down every good gift and every\nperfect gift.\n\nShe had her share in the miracle I think too, as, in his perfect bounty,\nGod gives a share to every one in what work He does for him. I mean,\nthat, with the given power, _she_ had to _lift herself_ up. Such active\nfaith is the needful response in order that a man may be a child of God,\nand not the mere instrument upon which his power plays a soulless tune.\n\nIn this preventing of prayer, in this answering before the call, in this\nbringing of the blessing to the door, according to which I have grouped\nthis with the following miracles, Jesus did as his Father is doing\nevery day. He was doing the works of his Father. If men had no help, no\ndeliverance from the ills which come upon them, even those which they\nbring upon themselves, except such as came at their cry; if no salvation\ndescended from God, except such as they prayed for, where would the\nworld be? in what case would the generations of men find themselves? But\nthe help of God is ever coming, ever setting them free whom Satan hath\nbound; ever giving them a fresh occasion and a fresh impulse to glorify\nthe God of their salvation. For with every such recovery the child in\nthe man is new-born--for some precious moments at least; a gentleness of\nspirit, a wonder at the world, a sense of the blessedness of being, an\nopenness to calm yet rousing influences, appear in the man. These are\nthe descending angels of God. The passion that had blotted out the child\nwill revive; the strife of the world will renew wrath and hate; ambition\nand greed will blot out the beauty of the earth; envy of others will\nblind the man to his own blessedness; and self-conceit will revive in\nhim all those prejudices whose very strength lies in his weakness; but\nthe man has had a glimpse of the peace to gain which he must fight with\nhimself; he has for one moment felt what he might be if he trusted in\nGod; and the memory of it may return in the hour of temptation. As\nthe commonest things in nature are the most lovely, so the commonest\nagencies in humanity are the most powerful. Sickness and recovery\ntherefrom have a larger share in the divine order of things for the\ndeliverance of men than can show itself to the keenest eyes. Isolated\nin individuals, the facts are unknown; or, slow and obscure in their\noperation, are forgotten by the time their effects appear. Many things\ncombine to render an enlarged view of the moral influences of sickness\nand recovery impossible. The kingdom cometh not with observation, and\nthe working of the leaven of its approach must be chiefly unseen. Like\nthe creative energy itself, it works \"in secret shadow, far from all\nmen's sight.\"\n\nThe teaching of our Lord which immediately follows concerning the small\nbeginnings of his kingdom, symbolized in the grain of mustard seed and\nthe leaven, may, I think, have immediate reference to the cure of this\nwoman, and show that he regarded her glorifying of God for her recovery\nas one of those beginnings of a mighty growth. We do find the same\nsimiles in a different connection in St Matthew and St Mark; but even if\nwe had no instances of fact, it would be rational to suppose that the\nLord, in the varieties of place, audience, and occasion, in the dullness\nlikewise of his disciples, and the perfection of the similes he chose,\nwould again and again make use of the same.\n\nI now come to the second miracle of the group, namely that, recorded\nby all the Evangelists except St John, of the cure of the man with the\nwithered hand. This, like the preceding, was done in the synagogue. And\nI may remark, in passing, that all of this group, with the exception of\nthe last--one of very peculiar circumstance--were performed upon the\nSabbath, and each gave rise to discussion concerning the lawfulness of\nthe deed. St Mark says they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal\nthe man on the Sabbath-day; St Luke adds that he knew their thoughts,\nand therefore met them with the question of its lawfulness; St Matthew\nsays they challenged him to the deed Joy asking him whether it was\nlawful. The mere watching could hardly have taken place without the\nman's perceiving something in motion which had to do with him. But there\nis no indication of a request.\n\nThere cannot surely be many who have reached half the average life of\nman without at some time having felt the body a burden in some way, and\nregarded a possible deliverance from it as an enfranchisement. If the\nspirit of man were fulfilled of the Spirit of God, the body would simply\nbe a living house, an obedient servant--yes, a humble mediator, by the\nsenses, between his thoughts and God's thoughts; but when every breath\nhas, as it were, to be sent for and brought hither with much labour\nand small consolation--when pain turns faith into a mere shadow of\nhope--when the withered limb hangs irresponsive, lost and cumbersome, an\ninert simulacrum of power, swinging lifeless to and fro;--then even the\nphysical man understands his share in the groaning of the creation after\nthe sonship. When, at a word issuing from such a mouth as that of Jesus\nof Nazareth, the poor, withered, distorted, contemptible hand obeyed\nand, responsive to the spirit within, spread forth its fingers, filled\nwith its old human might, became capable once more of the grasp of\nfriendship, of the caress of love, of the labour for the bread that\nsustains the life, little would the man care that other men--even rulers\nof synagogues, even Scribes and Pharisees, should question the rectitude\nof him who had healed him. The power which restored the gift of God and\ncompleted humanity, must be of God. Argument upon argument might follow\nfrom old books and old customs and learned interpretations, wherein man\nset forth the will of God as different from the laws of his world, but\nthe man whose hand was restored whole as the other, knew it fitting that\nhis hands should match. They might talk; he would thank God for the\ncrooked made straight. Bewilder his judgment they might with their\nglosses upon commandment and observance; but they could not keep his\nheart from gladness; and, being glad, whom should he praise but God? If\nthere was another giver of good things he knew nothing of him. The hand\nwas now as God had meant it to be. Nor could he behold the face of\nJesus, and doubt that such a man would do only that which was right. It\nwas not Satan, but God that had set him free.\n\nHere, plainly by the record, our Lord gave the man his share, not of\nmere acquiescence, but of active will, in the miracle. If man is the\nchild of God, he must have a share in the works of the Father. Without\nsuch share in the work as faith gives, cure will be of little avail.\n\"Stretch forth thine hand,\" said the Healer; and the man made the\neffort; and the withered hand obeyed, and was no more withered. _In_ the\nact came the cure, without which the act had been confined to the will,\nand had never taken form in the outstretching. It is the same in all\nspiritual redemption.\n\nThink for a moment with what delight the man would employ his new hand.\nThis right hand would henceforth be God's hand. But was not the other\nhand God's too?--God's as much as this? Had not the power of God been\nalways present in that left hand, whose unwithered life had ministered\nto him all these years? Was it not the life of God that inspired\nhis whole frame? By the loss and restoration in one part, he would\nunderstand possession in the whole.\n\nBut as the withered and restored limb to the man, so is the maimed and\nhealed man to his brethren. In every man the power by which he does the\ncommonest things is the power of God. The power is not _of us_. Our\npower does it; but we do not make the power. This, plain as it is,\nremains, however, the hardest lesson for a man to learn with conviction\nand thanksgiving. For God has, as it were, put us just so far away\nfrom Him that we can exercise the divine thing in us, our own will, in\nreturning towards our source. Then we shall learn the fact that we are\ninfinitely more great and blessed in being the outcome of a perfect\nself-constituting will, than we could be by the conversion of any\nimagined independence of origin into fact for us--a truth no man _can_\nunderstand, feel, or truly acknowledge, save in proportion as he has\nbecome one with his perfect origin, the will of God. While opposition\nexists between the thing made and the maker, there can be but discord\nand confusion in the judgment of the creature. No true felicitous vision\nof the facts of the relation between his God and him; no perception of\nthe mighty liberty constituted by the holy dependence wherein the will\nof God is the absolutely free choice of the man; no perception of a\nunity such as cannot exist between independent wills, but only in\nunspeakable love and tenderness between the causing Will and the caused\nwill, can yet have place. Those who cannot see how the human will should\nbe free in dependence upon the will of God, have not realized that the\nwill of God made the will of man; that, when most it pants for freedom,\nthe will of man is the child of the will of God, and therefore that\nthere can be no natural opposition or strife between them. Nay, more,\nthe whole labour of God is that the will of man should be free as his\nwill is free--in the same way that his will is free--by the perfect love\nof the man for that which is true, harmonious, lawful, creative. If a\nman say, \"But might not the will of God make my will with the intent of\nover-riding and enslaving it?\" I answer, such a Will could not create,\ncould not be God, for it involves the false and contrarious. That would\nbe to make a will in order that it might be no will. To create in order\nto uncreate is something else than divine. But a free will is not the\nliberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one\nsees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming\nimpulse. There lies freedom indeed.\n\nI come now to the case of the man who had been paralysed for\neight-and-thirty years. There is great pathos in the story. For many,\nat least, of these years, the man had haunted the borders of legendary\nmagic, for I regard the statement about the angel troubling the pool as\nonly the expression of a current superstition. Oh, how different from\nthe healing of our Lord! What he had to bestow was free to all. The cure\nof no man by his hand weakened that hand for the cure of the rest. None\nwere poorer that one was made rich. But this legend of the troubling\nof the pool fostered the evil passion of emulation, and that in a most\nselfish kind. Nowhere in the divine arrangements is my gain another's\nloss. If it be said that this was the mode in which God determined which\nwas to be healed, I answer that the effort necessary was contrary to all\nwe admire most in humanity. According to this rule, Sir Philip Sidney\nought to have drunk the water which he handed to the soldier instead.\nDoes the doctrine of Christ, and by that I insist we must interpret the\nways of God, countenance a man's hurrying to be before the rest, and\ngain the boon in virtue t of having the least need of it, inasmuch as\nhe was the ablest to run and plunge first into the eddies left by the\nfantastic angel? Or if the triumph were to be gained by the help of\nfriends, surely he was in most need of the cure who like this man--a man\nsuch as we hope there are few--had no friends either to plunge him\nin the waters of fabled hope, or to comfort him in the seasons of\ndisappointment which alone divided the weary months of a life passed in\nempty expectation.\n\nBut the Master comes near. In him the power of life rests as in \"its own\ncalm home, its crystal shrine,\" and he that believeth in him shall not\nneed to make haste. He knew it was time this man should be healed, and\ndid not wait to be asked. Indeed the man did not know him; did not even\nknow his name. \"Wilt thou be made whole?\" \"Sir, I have no man, when\nthe water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming,\nanother steppeth down before me.\" \"Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.\"\n\nOur Lord delays the cure in this case with no further speech. The man\nknows nothing about him, and he makes no demand upon his faith, except\nthat of obedience. He gives him something to do at once. He will find\nhim again by and by. The man obeys, takes up his bed, and walks.\n\nHe sets an open path before us; _we_ must walk in it. More, we must be\nwilling to believe that the path is open, that we have strength to walk\nin it. God's gift glides into man's choice. It is needful that we should\nfollow with our effort in the track of his foregoing power. To refuse is\nto destroy the gift. His cure is not for such as choose to be invalids.\nThey must be willing to be made whole, even if it should involve the\ncarrying of their beds and walking. Some keep in bed who have strength\nenough to get up and walk. There is a self-care and a self-pity, a\nlaziness and conceit of incapacity, which are as unhealing for the body\nas they are unhealthy in the mind, corrupting all dignity and destroying\nall sympathy. Who but invalids need like miracles wrought in them? Yet\nsome invalids are not cured because they will not be healed. They will\nnot stretch out the hand; they will not rise; they will not walk; above\nall things, they will not work. Yet for their illness it may be that\nthe work so detested is the only cure, or if no cure yet the best\namelioration. Labour is not in itself an evil like the sickness, but\noften a divine, a blissful remedy. Nor is the duty or the advantage\nconfined to those who ought to labour for their own support. No amount\nof wealth sets one free from the obligation to work--in a world the God\nof which is ever working. He who works not has not yet discovered what\nGod made him for, and is a false note in the orchestra of the universe.\nThe possession of wealth is as it were pre-payment, and involves an\nobligation of honour to the doing of correspondent work. He who does not\nknow what to do has never seriously asked himself what he ought to do.\n\nBut there is a class of persons, the very opposite of these, who, as\nextremes meet, fall into a similar fault. They will not be healed\neither. They will not take the repose in which God giveth to his\nbeloved. Some sicknesses are to be cured with rest, others with labour.\n\nThe right way is all--to meet the sickness as God would have it met, to\nsubmit or to resist according to the conditions of cure. Whatsoever is\nnot of faith is sin; and she who will not go to her couch and rest in\nthe Lord, is to blame even as she who will not rise and go to her work.\n\nThere is reason to suppose that this man had brought his infirmity upon\nhimself--I do not mean by the mere neglect of physical laws, but by the\ndoing of what he knew to be wrong. For the Lord, although he allowed\nthe gladness of the deliverance full sway at first, when he found him\nafterwards did not leave him without the lesson that all health and\nwell-being depend upon purity of life: \"Behold, thou art made whole:\nsin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee.\" It is the only case of\nrecorded cure in which Jesus gives a warning of the kind. Therefore I\nthink the probability is as I have stated it. Hence, the fact that we\nmay be ourselves to blame for our sufferings is no reason why we should\nnot go to God to deliver us from them. David the king knew this, and set\nit forth in that grand poem, the 107th Psalm.\n\nIn the very next case we find that Jesus will not admit the cause of the\nman's condition, blindness from his birth, to be the sin either of the\nman himself, or of his parents. The probability seems, to judge from\ntheir behaviour in the persecution that followed, that both the man and\nhis parents were people of character, thought, and honourable prudence.\nHe was born blind, Jesus said, \"that the works of God should be made\nmanifest in him.\" What works, then? The work of creation for one, rather\nthan the work of healing. The man had suffered nothing in being born\nblind. God had made him only not so blessed as his fellows, with\nthe intent of giving him equal faculty and even greater enjoyment\nafterwards, with the honour of being employed for the revelation of his\nworks to men. In him Jesus created sight before men's eyes. For, as at\nthe first God said, \"Let there be light,\" so the work of God is still\nto give light to the world, and Jesus must work his work, and _be_ the\nlight of the world--light in all its degrees and kinds, reaching into\nevery corner where work may be done, arousing sleepy hearts, and opening\nblind eyes.\n\nJesus saw the man, the disciples asked their question, and he had no\nsooner answered it, than \"he spat on the ground, made clay of the\nspittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.\"--Why\nthis mediating clay? Why the spittle and the touch?--Because the man\nwho could not see him must yet be brought into sensible contact with\nhim--must know that the healing came from the man who touched him. Our\nLord took pains about it because the man was blind. And for the man's\nshare in the miracle, having blinded him a second time as it were with\nclay, he sends him to the pool to wash it away: clay and blindness\nshould depart together by the act of the man's faith. It was as if the\nLord said, \"I blinded thee: now, go and see.\" Here, then, are the links\nof the chain by which the Lord bound the man to himself. The voice, if\nheard by the man, which defended him and his parents from the judgment\nof his disciples; the assertion that he was the light of the world--a\nsomething which others had and the blind man only knew as not possessed\nby him; the sound of the spitting on the ground; the touch of the\nspeaker's fingers; the clay on his eyes; the command to wash; the\njourney to the pool; the laving water; the astonished sight. \"He went\nhis way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing.\"\n\nBut who can imagine, save in a conception only less dim than the man's\nblindness, the glory which burst upon him when, as the restoring clay\nleft his eyes, the light of the world invaded his astonished soul? The\nvery idea may well make one tremble. Blackness of darkness--not an\ninvading stranger, but the home-companion always there--the negation\nnever understood because the assertion was unknown--creation not erased\nand treasured in the memory, but to his eyes uncreated!--Blackness of\ndarkness!.... The glory of the celestial blue! The towers of the\ngreat Jerusalem dwelling in the awful space! The room! The life! The\ntenfold-glorified being! Any wonder might follow on such a wonder. And\nthe whole vision was as fresh as if he had that moment been created, the\nfirst of men.\n\nBut the best remained behind. A man had said, \"I am the light of the\nworld,\" and lo! here was the light of the world. The words had been\nvague as a dark form in darkness, but now the thing itself had invaded\nhis innermost soul. But the face of the man who was this light of the\nworld he had not seen. The creator of his vision he had not yet beheld.\nBut he believed in him, for he defended him from the same charge of\nwickedness from which Jesus had defended him. \"Give God the praise,\"\nthey said; \"we know that this man is a sinner.\" \"God heareth not\nsinners,\" he replied; \"and this man hath opened my eyes.\" It is no\nwonder that when Jesus found him and asked him, \"Dost thou believe on\nthe Son of God?\" he should reply, \"Who is he, Lord, that I might believe\non him?\" He was ready. He had only to know which was he, that he might\nworship him. Here at length was the Light of the world before him--the\nman who had said, \"I am the light of the world,\" and straightway the\nworld burst upon him in light! Would this man ever need further proof\nthat there was indeed a God of men? I suspect he had a grander idea\nof the Son of God than any of his disciples as yet. The would-be\nrefutations of experience, for \"since the world began was it not heard\nthat any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind;\" the objections\nof the religious authorities, \"This man is not of God, because he\nkeepeth not the Sabbath day;\" endless possible perplexities of the\nunderstanding, and questions of the _how_ and the _why_, could never\ntouch that man to the shaking of his confidence: \"One thing I know, that\nwhereas I was blind, now I see.\" The man could not convince the Jews\nthat Jesus must be a good man; neither could he doubt it himself, whose\nvery being, body and soul and spirit, had been enlightened and glorified\nby him. With light in the eyes, in the brain, in the heart, light\npermeating and unifying his physical and moral nature, asserting itself\nin showing the man to himself one whole--how could he doubt!\n\nThe miracles were for the persons on whom they passed. To the spectators\nthey were something, it is true; but they were of unspeakable value to,\nand of endless influence upon their subjects. The true mode in which\nthey reached others was through the healed themselves. And the testimony\nof their lives would go far beyond the testimony of their tongues. Their\ntongues could but witness to a fact; their lives could witness to a\ntruth.\n\nIn this miracle as in all the rest, Jesus did in little the great work\nof the Father; for how many more are they to whom God has given the\nmarvel of vision than those blind whom the Lord enlightened! The remark\nwill sound feeble and far-fetched to the man whose familiar spirit is\nthat Mephistopheles of the commonplace. He who uses his vision only\nfor the care of his body or the indulgence of his mind--how should he\nunderstand the gift of God in its marvel? But the man upon whose soul\nthe grandeur and glory of the heavens and the earth and the sea and\nthe fountains of waters have once arisen will understand what a divine\n_invention_, what a mighty gift of God is this very common thing--these\neyes to see with--that light which enlightens the world, this sight\nwhich is the result of both. He will understand what a believer the man\nborn blind must have become, yea, how the mighty inburst of splendour\nmight render him so capable of believing that nothing should be too\ngrand and good for him to believe thereafter--not even the doctrine\nhardest to commonplace humanity, though the most natural and reasonable\nto those who have beheld it--that the God of the light is a faithful,\nloving, upright, honest, and self-denying being, yea utterly devoted to\nthe uttermost good of those whom he has made.\n\nSuch is the Father of lights who enlightens the world and every man that\ncometh into it. Every pulsation of light on every brain is from him.\nEvery feeling of law and order is from him. Every hint of right, every\ndesire after the true, whatever we call aspiration, all longing for the\nlight, every perception that this is true, that that ought to be done,\nis from the Father of lights. His infinite and varied light gathered\ninto one point--for how shall we speak at all of these things if we do\nnot speak in figures?--concentrated and embodied in Jesus, became _the_\nlight of the world. For the light is no longer only diffused, but in him\nman \"beholds the light _and whence it flows_.\" Not merely is our chamber\nenlightened, but we see the lamp. And so we turn again to God, the\nFather of lights, yea even of The Light of the World. Henceforth we know\nthat all the light wherever diffused has its centre in God, as the light\nthat enlightened the blind man flowed from its centre in Jesus. In other\nwords, we have a glimmering, faint, human perception of the absolute\nglory. We know what God is in recognizing him as our God.\n\nJesus did the works of the Father.\n\nThe next miracle--recorded by St Luke alone--is the cure of the man with\nthe dropsy, wrought also upon the Sabbath, but in the house of one\nof the chief of the Pharisees. Thither our Lord had gone to an\nentertainment, apparently large, for the following parable is spoken \"to\nthose which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief\nrooms.\"\n\n[Footnote: 1. Not _rooms_, but _reclining places_ at the table.] Hence\nthe possibility at least is suggested, that the man was one of the\nguests. No doubt their houses were more accessible than ours, and it\nwas not difficult for one uninvited to make his way in, especially upon\noccasion of such a gathering. But I think the word translated _before\nhim_ means _opposite to him_ at the table; and that the man was not too\nill to appear as a guest. The \"took him and healed him and let him go,\"\nof our translation, is against the notion rather, but merely from its\nindefiniteness being capable of meaning that he sent him away; but such\nis not the meaning of the original. That merely implies that he _took\nhim_, went to him and laid his hands upon him, thus connecting the cure\nwith himself, and then released him, set him free, took his hands off\nhim, turning at once to the other guests and justifying himself by\nappealing to their own righteous conduct towards the ass and the ox. I\nthink the man remained reclining at the table, to enjoy the appetite of\nhealth at a good meal; if, indeed, the gladness of the relieved breath,\nthe sense of lightness and strength, the consciousness of a restored\nobedience of body, not to speak of the presence of him who had cured\nhim, did not make him too happy to care about his dinner. I come now to\nthe last of the group, exceptional in its nature, inasmuch as it was\nnot the curing of a disease or natural defect, but the reparation of an\ninjury, or hurt at least, inflicted by one of his own followers. This\nmiracle also is recorded by St Luke alone. The other evangelists relate\nthe occasion of the miracle, but not the miracle itself; they record the\nblow, but not the touch. I shall not, therefore, compare their accounts,\nwhich have considerable variety, but no inconsistency. I shall confine\nmyself to the story as told by St Luke. Peter, intending, doubtless, to\ncleave the head of a servant of the high priest who had come out to take\nJesus, with unaccustomed hand, probably trembling with rage and perhaps\nwith fear, missed his well-meant aim, and only cut off the man's ear.\nJesus said, \"Suffer ye thus far.\" I think the words should have a point\nof interrogation after them, to mean, \"Is it thus far ye suffer?\" \"Is\nthis the limit of your patience?\" but I do not know. With the words, \"he\ntouched his ear and healed him.\" Hardly had the wound reached the true\nsting of its pain, before the gentle hand of him whom the servant had\ncome to drag to the torture, dismissed the agony as if it had never\nbeen. Whether he restored the ear, or left the loss of it for a reminder\nto the man of the part he had taken against his Lord, and the return the\nLord had made him, we do not know. Neither do we know whether he turned\nback ashamed and contrite, now that in his own person he had felt the\nlife that dwelt in Jesus, or followed out the capture to the end.\nPossibly the blow of Peter was the form which the favour of God took,\npreparing the way, like the blindness from the birth, for the glory that\nwas to be manifested in him. But the Lord would countenance no violence\ndone in his defence. They might do to him as they would. If his Father\nwould not defend him, neither would he defend himself.\n\nWithin sight of the fearful death that awaited him, his heart was no\nwhit hardened to the pain of another. Neither did it make any difference\nthat it was the pain of an enemy--even an enemy who was taking him to\nthe cross. There was suffering; here was healing. He came to do the\nworks of him that sent him. He did good to them that hated him, for his\nFather is the Saviour of men, saving \"them out of their distresses.\"\n\n\n\n\nV. MIRACLES OF HEALING SOLICITED BY THE SUFFERERS.\n\n\nI come now to the second group of miracles, those granted to the\nprayers of the sufferers. But before I make any general remarks on the\nspeciality of these, I must speak of one case which appears to lie\nbetween the preceding group and this. It is that of the woman who came\nbehind Jesus in the crowd; and involves peculiar difficulties, in\nconnection with the facts which render its classification uncertain.\n\nAt Capernaum, apparently, our Lord was upon his way with Jairus to visit\nhis daughter, accompanied by a crowd of people who had heard the request\nof the ruler of the synagogue. A woman who had been ill for twelve\nyears, came behind him and touched the hem of his garment. This we may\nregard as a prayer in so far as she came to him, saying \"within herself,\nIf I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole.\" But, on the other\nhand, it was no true prayer in as far as she expected to be healed\nwithout the knowledge and will of the healer. Although she came to him,\nshe did not ask him to heal her. She thought with innocent theft to\nsteal from him a cure.\n\nWhat follows according to St Matthew's account, occasions me no\ndifficulty. He does not say that the woman was cured by the touch; he\nsays nothing of her cure until Jesus had turned and seen her, and spoken\nthe word to her, whereupon he adds: \"And the woman was made whole from\nthat hour.\" But St Mark and St Luke represent that the woman was cured\nupon the touch, and that the cure was only confirmed afterwards by the\nwords of our Lord. They likewise represent Jesus as ignorant of what had\ntaken place, except in so far as he knew that, without his volition,\nsome cure had been wrought by contact with his person, of which he was\naware by the passing from him of a saving influence. By this, in the\nheart of a crowd which pressed upon him so that many must have come into\nbodily contact with him, he knew that some one had touched him with\nspecial intent. No perplexity arises from the difference between the\naccounts, for there is only difference, not incongruity: the two tell\nmore than the one; it is from the nature of the added circumstances that\nit springs, for those circumstances necessarily involve inquiries of the\nmost difficult nature. Nor can I in the least pretend to have satisfied\nmyself concerning them. In the first place comes the mode of the cure,\nwhich _seems_ at first sight (dissociated, observe, from the will of\nthe healer) to partake of the nature of magic--an influence without\na sufficient origin. Not for a moment would I therefore yield to an\ninclination to reject the testimony. I have no right to do so, for\nit deals with circumstances concerning which my ignorance is all but\ncomplete. I cannot rest, however, without seeking to come into some\nspiritual relation with the narrative, that is, to find some credible\nsupposition upon which, without derogating from the lustre of the object\nof the whole history, the thing might take place. The difficulty, I\nrepeat, is, that the woman could be cured by the garment of Jesus,\nwithout (not against) the will of Jesus. I think that the whole\ndifficulty arises from our ignorance--a helpless ignorance--of the\nrelations of thought and matter. I use the word _thought_ rather than\nspirit, because in reflecting upon spirit (which is thought), people\ngenerally represent to themselves a vague form of matter. All religion\nis founded on the belief or instinct--call it what we will--that matter\nis the result of mind, spirit, thought. The relation between them is\ntherefore simply too close, too near for us to understand. Here is what\nI am able to suggest concerning the account of the miracle as given by\nSt Mark and St Luke.\n\nIf even in what we call inanimate things there lies a healing power in\nvarious kinds; if, as is not absurd, there may lie in the world absolute\ncure existing in analysis, that is parted into a thousand kinds and\nforms, who can tell what cure may lie in a perfect body, informed, yea,\ncaused, by a perfect spirit? If stones and plants can heal by the will\nof God in them, might there not dwell in the perfect health of a body,\nin which dwelt the Son of God, a necessarily healing power? It may seem\nthat in the fact of the many crowding about him, concerning whom we\nhave no testimony of influence received, there lies a refutation of\nhis supposition. But who can tell what he may have done even for them\nwithout their recognizing it save in conscious well-being? Besides,\nthose who crowded nearest him would mostly be of the strongest who were\nleast in need of a physician, and in whose being consequently there lay\nnot that bare open channel hungering for the precious life-current. And\nwho can tell how the faith of the heart, calming or arousing the whole\nnature, may have rendered the very person of the woman more fit than\nthe persons of others in the crowd to receive the sacred influence? For\nalthough she did not pray, she had the faith as alive though as small as\nthe mustard seed. Why might not health from the fountain of health flow\nthen into the empty channel of the woman's weakness? It may have been\nso. I shrink from the subject, I confess, because of the vulgar forms\nsuch speculations have assumed in our days, especially in the hands of\nthose who savour unspeakably more of the charlatan than the prophet.\nStill, one must be honest and truthful even in regard to what he has to\ndistinguish, as he can, into probable and impossible. Fact is not the\nsole legitimate object of human inquiry. If it were, farewell to all\nthat elevates and glorifies human nature--farewell to God, to religion,\nto hope! It is that which lies at the root of fact, yea, at the root of\nlaw, after which the human soul hungers and longs.\n\nIn the preceding remarks I have anticipated a chapter to follow--a\nchapter of speculation, which may God make humble and right. But some\nremark was needful here. What must be to some a far greater difficulty\nhas yet to be considered. It is the representation of the Lord's\nignorance of the cure, save from the reaction upon his own person of the\ninfluence which went out from him to fill that vacuum of suffering which\nthe divine nature abhors: he did not know that his body was about to\nradiate health. But this gives me no concern. Our Lord himself tells us\nin one case, at least, that he did not know, that only his Father knew.\nHe could discern a necessary result in the future, but not the day or\nthe hour thereof. Omniscience is a consequence, not an essential of the\ndivine nature. God knows because he creates. The Father knows because he\norders. The Son knows because he obeys. The knowledge of the Father must\nbe perfect; such knowledge the Son neither needs nor desires. His\nsole care is to do the will of the Father. Herein lies his essential\ndivinity. Although he knew that one of his apostles should betray him, I\ndoubt much whether, when he chose Judas, he knew that he was that one.\nWe must take his own words as true. Not only does he not claim perfect\nknowledge, but he disclaims it. He speaks once, at least, to his Father\nwith an _if it be possible_. Those who believe omniscience essential to\ndivinity, will therefore be driven to say that Christ was not divine.\nThis will be their punishment for placing knowledge on a level with\nlove. No one who does so can worship in spirit and in truth, can lift\nup his heart in pure adoration. He will suppose he does, but his heaven\nwill be in the clouds, not in the sky.\n\nBut now we come to the holy of holies of the story--the divinest of its\ndivinity. Jesus could not leave the woman with the half of a gift. He\ncould not let her away so poor. She had stolen the half: she must fetch\nthe other half--come and take it from his hand. That is, she must know\nwho had healed her. Her will and his must come together; and for this\nher eyes and his, her voice and his ears, her ears and his voice must\nmeet. It is the only case recorded in which he says _Daughter_. It could\nnot have been because she was younger than himself; there could not have\nbeen much difference between their ages in that direction. Let us see\nwhat lies in the word.\n\nWith the modesty belonging to her as a woman, intensified by the painful\nshrinking which had its origin in the peculiar nature of her suffering,\nshe dared not present herself to the eyes of the Lord, but thought\nmerely to gather from under his table a crumb unseen. And I do not\nbelieve that our Lord in calling her had any desire to make her tell her\ntale of grief, and, in her eyes, of shame. It would have been enough to\nhim if she had come and stood before him, and said nothing. Nor had she\nto appear before his face with only that poor remnant of strength which\nhad sufficed to bring her to the hem of his garment behind him; for\nnow she knew in herself that she was healed of her plague, and the\nconsciousness must have been strength. Yet she trembled when she came.\nFilled with awe and gratitude, she could not stand before him; she fell\ndown at his feet. There, hiding her face in her hands, I presume, she\nforgot the surrounding multitude, and was alone in the chamber of her\nconsciousness with the Son of Man. Her love, her gratitude, her holy\nawe unite in an impulse to tell him all. When the lower approaches the\nhigher in love, even between men, the longing is to be known; the prayer\nis \"Know me.\" This was David's prayer to God, \"Search me and know me.\"\nThere should be no more concealment. Besides, painful as it was to her\nto speak, he had a right to know all, and know it he should. It was her\nsacrifice offered unto the Lord. She told him all the truth. To conceal\nanything from him now would be greater pain than to tell all, for the\nthing concealed would be as a barrier between him and her; she would be\nsimple--one-fold; her whole being should lie open before him. I do not\nfor a moment mean that such thoughts, not to say words, took shape in\nher mind; but sometimes we can represent a single consciousness only by\nanalysing it into twenty thoughts. And he accepted the offering. He let\nher speak, and tell all.\n\nBut it was painful. He understood it well. His heart yearned towards the\nwoman to shield her from her own innocent shame, to make as it were a\nheaven about her whose radiance should render it \"by clarity invisible.\"\nHer story appealed to all that was tenderest in humanity; for the secret\nwhich her modesty had hidden, her conscience had spoken aloud. Therefore\nthe tenderest word that the language could afford must be hers.\n\"Daughter,\" he said. It was the fullest reward, the richest\nacknowledgment he could find of the honour in which he held her, his\nsatisfaction with her conduct, and the perfect love he bore her. The\ndegrading spirit of which I have spoken, the spirit of the commonplace,\nwhich lowers everything to the level of its own capacity of belief, will\nsay that the word was an eastern mode in more common use than with us. I\nsay that whatever Jesus did or said, he did and said like other men--he\ndid and said as no other man did or said. If he said _Daughter_, it\nmeant what any man would mean by it; it meant what no man could mean by\nit--what no man was good enough, great enough, loving enough to mean\nby it. In him the Father spoke to this one the eternal truth of his\nrelation to all his daughters, to all the women he has made, though\nindividually it can be heard only by those who lift up the filial eyes,\nlay bare the filial heart. He did the works, he spoke the words of him\nthat sent him. Well might this woman, if she dared not lift the downcast\neye before the men present, yet depart in shameless peace: he who had\nhealed her had called her _Daughter_. Everything on earth is paltry\nbefore such a word. It was the deepest gift of the divine nature--the\nrecognition of the eternal in her by him who had made it. Between the\ntrue father and the true daughter nothing is painful. I think also that\nvery possibly some compunction arose in her mind, the moment she knew\nherself healed, at the mode in which she had gained her cure. Hence\nwhen the Lord called her she may have thought he was offended with her\nbecause of it. Possibly her contrition for the little fault, if fault\nindeed it was, may have increased the agony of feeling with which she\nforced rather than poured out her confession. But he soothes her with\ngentle, consoling, restoring words: \"Be of good comfort.\" He heals the\nshy suffering spirit, \"wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain.\" He\nconfirms the cure she feared perhaps might be taken from her again. \"Go\nin peace, and be whole of thy plague.\" Nay, more, he attributes her\ncure to her own faith. \"Thy faith hath made thee whole.\" What wealth\nof tenderness! She must not be left in her ignorance to the danger of\nassociating power with the mere garment of the divine. She must be\nbrought face to face with her healer. She must not be left kneeling on\nthe outer threshold of the temple. She must be taken to the heart of the\nSaviour, and so redeemed, then only redeemed utterly. There is no word,\nno backward look of reproach upon the thing she had condemned. If it was\nevil it was gone from between them for ever. Confessed, it vanished. Her\nfaith was an ignorant faith, but, however obscured in her consciousness,\nit was a true faith. She believed in the man, and our Lord loved the\nmodesty that kept her from pressing into his presence. It may indeed\nhave been the very strength of her faith working in her ignorance that\ncaused her to extend his power even to the skirts of his garments. And\nthere he met the ignorance, not with rebuke, but with the more grace. If\neven her ignorance was so full of faith, of what mighty confidence was\nshe not capable! Even the skirt of his garment would minister to such a\nfaith. It should be as she would. Through the garment of his Son, the\nFather would cure her who believed enough to put forth her hand and\ntouch it. The kernel-faith was none the worse that it was closed in the\nuncomely shell of ignorance and mistake. The Lord was satisfied with it.\nWhen did he ever quench the smoking flax? See how he praises her. He is\nnever slow to commend. The first quiver of the upturning eyelid is to\nhim faith. He welcomes the sign, and acknowledges it; commends the\nfeeblest faith in the ignorant soul, rebukes it as little only in\napostolic souls where it ought to be greater. \"Thy faith hath saved\nthee.\" However poor it was, it was enough for that. Between death and\nthe least movement of life there is a gulf wider than that fixed between\nthe gates of heaven and the depths of hell. He said \"_Daughter_.\"\n\nI come now to the first instance of plain request--that of the leper who\nfell down before him, saying, \"Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me\nclean\"--a prayer lovely in the simplicity of its human pleading--appeal\nto the power which lay in the man to whom he spoke: his power was the\nman's claim; the relation between them was of the strongest--that\nbetween plenty and need, between strength and weakness, between health\nand disease--poor bonds comparatively between man and man, for man's\nplenty, strength, and health can only supplement, not satisfy the need;\nsupport the weakness, not change it into strength; mitigate the disease\nof his fellow, not slay it with invading life; but in regard to God, all\nwhose power is creative, any necessity of his creatures is a perfect\nbond between them and him; his magnificence must flow into the channels\nof the indigence he has created.\n\nObserve how Jesus responds in the terms of the man's request. The woman\nfound the healing where she sought it--in the hem of his garment. One\nman says, \"Come with me;\" the Lord goes. Another says, \"Come not under\nmy roof, I am not worthy;\" the Lord remains. Here the man says, \"If thou\nwilt;\" the Lord answers, \"I will.\" But he goes far beyond the man's\nrequest.\n\nI need say nothing of the grievous complaint under which he laboured.\nIt was sore to the mind as well as the body, for it made of the man an\noutcast and ashamed. No one would come near him lest he should share his\ncondemnation. Physical evil had, as it were, come to the surface in him.\nHe was \"full of leprosy.\" Men shrink more from skin-diseases than from\nany other.[2] [Footnote 2: And they are amongst the hardest to cure;\njust as the skin-diseases of the soul linger long after the heart is\ngreatly cured. Witness the petulance, fastidiousness, censoriousness,\nsocial self-assertion, general disagreeableness of so many good\npeople--all in the moral skin--repulsive exceedingly. I say good people;\nI do not say _very good_, nor do I say Christ-_like_, for that they are\nnot.]\n\nJesus could have cured him with a word. There was no need he should\ntouch him. _No need_ did I say? There was every need. For no one else\nwould touch him. The healthy human hand, always more or less healing,\nwas never laid on him; he was despised and rejected. It was a poor thing\nfor the Lord to cure his body; he must comfort and cure his sore heart.\nOf all men a leper, I say, needed to be touched with the hand of love.\nSpenser says, \"Entire affection hateth nicer hands.\" It was not for our\nmaster, our brother, our ideal man, to draw around him the skirts of his\ngarments and speak a lofty word of healing, that the man might at least\nbe clean before he touched him. The man was his brother, and an evil\ndisease cleaved fast unto him. Out went the loving hand to the ugly\nskin, and there was his brother as he should be--with the flesh of a\nchild. I thank God that the touch went before the word. Nor do I think\nit was the touch of a finger, or of the finger-tips. It was a kindly\nhealing touch in its nature as in its power. Oh blessed leper! thou\nknowest henceforth what kind of a God there is in the earth--not the God\nof the priests, but a God such as himself only can reveal to the hearts\nof his own. That touch was more than the healing. It was to the leper\nwhat the word _Daughter_ was to the woman in the crowd, what the\n_Neither do I_ was to the woman in the temple--the sign of the perfect\npresence. Outer and inner are one with him: the outermost sign is the\nrevelation of the innermost heart.\n\nLet me linger one moment upon this coming together of creative health\nand destroying disease. The health must flow forth; the disease could\nnot enter: Jesus was not defiled by the touch. Not that even if he would\nhave been, he would have shrunk and refrained; he respected the human\nbody in most evil case, and thus he acknowledged it his own. But my\nreader must call up for himself the analogies--only I cannot admit that\nthey are mere analogies--between the cure of the body and the cure of\nthe soul: here they were combined in one act, for that touch went to the\nman's heart. I can only hint at them here. Hand to hand is enough for\nthe cure of the bodily disease; but heart to heart will Jesus visit\nthe man who in deepest defilement of evil habits, yet lifts to him a\ndespairing cry. The healthful heart of the Lord will cure the heart\nspotted with the plague: it will come again as the heart of a child.\n_Only this kind goeth not out save by prayer and abstinence_.\n\nThe Lord gave him something to do at once, and something not to do. He\nwas to go to the priest, and to hold his tongue. It is easier to do than\nto abstain; he went to the priest; he did not hold his tongue.\n\nThat the Lord should send him to the priest requires no explanation.\nThe sacred customs of his country our Lord in his own person constantly\nrecognized. That he saw in them more than the priests themselves was no\nreason for passing them by. The testimony which he wished the man to\nbear concerning him lay in the offering of the gift which Moses had\ncommanded. His healing was in harmony with all the forms of the ancient\nlaw; for it came from the same source, and would in the lapse of ages\ncomplete what the law had but begun. This the man was to manifest for\nhim. The only other thing he required of him--silence--the man would\nnot, at least did not, yield. The probability is that he needed the\ninjunction for his own sake more than for the master's sake; that he was\na talkative, demonstrative man, whose better life was ever in danger of\nevaporating in words; and that the Lord required silence of him, that he\nmight think, and give the seed time to root itself well before it shot\nits leaves out into the world. Are there not some in our own day, who,\nhaving had a glimpse of truth across the darkness of a moral leprosy,\ninstantly begin to blaze abroad the matter, as if it were their part at\nonce to call to their fellows, and teach them out of an intellectual\ntwilight, in which they can as yet see men only as trees walking,\ninstead of retiring into the wilderness, for a time at least, to commune\nwith their own hearts, and be still? But he meant well, nor is it any\nwonder that such a man should be incapable of such a sacrifice. The Lord\nhad touched him. His nature was all in commotion with gratitude. His\nself-conceit swelled high. His tongue would not be still. Perhaps he\njudged himself a leper favoured above his fellow-lepers. Nothing would\nmore tend to talkativeness than such a selfish mistake. He would be\ngrateful. He would befriend his healer against his will. He would work\nfor him--alas! only to impede the labours of the Wise; for the Lord\nfound his popularity a great obstacle to the only success he sought. \"He\nwent out and began to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could\nno more openly enter into the city.\" His nature could not yet understand\nthe kingdom that cometh not with observation, and from presumption\nmingled with affection, he would serve the Lord after a better fashion\nthan that of doing his will. And he had his reward. He had his share in\nbringing his healer to the cross.\n\nObedience is the only service.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI take now the cure of the ten lepers, done apparently in a village of\nGalilee towards Samaria. They stood afar off in a group, probably afraid\nof offending him by any nearer approach, and cried aloud, \"Jesus,\nMaster, have mercy on us.\" Instead of at once uttering their cure, he\ndesired them to go and show themselves to the priests. This may have\nbeen partly for the sake of the priests, partly perhaps for the\njustification of his own mission, but more certainly for the sake of the\nmen themselves, that he might, in accordance with his frequent practice,\ngive them something wherein to be obedient. It served also, as the\nsequel shows, to individualize their relation to him. The relation as a\ngroup was not sufficient for the men. Between him and them it must be\nthe relation of man to man. Individual faith must, as it were, break up\nthe group--to favour a far deeper reunion. Its bond was now a common\nsuffering; it must be changed to a common faith in the healer of it. His\nintention wrought in them--at first with but small apparent result. They\nobeyed, and went to go to the priests, probably wondering whether they\nwould be healed or not, for the beginnings of faith are so small that\nthey can hardly be recognized as such. Going, they found themselves\ncured. Nine of them held on their way, obedient; while the tenth,\nforgetting for the moment in his gratitude the word of the Master,\nturned back and fell at his feet. A moral martinet, a scribe, or a\nPharisee, might have said \"The nine were right, the tenth was wrong: he\nought to have kept to the letter of the command.\" Not so the Master: he\naccepted the gratitude as the germ of an infinite obedience. Real love\nis obedience and all things beside. The Lord's own devotion was that\nwhich burns up the letter with the consuming fire of love, fulfilling\nand setting it aside. High love needs no letter to guide it. Doubtless\nthe letter is all that weak faith is capable of, and it is well for\nthose who keep it! But it is ill for those who do not outgrow and forget\nit! Forget it, I say, _by outgrowing it_. The Lord cared little for the\nletter of his own commands; he cared all for the spirit, for that was\nlife.\n\nThis man was a stranger, as the Jews called him, a Samaritan. Therefore\nthe Lord praised him to his followers. It was as if he had said, \"See,\nJews, who think yourselves the great praisers of God! here are ten\nlepers cleansed: where are the nine? One comes back to glorify God--a\nSamaritan!\" To the man himself he says, \"Arise, go thy way; thy faith\nhath made thee whole.\" Again this commending of individual faith! \"Was\nit not the faith of the others too that had healed them?\" Doubtless. If\nthey had had enough to bring them back, he would have told them that\ntheir faith had saved them. But they were content to be healed, and\nuntil their love, which is the deeper faith, brought them to the\nMaster's feet, their faith was not ripe for praise. But it was not for\ntheir blame, it was for the Samaritan's praise that he spoke. Probably\nthis man's faith had caused the cry of all the ten; probably he was the\nsalt of the little group of outcasts--the tenth, the righteous man.\nHence they were contented, for the time, with their cure: he forgot the\ncure itself in his gratitude. A moment more, and with obedient feet he\nwould overtake them on their way to the priest.\n\nI may not find a better place for remarking on the variety of our Lord's\ntreatment of those whom he cured; that is, the variety of the form in\nwhich he conveyed the cure. In the record I do not think we find two\ncases treated in the same manner. There is no massing of the people with\nhim. In his behaviour to men, just as in their relation to his Father,\nevery man is alone with him. In this case of the ten, as I have said, I\nthink he sent them away, partly, that this individuality might have an\nopportunity of asserting itself. They had stood afar off, therefore he\ncould not lay the hand of love on each. But now one left the group\nand brought his gratitude to the Master's feet, and with a loud voice\nglorified God the Healer.\n\nIn reflecting then on the details of the various cures we must seek the\ncauses of their diversity mainly in the individual differences of the\npersons cured, not forgetting, at the same time, that all the accounts\nare brief, and that our capacity is poor for the task. The whole divine\ntreatment of man is that of a father to his children--only a father\ninfinitely more a father than any man can be. Before him stands each, as\nmuch an individual child as if there were no one but him. The relation\nis awful in its singleness. Even when God deals with a nation as a\nnation, it is only as by this dealing the individual is aroused to\na sense of his own wrong, that he can understand how the nation has\nsinned, or can turn himself to work a change. The nation cannot change\nsave as its members change; and the few who begin the change are the\nelect of that nation. Ten righteous individuals would have been just\nenough to restore life to the festering masses of Sodom--festering\nmasses because individual life had ceased, and the nation or community\nwas nowhere. Even nine could not do it: Sodom must perish. The\nindividuals must perish now; the nation had perished long since. All\ncommunities are for the divine sake of individual life, for the sake of\nthe love and truth that is in each heart, and is not cumulative--cannot\nbe in two as one result. But all that is precious in the individual\nheart depends for existence on the relation the individual bears to\nother individuals: alone--how can he love? alone--where is his truth? It\nis for and by the individuals that the individual lives. A community is\nthe true development of individual relations. Its very possibility lies\nin the conscience of its men and women. No setting right can be done in\nthe _mass_. There are no masses save in corruption. Vital organizations\nresult alone from individualities and consequent necessities, which\nfitting the one into the other, and working for each other, make\ncombination not only possible but unavoidable. Then the truth which has\n_informed_ in the community reacts on the individual to perfect his\nindividuality. In a word, the man, in virtue of standing alone in God,\nstands _with_ his fellows, and receives from them divine influences\nwithout which he cannot be made perfect. It is in virtue of the living\nconsciences of its individuals that a common conscience is possible to a\nnation.\n\nI cannot work this out here, but I would avoid being misunderstood.\nAlthough I say, every man stands alone in God, I yet say two or many can\nmeet in God as they cannot meet save in God; nay, that only in God can\ntwo or many truly meet; only as they recognize their oneness with God\ncan they become one with each other.\n\nIn the variety then of his individual treatment of the sick, Jesus did\nthe works of his Father _as_ his Father does them. For the Spirit of\nGod speaks to the spirit of the man, and the Providence of God arranges\neverything for the best good of the individual--counting the very hairs\nof his head. Every man had a cure of his own; every woman had a cure\nof her own--all one and the same in principle, each individual in the\napplication of the principle. This was the foundation of the true\nchurch. And yet the members of that church will try to separate upon\nindividual and unavoidable differences!\n\nBut once more the question recurs: Why say so often that this and\nthat one's faith had saved him? Was it not enough that he had saved\nthem?--Our Lord would knit the bond between him and each man by arousing\nthe man's individuality, which is, in deepest fact, his conscience. The\ncure of a man depended upon no uncertain or arbitrary movement of the\nfeelings of Jesus. He was always ready to heal. No one was ever refused\nwho asked him. It rested with the man: the healing could not have its\nway and enter in, save the man would open his door. It was there for him\nif he would take it, or rather when he would allow him to bestow it.\nHence the question and the praise of the patient's faith. There was no\ndanger then of that diseased self-consciousness which nowadays is always\nasking, \"Have I faith? Have I faith?\" searching, in fact, for grounds of\nself-confidence, and turning away the eyes in the search from the only\nsource whence confidence can flow--the natal home of power and love. How\nshall faith be born but of the beholding of the faithful? This diseased\nself-contemplation was not indeed a Jewish complaint at all, nor\npossible in the bodily presence of the Master. Hence the praise given\nto a man's faith could not hurt him; it only made him glad and more\nfaithful still. This disease itself is in more need of his curing hand\nthan all the leprosies of Judaea and Samaria.\n\nThe cases which remain of this group are of blind men--the first, that\nrecorded by St Matthew of the two who followed Jesus, crying, \"Thou Son\nof David, have mercy on us.\" He asked them if they believed that he was\nable to do the thing for them, drawing, I say, the bond between them\ncloser thereby. They said they did believe it, and at once he touched\ntheir eyes--again the bodily contact, as in the case of the blind man\nalready considered--especially needful in the case of the blind, to\nassociate the healing with the healer. But there are differences between\nthe cases. The man who had not asked to be healed was as it were put\nthrough a longer process of cure--I think that his faith and his will\nmight be called into exercise; and the bodily contact was made closer to\nhelp the development of his faith and will: he made clay and put it\non his eyes, and the man had to go and wash. Where the prayer and the\nconfession of faith reveal the spiritual contact already effected, the\ncure is immediate. \"According to your faith,\" the Lord said, \"be it unto\nyou.\"\n\nOn these men, as on the leper, he laid the charge of silence, by them,\nas by him, sadly disregarded. The fact that he went into the house, and\nallowed them to follow him there before he cured them, also shows that\nhe desired in their case, doubtless because of circumstances, to avoid\npublicity, a desire which they foiled. Their gladness overcame, if not\ntheir gratitude, yet the higher faith that is one with obedience. When\nthe other leper turned back to speak his gratitude, it was but the delay\nof a moment in the fulfilling of the command. But the gratitude that\ndisobeys an injunction, that does what the man is told not to do, and\nso plunges into the irretrievable, is a virtue that needs a development\namounting almost to a metamorphosis.\n\nIn the one remaining case there is a slight confusion in the records. St\nLuke says that it was performed as Jesus entered into Jericho; St Mark\nsays it was as he went out of Jericho, and gives the name and parentage\nof the blind beggar; indeed his account is considerably more minute than\nthat of the others. St Matthew agrees with St Mark as to the occasion,\nbut says there were two blind men. We shall follow the account of St\nMark.\n\nBartimaeus, having learned the cause of the tumultuous passing of feet,\ncalls, like those former two blind men, upon the Son of David to have\nmercy on him.[3] [Footnote 3: In these two cases, the cry is upon the\n_Son of David_: I wonder if this had come to be considered by the blind\nthe correct formula of address to the new prophet. But the cases are\nalmost too few to justify even a passing conjecture at generalization.]\n\nThe multitude finds fault with his crying and calling. I presume he was\nnoisy in his eagerness after his vanished vision, and the multitude\nconsidered it indecorous. Or perhaps the rebuke arose from that common\nresentment of a crowd against any one who makes himself what they\nconsider unreasonably conspicuous, claiming a share in the attention\nof the potentate to which they cannot themselves pretend. But the Lord\nstops, and tells them to call the man; and some of them, either being\nhis friends, or changing their tone when the great man takes notice of\nhim, begin to congratulate and comfort him. He, casting away his garment\nin his eagerness, rises, and is led through the yielding crowd to\nthe presence of the Lord. To enter in some degree into the personal\nknowledge of the man before curing him, and to consolidate his faith,\nJesus, the tones of whose voice, full of the life of God, the cultivated\nhearing of a blind man would be best able to interpret, began to talk a\nlittle with him.\n\n\"What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?\"\n\n\"Lord, that I might receive my sight.\"\n\n\"Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.\"\n\nImmediately he saw; and the first use he made of his sight was to follow\nhim who had given it.\n\nNeither St Mark nor St Luke, whose accounts are almost exactly the same,\nsays that he touched the man's eyes. St Matthew says he touched the eyes\nof the _two_ blind men whom his account places in otherwise identical\ncircumstances. With a surrounding crowd who knew them, I think the\ntouching was less necessary than in private; but there is no need to\ninquire which is the more correct account. The former two may have\nomitted a fact, or St Matthew _may_ have combined the story with that of\nthe two blind men already noticed, of which he is the sole narrator. But\nin any case there are, I think, but two recorded instances of the blind\npraying for cure. Most likely there were more, perhaps there were many\nsuch.\n\nI have now to consider, as suggested by the idea of this group, the\nquestion of prayer generally; for Jesus did the works of him who sent\nhim: as Jesus did so God does.\n\nI have not seen an argument against what is called the efficacy of\nprayer which appears to me to have any force but what is derived from\nsome narrow conception of the divine nature. If there be a God at all,\nit is absurd to suppose that his ways of working should be such as to\ndestroy his side of the highest relation that can exist between him and\nthose whom he has cared to make--to destroy, I mean, the relation of the\nwill of the creator to the individual will of his creature. That God\nshould bind himself in an iron net of his own laws--that his laws should\nbind him in any way, seeing they are just his nature in action--is\nsufficiently absurd; but that such laws should interfere with his\ndeepest relation to his creatures, should be inconsistent with the\nhighest consequences of that creation which alone gives occasion for\nthose laws--that, in fact, the will of God should be at strife with the\nforegoing action of God, not to say with the very nature of God--that he\nshould, with an unchangeable order of material causes and effects, cage\nin for ever the winged aspirations of the human will which he has made\nin the image of his own will, towards its natural air of freedom in His\nwill, would be pronounced inconceivable, were it not that it has been\nconceived and uttered--conceived and uttered, however, only by minds to\nwhich the fact of this relation was, if at all present, then only in the\nvaguest and most incomplete form. That he should not leave himself any\n_willing_ room towards those to whom he gave need, room to go wrong,\nwill to turn and look up and pray and hope, is to me grotesquely absurd.\nIt is far easier to believe that as both--the laws of nature, namely,\nand the human will--proceed from the same eternally harmonious thought,\nthey too are so in harmony, that for the perfect operation of either no\ninfringement upon the other is needful; and that what seems to be such\ninfringement would show itself to a deeper knowledge of both as a\nperfectly harmonious co-operation. Nor would it matter that we know so\nlittle, were it not that with each fresh discovery we are so ready to\nfancy anew that now, at last, we know all about it. We have neither\nhumility enough to be faithful, nor faith enough to be humble. Unfit to\ngrasp any whole, yet with an inborn idea of wholeness which ought to be\nour safety in urging us ever on towards the Unity, we are constantly\ncalling each new part the whole, saying we have found the idea, and\ncasting ourselves on the couch of self-glorification. Thus the very need\nof unity is by our pride perverted to our ruin. We say we have found\nit, when we have it not. Hence, also, it becomes easy to refuse certain\nconsiderations, yea, certain facts, a place in our system--for\nthe system will cease to be a system at all the moment they are\nacknowledged. They may have in them the very germ of life and truth; but\nwhat is that, if they destroy this Babylon that we have built? Are not\nits forms stately and fair? Yea, _can_ there be statelier and fairer?\nThe main point is simply this, that what it would not be well for God to\ngive before a man had asked for it, it may be not only well, but best,\nto give when he has asked. [Footnote 4: _Well_ and _Best_ must be the\nsame thing with God when he acts.]\n\nI believe that the first half of our training is up to the asking point;\nafter that the treatment has a grand new element in it. For God can give\nwhen a man is in the fit condition to receive it, what he cannot give\nbefore because the man cannot receive it. How give instruction in the\nharmony of colours or tones to a man who cannot yet distinguish between\nshade and shade or tone and tone, upon which distinction all harmony\ndepends? A man cannot receive except another will give; no more can a\nman give if another will not receive; he can only offer. Doubtless, God\nworks on every man, else he _could_ have no divine tendency at all;\nthere would be no _thither_ for him to turn his face towards; there\ncould be at best but a sense of want. But the moment the man has given\nin to God--to use a homely phrase--the spirit for which he prays can\nwork in him all with him, not now (as it _appeared_ then) _against_ him.\nEvery parent at all worthy of the relation must know that occasions\noccur in which the asking of the child makes the giving of the parent\nthe natural correlative. In a way infinitely higher, yet the same at the\nroot, for all is of God, He can give when the man asks what he could not\ngive without, because in the latter case the man would take only the\nhusk of the gift, and cast the kernel away--a husk poisonous without the\nkernel, although wholesome and comforting with it.\n\nBut some will say, \"We may ask, but it is certain we shall not have\neverything we ask for.\"\n\nNo, thank God, certainly not; we shall have nothing which we ourselves,\nwhen capable of judging and choosing with open eyes to its true relation\nto ourselves, would not wish and choose to have. If God should give\notherwise, it must be as a healing punishment of inordinate and hurtful\ndesire. The parable of the father dividing his living at the prayer of\nthe younger son, must be true of God's individual sons, else it could\nnot have been true of the Jews on the one hand and the Gentiles on the\nother. He will grant some such prayers because he knows that the swine\nand their husks will send back his son with quite another prayer on his\nlips.\n\nIf my supposed interlocutor answers, \"What then is the good of praying,\nif it is not to go by what I want?\" I can only answer, \"You have to\nlearn, and it may be by a hard road.\" In the kinds of things which men\ndesire, there are essential differences. In physical well-being, there\nis a divine good. In sufficient food and raiment, there is a divine\nfitness. In wealth, as such, there is _none_. A man may pray for money\nto pay his debts, for healing of the sickness which incapacitates\nhim for labour or good work, for just judgment in the eyes of his\nfellow-men, with an altogether different confidence from that with which\nhe could pray for wealth, or for bodily might to surpass his fellows, or\nfor vengeance upon those whose judgment of his merits differed from his\nown; although even then the divine soul will with his Saviour say, \"If\nit be possible: Not my will but thine.\" For he will know that God gives\nonly the best.\n\n\"But God does not even cure every one who asks him. And so with the\nother things you say are good to pray for.\"\n\nJesus did not cure all the ills in Judaea. But those he did cure were at\nleast real ills and real needs. There was a fitness in the condition of\nsome, a fitness favoured by his own bodily presence amongst them, which\nmet the virtue ready to go out from him. But God is ever present, and I\nhave yet to learn that any man prayed for money to be honest with and\nto meet the necessities of his family, and did the work of him who had\ncalled him from the market-place of the nation, who did not receive his\npenny a-day. If to any one it seems otherwise, I believe the apparent\ncontradiction will one day be cleared up to his satisfaction. God has\nnot to satisfy the judgment of men as they are, but as they will be and\nmust be, having learned the high and perfectly honest and grand way of\nthings which is his will. For God to give men just what they want would\noften be the same as for a man to give gin to the night-wanderer whom he\nhad it in his power to take home and set to work for wages. But I must\nbelieve that many of the ills of which men complain would be speedily\ncured if they would work in the strength of prayer. If the man had\nnot taken up his bed when Christ bade him, he would have been a great\nauthority with the scribes and chief priests against the divine mission\nof Jesus. The power to work is a diviner gift than a great legacy. But\nthese are individual affairs to be settled individually between God\nand his child. They cannot be pronounced upon generally because of\nindividual differences. But here as there, now as then, the lack is\n_faith_. A man may say, \"How can I have faith?\" I answer, \"How can you\nindeed, who do the thing you know you ought not to do, and have not\nbegun to do the thing you know you ought to do? How should you have\nfaith? It is not well that you should be cured yet. It would have hurt\nthese men to cure them if they would not ask. And you do not pray.\" The\nman who has prayed most is, I suspect, the least doubtful whether God\nhears prayer now as Jesus heard it then. That we doubt is well, for we\nare not yet in the empyrean of simple faith. But I think the man who\nbelieves and prays now, has answers to his prayers even better than\nthose which came to the sick in Jud\u00e6a; for although the bodily presence\nof Jesus made a difference in their favour, I do believe that the Spirit\nof God, after widening its channels for nearly nineteen hundred years,\ncan flow in greater plenty and richness now. Hence the answers to prayer\nmust not only not be of quite the same character as then, but they must\nbe better, coming yet closer to the heart of the need, whether known as\nsuch by him who prays, or not. But the change lies in man's power of\nreception, for God is always the same to his children. Only, being\ninfinite, he must speak to them and act for them in the endless\ndiversity which their growth and change render necessary. Thus only they\ncan receive of his fulness who is all in all and unchangeable.\n\nIn our imperfect condition both of faith and of understanding, the whole\nquestion of asking and receiving must necessarily be surrounded with\nmist and the possibility of mistake. It can be successfully encountered\nonly by the man who for himself asks and hopes. It lies in too lofty\nregions and involves too many unknown conditions to be reduced to\nformulas of ours; for God must do only the best, and man is greater and\nmore needy than himself can know.\n\nYet he who asks _shall_ receive--of the very best. One promise without\nreserve, and only one, because it includes all, remains: the promise of\nthe Holy Spirit to them who ask it. He who has the Spirit of God, God\nhimself, in him, has the Life in him, possesses the final cure of all\nill, has in himself the answer to all possible prayer.\n\n\n\n\nVI. MIRACLES GRANTED TO THE PRAYER OF FRIENDS.\n\n\nIf we allow that prayer may in any case be heard for the man himself, it\nalmost follows that it must be heard for others. It cannot well be in\naccordance with the spirit of Christianity, whose essential expression\nlies in the sacrifice of its founder, that a man should be heard only\nwhen he prays for himself. The fact that in cases of the preceding group\nfaith was required on the part of the person healed as essential to his\ncure, represents no different principle from that which operates in the\ncases of the present group. True, in these the condition is not faith on\nthe part of the person cured, but faith on the part of him who asks for\nhis cure. But the possession of faith by the patient was not in the\nleast essential, as far as the power of Jesus was concerned, to his\nbodily cure, although no doubt favourable thereto; it was necessary\nonly to that spiritual healing, that higher cure, for the sake of\nwhich chiefly the Master brought about the lower. In both cases, the\nrequisition of faith is for the sake of those who ask--whether for\nthemselves or for their friends, it matters not. It is a breath to blow\nthe smoking flax into a flame--a word to draw into closer contact with\nhimself. He cured many without such demand, as his Father is ever curing\nwithout prayer. Cure itself shall sometimes generate prayer and faith.\nWell, therefore, might the cure of others be sometimes granted to\nprayer.\n\nBeyond this, however, there is a great fitness in the thing. For so are\nmen bound together, that no good can come to one but all must share\nin it. The children suffer for the father, the father suffers for the\nchildren, and they are also blessed together. If a spiritual good\ndescend upon the heart of a leader of the nation, the whole people might\nrejoice for themselves, for they must be partakers of the unspeakable\ngift. To increase the faith of the father may be more for the faith of\nthe child, healed in answer to his prayer, than anything done for the\nchild himself. It is an enlarging of one of the many channels in which\nthe divinest gifts flow. For those gifts chiefly, at first, flow to men\nthrough the hearts and souls of those of their fellows who are nearer\nthe Father than they, until at length they are thus brought themselves\nto speak to God face to face.\n\nLonely as every man in his highest moments of spiritual vision, yea\nin his simplest consciousness of duty, turns his face towards the one\nFather, his own individual maker and necessity of his life; painfully\nas he may then feel that the best beloved understands not as he\nunderstands, feels not as he feels; he is yet, in his most isolated\nadoration of the Father of his spirit, nearer every one of the beloved\nthan when eye meets eye, heart beats responsive to heart, and the poor\ndumb hand seeks by varied pressure to tell the emotion within. Often\nthen the soul, with its many organs of utterance, feels itself but a\nsongless bird, whose broken twitter hardens into a cage around it; but\neven with all those organs of utterance in full play, he is yet farther\nfrom his fellow-man than when he is praying to the Father in a desert\nplace apart. The man who prays, in proportion to the purity of his\nprayer, becomes a spiritual power, a nerve from the divine brain, yea,\nperhaps a ganglion as we call it, whence power anew goes forth upon his\nfellows. He is a redistributor, as it were, of the divine blessing; not\nin the exercise of his own will--that is the cesspool towards which\nall notions of priestly mediation naturally sink--but as the\nself-forgetting, God-loving brother of his kind, who would be in the world\nas Christ was in the world. When a man prays for his fellow-man, for wife\nor child, mother or father, sister or brother or friend, the connection\nbetween the two is so close in God, that the blessing begged may well\nflow to the end of the prayer. Such a one then is, in his poor, far-off\nway, an advocate with the Father, like his master, Jesus Christ, The\nRighteous. He takes his friend into the presence with him, or if not\ninto the presence, he leaves him with but the veil between them, and\nthey touch through the veil.\n\nThe first instance we have in this kind, occurred at Cana, in the centre\nof Galilee, where the first miracle was wrought. It is the second\nmiracle in St John's record, and is recorded by him only. Doubtless\nthese two had especially attracted his nature--the turning of water into\nwine, and the restoration of a son to his father. The Fatherhood of God\ncreated the fatherhood in man; God's love man's love. And what shall he\ndo to whom a son is given whom yet he cannot keep? The divine love in\nhis heart cleaves to the child, and the child is vanishing! What can\nthis nobleman do but seek the man of whom such wondrous rumours have\nreached his ears?\n\nBetween Cana and Tiberias, from which came the father with his prayer,\nwas somewhere about twenty miles.\n\n\"He is at the point of death,\" said the father.\n\n\"Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe,\" said Jesus.\n\n\"Sir, come down ere my child die.\"\n\n\"Go thy way, thy son liveth.\"\n\nIf the nobleman might have understood the remark the Lord made, he was\nin no mood for principles, and respectfully he expostulates with our\nLord for spending time in words when the need was so urgent. The sun of\nhis life was going down into the darkness. He might deserve reproof, but\neven reproof has its season. \"Sir, come down ere my child die.\" Whatever\nthe Lord meant by the words he urged it no farther. He sends him home\nwith the assurance of the boy's recovery, showing him none of the signs\nor wonders of which he had spoken. Had the man been of unbelieving kind\nhe would, when he returned and found that all had occurred in the most\nnatural fashion, that neither here had there been sign or wonder, have\ngradually reverted to his old carelessness as to a higher will and its\nordering of things below. But instead of this, when he heard that the\nboy began to get better the very hour when Jesus spoke the word--a fact\nquite easy to set down as a remarkable coincidence--he believed, and all\nhis people with him. Probably he was in ideal reality the head of his\nhouse, the main source of household influences--if such, then a man of\nfaith, for, where a man does not himself look up to the higher, the\nlower will hardly look faithfully up to him--surely a fit man to\nintercede for his son, with all his house ready to believe with him. It\nmay be said they too shared in the evidence--such as it was--not much of\na sign or wonder to them. True; but people are not ready to believe\nthe best evidence except they are predisposed in the direction of that\nevidence. If it be said, \"they should have thought for themselves,\" I\nanswer--To think with their head was no bad sign that they did think for\nthemselves. A great deal of what is called freedom of thought is merely\nthe self-assertion which would persuade itself of a freedom it would\npossess but cannot without an effort too painful for ignorance and\nself-indulgence. The man would _feel_ free without being free. To assert\none's individuality is not necessarily to be free: it _may_ indeed be\nbut the outcome of absolute slavery.\n\nBut if this nobleman was a faithful man, whence our Lord's word, \"Except\nye see signs and wonders ye will not believe\"? I am not sure. It may\nhave been as a rebuke to those about him. This man--perhaps, as is said,\na nobleman of Herod's court--may not have been a pure-bred Jew, and\nhence our Lord's remark would bear an import such as he uttered more\nplainly in the two cases following, that of the Greek woman, and that\nof the Roman centurion: \"Except _ye_ see signs and wonders ye will not\nbelieve; _but this man_--.\" With this meaning I should probably have\nbeen content, were it not that the words were plainly addressed to the\nman. I do not think this would destroy the interpretation, for the Lord\nmay have wished to draw the man out, and make him, a Gentile or doubtful\nkind of Jew, rebuke the disciples; only the man's love for his son stood\nin the way: he could think of nothing, speak of nothing save his son;\nbut it makes it unsatisfactory. And indeed I prefer the following\ninterpretation, because we have the other meaning in other places;\nalso because this is of universal application, and to us of these days\nappears to me of special significance and value, applying to the men of\nscience on the one hand, and the men of superstition on the other.\n\nMy impression is, that our Lord, seeing the great faith of the nobleman,\ngrounded on what he had heard of the Master from others, chiefly of his\nsigns and wonders, did in this remark require of him a higher faith\nstill. It sounds to me an expostulation with him. To express in the best\nway my feeling concerning it, I would dare to imagine our Lord speaking\nin this fashion:--\n\n\"Why did you not pray the Father? Why do you want always to _see_? The\ndoor of prayer has been open since ever God made man in his own image:\nwhy are signs and wonders necessary to your faith? But I will do just as\nmy Father would have done if you had asked him. Only when I do it, it is\na sign and a wonder that you may believe; and I wish you could believe\nwithout it. But believe then for the very work's sake, if you cannot\nbelieve for the word and the truth's sake. Go thy way, thy son liveth.\"\n\nI would not be understood to say that the Lord _blamed_ him, or others\nin him, for needing signs and wonders: it was rather, I think, that the\nLord spoke out of the fulness of his knowledge to awake in them some\ninfant sense of what constituted all his life--the presence of God;\njust as the fingers of the light go searching in the dark mould for the\nsleeping seeds, to touch and awake them. The order of creation, the\ngoings on of life, were ceaselessly flowing from the very heart of the\nFather: why should they seek signs and wonders differing from common\nthings only in being uncommon? In essence there was no difference.\nUncommonness is not excellence, even as commonness is not inferiority.\nThe sign, the wonder is, in fact, the lower thing, granted only because\nof men's hardness of heart and slowness to believe--in itself of\ninferior nature to God's chosen way. Yet, if signs and wonders could\nhelp them, have them they should, for neither were they at variance\nwith the holy laws of life and faithfulness: they were but less usual\nutterances of the same. \"Go thy way: thy son liveth.\" The man, noble-man\ncertainly in this, obeyed, and found his obedience justify his faith.\n\nBut his son would have to work out his belief upon grounds differing\nfrom those his father had. In himself he could but recognize the\nresumption of the _natural_ sway of life. He would not necessarily know\nthat it was God working in him. For the cause of his cure, he would only\nhear the story of it from his father--good evidence--but he himself had\nnot seen the face of the Holy One as his father had. In one sense or\nanother, he must seek and find him. Every generation must do its own\nseeking and its own finding. The fault of the fathers often is that\nthey expect their finding to stand in place of their children's\nseeking--expect the children to receive that which has satisfied the\nneed of their fathers upon their testimony; whereas rightly, their\ntestimony is not ground for their children's belief, only for their\nchildren's search. That search is faith in the bud. No man can be sure\ntill he has found for himself. All that is required of the faithful\nnature is a willingness to seek. He cannot even know the true nature of\nthe thing he wants until he has found it; he has but a dim notion of it,\na faint star to guide him eastward to the sunrise. Hopefully, the belief\nof the father has the heart in it which will satisfy the need of the\nchild; but the doubt of this in the child, is the father's first ground\nfor hoping that the child with his new needs will find for himself the\nsame well of life--to draw from it with a new bucket, it may be, because\nthe old will hold water no longer: its staves may be good, but its hoops\nare worn asunder; or, rather, it will be but a new rope it needs, which\nhe has to twist from the hemp growing in his own garden. The son who\nwas healed might have many questions to ask which the father could not\nanswer, had never thought of. He had heard of the miracle of Cana; he\nhad heard of many things done since: he believed that the man could cure\nhis son, and he had cured him. \"Yes,\" the son might say, \"but I must\nknow more of him; for, if what I hear now be true, I must cast all\nat his feet. He cannot be a healer only; he must be the very Lord of\nLife--it may be of the Universe.\" His simple human presence had in\nit something against the supposition--contained in it what must\nhave _appeared_ reason for doubting this conclusion from his deeds,\nespecially to one who had not seen his divine countenance. But to one at\nlength enlightened of the great Spirit, his humanity would contain the\nhighest ground for believing in his divinity, for what it meant would\ncome out ever and ever loftier and grander. The Lord who had made the\nUniverse--how _should_ he show it but as the Healer did? He could not\nmake the universe over again in the eyes of every man. If he did, the\nheart of the man could not hold the sight. He must reveal himself as the\ncuring God--the God who set things which had gone wrong, right again:\n_that could_ be done in the eyes of each individual man. This man may be\nhe--the Messiah--Immanuel, God with-us.\n\nWe can imagine such the further thoughts of the son--possibly of the\nfather first--only he had been so full of the answer to his prayer, of\nthe cure of his son, that he could not all at once follow things towards\ntheir grand conclusions.\n\nIn this case, as in the two which follow, the Lord heals from a\ndistance. I have not much to remark upon this. There were reasons for\nit; one perhaps the necessity of an immediate answer to the prayer;\nanother probably lay in its fitness to the faith of the supplicants. For\nto heal thus, although less of a sign or a wonder to the unbelieving,\nhad in it an element of finer power upon the faith of such as came not\nfor the sign or the wonder, but for the cure of the beloved; for he who\nloves can believe what he who loves not cannot believe; and he who\nloves most can believe most. In this respect, these cures were like the\nhealing granted to prayer in all ages--not that God is afar off, for\nhe is closer to every man than his own conscious being is to his\nunconscious being--but that we receive the aid from the Unseen. Though\nthere be no distance with God, it looks like it to men; and when Jesus\ncured thus, he cured with the same appearances which attended God's\nordinary healing.\n\nThe next case I take up is similar. It belongs to another of my classes,\nbut as a case of possession there is little distinctive about it, while\nas the record of the devotion of a mother to her daughter--a devotion\nquickening in her faith so rare and lovely as to delight the very heart\nof Jesus with its humble intensity--it is one of the most beautiful of\nall the stories of healing.\n\nThe woman was a Greek, and had not had the training of the Jew for a\nbelief in the Messiah. Her misconceptions concerning the healer of whom\nshe had heard must have been full of fancies derived from the legends of\nher race. But she had yet been trained to believe, for her mighty\nlove of her own child was the best power for the development of the\nchild-like in herself.\n\nNo woman can understand the possible depths of her own affection for her\ndaughter. I say _daughter_, not _child_, because although love is the\nsame everywhere, it is nowhere the same. No two loves of individuals in\nthe same correlation are the same. Much more the love of a woman for her\ndaughter differs from the love of a father for his son--differs as the\nwoman differs from the man. There is in it a peculiar tenderness from\nthe sense of the same womanly consciousness in both of undefendedness\nand self-accountable modesty--a modesty, in this case, how terribly\ntortured in the mother by the wild behaviour of the daughter under the\nimpulses of the unclean spirit! Surely if ever there was a misery to\ndrive a woman to the Healer in an agony of rightful claim and prostrate\nentreaty, it was the misery of a mother whose daughter was thus\npossessed. The divine nature of her motherhood, of her womanhood, drew\nher back to its source to find help for one who shared in the same, but\nin whom its waters were sorely troubled and grievously defiled.\n\nShe came crying to him. About him stood his disciples, proud of being\nJews. For their sakes this chosen Gentile must be pained a little\nfurther, must bear with her Saviour her part of suffering for the\nredemption even of his chosen apostles. They counted themselves the\nchildren, and such as she the dogs. He must show them the divine nature\ndwelling in her. For the sake of this revelation he must try her sorely,\nbut not for long.\n\n\"Have mercy on me,\" she cried, \"O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter\nis grievously vexed with a devil.\"\n\nBut not a word of reply came from the lips of the Healer. His disciples\nmust speak first. They must supplicate for their Gentile sister. He\nwould arouse in them the disapproval of their own exclusiveness, by\nputting it on for a moment that they might see it apart from themselves.\n\nTheir hearts were moved for the woman.\n\n\"Send her away,\" they said, meaning, \"Give her what she wants;\" but\nto move the heart of love to grant the prayer, they--poor\nintercessors--added a selfish reason to justify the deed of goodness,\neither that they would avoid being supposed to acknowledge her claim on\na level with that of a Jewess, and would make of it what both Puritans\nand priests would call \"an uncovenanted mercy,\" or that they actually\nthought it would help to overcome the scruples of the Master. Possibly\nit was both. \"She crieth after us,\" they said--meaning, \"She is\ntroublesome.\" They would have him give as the ungenerous and the unjust\ngive to the importunate.\n\nBut no healing could be granted on such a ground--not even to the prayer\nof an apostle. The woman herself must give a better.\n\n\"I am not sent,\" he said, \"but unto the lost sheep of the house of\nIsrael.\"\n\nThey understood the words falsely. We know that he did come for the\nGentiles, and he was training them to see what they were so slow to\nunderstand, that he had other sheep which were not of this fold. He had\nneed to begin with them thus early. Most of the troubles of his latest,\nperhaps greatest apostle, came from the indignation of Jewish Christians\nthat he preached the good news to the Gentiles as if it had been\noriginally meant for them. They would have had them enter into its\nprivileges by the gates of Judaism.\n\nWhat they did at length understand by these words is expressed in the\nadditional word of our Lord given by St Mark: \"Let the children first be\nfilled.\" But even this they could not understand until afterwards. They\ncould not see that it was for the sake of the Gentiles as much as the\nJews that Jesus came to the Jews first. For whatever glorious exceptions\nthere were amongst the Gentiles, surpassing even similar amongst the\nJews; and whatever the wide-spread refusal of the Jewish nation, he\n_could_ not have been received amongst the Gentiles as amongst the Jews.\nIn Jud\u00e6a alone could the leaven work; there alone could the mustard-seed\ntake fitting root. Once rooted and up, it would become a great tree, and\nthe birds of the world would nestle in its branches. It was not that God\nloved the Jews more than the Gentiles that he chose them first, but that\nhe must begin somewhere: _why,_ God himself knows, and perhaps has given\nus glimmerings.\n\nUpheld by her God-given love, not yet would the woman turn away. Even\nsuch hard words as these could not repulse her.\n\nShe came now and fell at his feet. It is as the Master would have it:\nshe presses only the nearer, she insists only the more; for the devil\nhas a hold of her daughter.\n\n\"Lord, help me,\" is her cry; for the trouble of her daughter is her own.\nThe \"Help _me_\" is far more profound and pathetic than the most vivid\nblazon of the daughter's sufferings.\n\nBut he answered and said,--\n\n\"It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.\"\nTerrible words! more dreadful far than any he ever spoke besides! Surely\nnow she will depart in despair! But the Lord did not mean in them to\nspeak _his_ mind concerning the relation of Jew and Gentile; for\nnot only do the future of his church and the teaching of his Spirit\ncontradict it: but if he did mean what he said, then he acted as was\nunmeet, for he did cast a child's bread to a dog. No. He spoke as a Jew\nfelt, that the elect Jews about him might begin to understand that in\nhim is neither Jew nor Gentile, but all are brethren.\n\nAnd he has gained his point. The spirit in the woman has been divinely\ngoaded into utterance, and out come the glorious words of her love and\nfaith, casting aside even insult itself as if it had never been--all for\nthe sake of a daughter. Now, indeed, it is as he would have it.\n\n\"Yes, Lord; yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.\"\n\nOr, as St Matthew gives it:\n\n\"Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their\nmasters' table.\"\n\nA retort quite Greek in its readiness, its symmetry, and its point! But\nit was not the intellectual merit of the answer that pleased the Master.\nCleverness is cheap. It is the faith he praises, [Footnote 5: Far\nmore precious than any show of the intellect, even in regard of the\nintellect itself. The quickness of her answer was the scintillation of\nher intellect under the glow of her affection. Love is the quickening\nnurse of the whole nature. Faith in God will do more for the intellect\nat length than all the training of the schools. It will make the\nbest that can be made of the whole man.] which was precious as\nrare--unspeakably precious even when it shall be the commonest thing\nin the universe, but precious now as the first fruits of a world\nredeemed--precious now as coming from the lips of a Gentile--more\nprecious as coming from the lips of a human mother pleading for her\ndaughter.\n\n\"O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.\"\n\nOr, as St Mark gives it, for we cannot afford to lose a varying word,\n\n\"For this saying, go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.\"\nThe loving mother has conquered the tormenting devil. She has called in\nthe mighty aid of the original love. Through the channel of her love it\nflows, new-creating, \"and her daughter was made whole from that very\nhour.\"\n\nWhere, O disciples, are your children and your dogs now? Is not the wall\nof partition henceforth destroyed? No; you too have to be made whole\nof a worse devil, that of personal and national pride, before you\nunderstand. But the day of the Lord is coming for you, notwithstanding\nye are so incapable of knowing the signs and signals of its approach\nthat, although its banners are spread across the flaming sky, it must\ncome upon you as a thief in the night.\n\nFor the woman, we may well leave her to the embraces of her daughter.\nThey are enough for her now.\n\nBut endless more will follow, for God is exhaustless in giving where the\nhuman receiving holds out. God be praised that there are such embraces\nin the world! that there are mothers who are the salvation of their\nchildren!\n\nWe now complete a little family group, as it were, with the story of\nanother foreigner, a Roman officer, who besought the Lord for his\nservant. This captain was at Capernaum at the time, where I presume he\nhad heard of the cure which Jesus had granted to the nobleman for his\nson. It seems almost clear from the quality of his faith, however, that\nhe must have heard much besides of Jesus--enough to give him matter of\npondering for some time, for I do not think such humble confidence\nas his could be, like Jonah's gourd, the growth of a night. He was\nevidently a man of noble and large nature. Instead of lording it over\nthe subject Jews of Capernaum, he had built them a synagogue; and his\nbehaviour to our Lord is marked by that respect which, shown to any\nhuman being, but especially to a person of lower social condition, is\none of the surest marks of a finely wrought moral temperament. Such a\nnature may be beautifully developed, by a military training, in which\nobedience and command go together; and the excellence of faith and its\ninstant response in action, would be more readily understood by the\nthoughtful officer of a well-disciplined army than by any one to whom\norganization was unknown. Hence arose the parallel the centurion draws\nbetween his own and the Master's position, which so pleased the Lord by\nits direct simplicity. But humble as the man was, I doubt if anything\nless than some spiritual perception of the nobility of the character\nof Jesus, some perception of that which was altogether beyond even the\npower of healing, could have generated such perfect reverence, such\nchildlike confidence as his. It is no wonder the Lord was pleased with\nit, for that kind of thing must be just what his Father loves.\n\nAccording to St Luke, the Roman captain considered himself so unworthy\nof notice from the carpenter's son--they of Capernaum, which was \"his\nown city,\" knew his reputed parentage well enough--that he got the\nelders of the Jews to go and beg for him that he would come and heal his\nservant. They bore testimony to his worth, specifying that which would\nalways be first in the eyes of such as they, that he loved their nation,\nand had built them a synagogue. Little they thought how the Lord was\nabout to honour him above all their nation and all its synagogues. He\nwent with them at once.\n\nBut before they reached the house, the centurion had a fresh inroad of\nthat divine disease, humility, [Footnote 6: In him it was almost\nmorbid, one might be tempted to say, were it not that it was own sister\nto such mighty faith.] and had sent other friends to say, \"Lord, trouble\nnot thyself, for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my\nroof. Wherefore, neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee; but\nsay in a word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man set\nunder authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and\nhe goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do\nthis, and he doeth it.\"\n\nThis man was a philosopher: he ascended from that to which he was\naccustomed to that to which he was not accustomed. Nor did his divine\nlogic fail him. He begins with acknowledging his own subjection, and\nstates his own authority; then leaves it to our Lord to understand that\nhe recognizes in him an authority beyond all, expecting the powers of\nnature to obey their Master, just as his soldiers or his servants obey\nhim. How grandly he must have believed in him!\n\nBut beyond suspicion of flattery, he avoids the face of the man whom in\nheart he worships. How unlike those who press into the presence of a\nphantom-greatness! \"A poor creature like me go and talk to him!\" the\nRoman captain would exclaim. \"No, I will worship from afar off.\" And it\nis to be well heeded that the Lord went no further--turned at once. With\nthe tax-gatherer Zacchaeus he would go home, if but to deliver him from\nthe hopelessness of his self-contempt; but what occasion was there here?\nIt was all right here. The centurion was one who needed but to go on. In\nheart and soul he was nearer the Lord now than any of the disciples who\nfollowed him. Surely some one among the elders of the Jews, his friends,\nwould carry him the report of what the Master said. It would not hurt\nhim. The praise of the truly great will do no harm, save it fall where\nit ought not, on the heart of the little. The praise of God never falls\nwrong, therefore never does any one harm. The Lord even implies we ought\nto seek it. His praise would but glorify the humility and the faith of\nthis Roman by making both of them deeper and nobler still. There is\nsomething very grand in the Lord's turning away from the house of the\nman who had greater faith than any he had found in Israel; for such were\nthe words he spoke to those who followed him, of whom in all likelihood\nthe messenger elders were nearest. Having turned to say them, he turned\nnot again but went his way. St Luke, whose narrative is in other\nrespects much fuller than St Matthew's (who says that the centurion\nhimself came to Jesus, and makes no mention of the elders), does not\nrepresent the Master as uttering a single word of cure, but implies\nthat he just went away marvelling at him; while \"they that were sent,\nreturning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick.\" If\nany one ask how Jesus could marvel, I answer, Jesus could do more things\nthan we can well understand. The fact that he marvelled at the great\nfaith, shows that he is not surprised at the little, and therefore is\nable to make all needful and just, yea, and tender allowance.\n\nHere I cannot do better for my readers than give them four lines, dear\nto me, but probably unknown to most of them, written, I must tell them,\nfor the sake of their loving catholicity, by an English Jesuit of the\nseventeenth century. They touch the very heart of the relation between\nJesus and the centurion:--\n\n  Thy God was making haste into thy roof;\n  Thy humble faith and fear keeps Him aloof:\n  He'll be thy guest; because He may not be,\n  He'll come--into thy house? No, into thee.\n\nAs I said, we thus complete a kind of family group, for surely the true\nservant is one of the family: we have the prayer of a father for a\nson, of a mother for a daughter, of a master for a servant. Alas! the\ndearness of this latter bond is not now known as once. There never was a\nrooted institution in parting with which something good was not lost for\na time, however necessary its destruction might be for the welfare of\nthe race. There are fewer free servants that love their masters and\nmistresses now, I fear, than there were Roman bondsmen and bondswomen\nwho loved theirs. And, on the other hand, very few masters and\nmistresses regard the bond between them and their servants with half the\nrespect and tenderness with which many among the Romans regarded it.\nSlavery is a bad thing and of the devil, yet mutual jealousy and\ncontempt are worse. But the time will yet come when a servant will serve\nfor love as more than wages; and when the master of such a servant will\nhonour him even to the making him sit down to meat, and coming forth and\nserving him.\n\nThe next is the case of the palsied man, so graphically given both by\nSt Mark and St Luke, and with less of circumstance by St Matthew. This\nmiracle also was done in Capernaum, called his own city. Pharisees\nand doctors of the law from every town in the country, hearing of\nhis arrival, had gathered to him, and were sitting listening to his\nteaching. There was no possibility of getting near him, and the sick\nman's friends had carried him up to the roof, taken off the tiles, and\nlet him down into the presence. It should not be their fault if the poor\nfellow was not cured. \"Jesus seeing their faith--When Jesus saw their\nfaith--And when he saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy,\nSon, be of good cheer--Son--Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.\" The\nforgiveness of the man's sins is by all of the narrators connected\nwith the faith of his friends. This is very remarkable. The only other\ninstance in which similar words are recorded, is that of the woman who\ncame to him in Simon's house, concerning whom he showed first, that her\nlove was a sign that her sins were already forgiven. What greater honour\ncould he honour their faith withal than grant in their name, unasked,\nthe one mighty boon? They had brought the man to him; to them he forgave\nhis sins. He looked into his heart, and probably saw, as in the case of\nthe man whom he cured by the pool of Bethesda, telling him to go and\nsin no more, that his own sins had brought upon him this suffering,\na supposition which aids considerably to the understanding of the\nconsequent conversation; saw, at all events, that the assurance of\nforgiveness was what he most needed, whether because his conscience was\noppressed with a sense of guilt, or that he must be brought to think\nmore of the sin than of the suffering; for it involved an awful rebuke\nto the man, if he required it still--that the Lord should, when he came\nfor healing, present him with forgiveness. Nor did he follow it at once\nwith the cure of his body, but delayed that for a little, probably for\nthe man's sake, as probably for the sake of those present, whom he had\nbeen teaching for some time, and in whose hearts he would now fix the\nlesson concerning the divine forgiveness which he had preached to them\nin bestowing it upon the sick man. For his words meant nothing, except\nthey meant that God forgave the man. The scribes were right when they\nsaid that none could forgive sins but God--that is, in the full sense in\nwhich forgiveness is still needed by every human being, should all his\nfellows whom he has injured have forgiven him already.\n\nThey said in their hearts, \"He is a blasphemer.\" This was what he had\nexpected.\n\n\"Why do you think evil in your hearts?\" he said, that is, _evil of\nme--that I am a blasphemer_.\n\nHe would now show them that he was no blasphemer; that he had the power\nto forgive, that it was the will of God that he should preach the\nremission of sins. How could he show it them? In one way only: by\ndismissing the consequence, the punishment of those sins, sealing thus\nin the individual case the general truth. He who could say to a man,\nby the eternal law suffering the consequences of sin: \"Be whole,\nwell, strong; suffer no more,\" must have the right to pronounce his\nforgiveness; else there was another than God who had to cure with a word\nthe man whom his Maker had afflicted. If there were such another, the\nkingdom of God must be trembling to its fall, for a stronger had invaded\nand reversed its decrees. Power does not give the right to pardon, but\nits possession may prove the right. \"Whether is easier--to say, Thy\nsins be forgiven thee, or to say, Rise up and walk?\" If only God can do\neither, he who can do the one must be able to do the other.\n\n\"That ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive\nsins--Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.\"\n\nUp rose the man, took up that whereon he had lain, and went away,\nknowing in himself that his sins _were_ forgiven him, for he was able\nto glorify God. It seems to me against our Lord's usual custom with the\nscribes and Pharisees to grant them such proof as this. Certainly, to\njudge by those recorded, the whole miracle was in aspect and order\nsomewhat unusual. But I think the men here assembled were either better\nthan the most of their class, or in a better mood than common, for St\nLuke says of them that the power of the Lord was present to heal them.\nTo such therefore proof might be accorded which was denied to others.\nThat he might heal these learned doctors around him, he forgave the sins\nfirst and then cured the palsy of the man before him. For their sakes he\nperformed the miracle thus. Then, _like priests, like people_; for where\ntheir leaders were listening, the people broke open the roof to get the\nhelpless into his presence.\n\n\"They marvelled and glorified God which had given such power unto\nmen\"--\"Saying, We never saw it on this fashion.\"--\"They were filled with\nfear, saying, We have seen strange things to-day.\"\n\nAnd yet Capernaum had to be brought down to hell, and no man can tell\nthe place where it stood.\n\nTwo more cases remain, both related by St Mark alone.\n\nThey brought him a man partially deaf and dumb. He led him aside from\nthe people: he would be alone with him, that he might come the better\ninto relation with that individuality which, until molten from within,\nis so hard to touch. Possibly had the man come of himself, this might\nhave been less necessary; but I repeat there must have been in every\ncase reason for the individual treatment in the character and condition\nof the patient. These were patent only to the Healer. In this case the\ncloseness of the personal contact, as in those cases of the blind, is\nlikewise remarkable. \"He put his fingers into his ears, he spit and\ntouched his tongue.\" Always in present disease, bodily contact--in\ndefects of the senses, sometimes of a closer kind. He would generate\nassured faith in himself as the healer. But there is another remarkable\nparticular here, which, as far as I can remember, would be alone in its\nkind but for a fuller development of it at the raising of Lazarus. \"And\nlooking up to heaven, he sighed.\"\n\nWhat did it mean? What first of all _was_ it?\n\nThat look, was it not a look up to his own Father? That sigh, was it not\nthe unarticulated prayer to the Father of the man who stood beside him?\nBut did _he_ need to look up as if God was in the sky, seeing that God\nwas in _him_, in his very deepest, inmost being, in fulness of presence,\nand receiving conscious response, such as he could not find anywhere\nelse--not from the whole gathered universe? Why should he send a sigh,\nlike a David's dove, to carry the thought of his heart to his Father?\nTrue, if all the words of human language had been blended into one\nglorious majesty of speech, and the Lord had sought therein to utter the\nlove he bore his Father, his voice must needs have sunk into the last\ninarticulate resource--the poor sigh, in which evermore speech dies\nhelplessly triumphant--appealing to the Hearer to supply the lack,\nsaying _I cannot, but thou knowest_--confessing defeat, but claiming\nvictory. But the Lord could talk to his Father evermore in the forms of\nwhich words are but the shadows, nay, infinitely more, without forms at\nall, in the thoughts which are the souls of the forms. Why then needs he\nlook up and sigh?--That the man, whose faith was in the merest nascent\ncondition, might believe that whatever cure came to him from the hand of\nthe healer, came from the hand of God. Jesus did not care to be believed\nin as the doer of the deed, save the deed itself were recognized as\ngiven him of the Father. If they saw him only, and not the Father\nthrough him, there was little gained indeed. The upward look and the\nsigh were surely the outward expression of the infrangible link which\nbound both the Lord and the man to the Father of all. He would lift the\nman's heart up to the source of every gift. No cure would be worthy gift\nwithout that: it might be an injury.\n\nThe last case is that of the blind man of Bethsaida, whom likewise he\nled apart, out of the town, and whose dull organs he likewise touched\nwith his spittle. Then comes a difference. The deaf man was at once\ncured; when he had laid his hands on the blind man, his vision was but\nhalf-restored. \"He asked him if he saw ought? And he looked up and said,\nI see the men: for like trees [Footnote 7: Could it be translated,\n\"_As well as_ (that is besides) trees, I see walkers about\"?] I see them\nwalking about.\" He could tell they were men and not trees, only by their\nmotion. The Master laid his hands once more upon his eyes, and when he\nlooked up again, he saw every man clearly.\n\nIn thus graduating the process, our Lord, I think, drew forth,\nencouraged, enticed into strength the feeble faith of the man. He\nbrooded over him with his holy presence of love. He gave the faith time\nto grow. He cared more for his faith than his sight. He let him, as it\nwere, watch him, feel him doing it, that he might know and believe.\nThere is in this a peculiar resemblance to the ordinary modes God takes\nin healing men.\n\nThese last miracles are especially full of symbolism and analogy. But in\nconsidering any of the miracles, I do not care to dwell upon this aspect\nof them, for in this they are only like all the rest of the doings of\nGod. Nature is brimful of symbolic and analogical parallels to the\ngoings and comings, the growth and the changes of the highest nature in\nman. It could not be otherwise. For not only did they issue from the\nsame thought, but the one is made for the other. Nature as an outer\ngarment for man, or a living house, rather, for man to live in. So\nlikewise must all the works of him who did the works of the Father bear\nthe same mark of the original of all.\n\nThe one practical lesson contained in this group is nearer the human\nfact and the human need than any symbolic meaning, grand as it must be,\nwhich they may likewise contain; nearer also to the constitution of\nthings, inasmuch as what a man must _do_ is more to the man and to his\nMaker than what he can only _think_; inasmuch, also, as the commonest\nthings are the best, and any man can do right, although he may be unable\nto tell the difference between a symbol and a sign:--it is that if ever\nthere was a Man such as we read about here, then he who prays for his\nfriends shall be heard of God. I do not say he shall have whatever he\nasks for. God forbid. But he shall be heard. And the man who does not\nsee the good of that, knows nothing of the good of prayer; can, I fear,\nas yet, only pray for himself, when most he fancies he is praying for\nhis friend. Often, indeed, when men suppose they are concerned for the\nwell-beloved, they are only concerned about what they shall do without\nthem. Let them pray for themselves instead, for that will be the truer\nprayer. I repeat, all prayer is assuredly heard:--what evil matter is\nit that it should be answered only in the right time and right way? The\nprayer argues a need--that need will be supplied. One day is with the\nLord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. All who\nhave prayed shall one day justify God and say--Thy answer is beyond my\nprayer, as thy thoughts and thy ways are beyond my thoughts and my ways.\n\n\n\n\nVII. THE CASTING OUT OF DEVILS.\n\n\nBefore attempting to say the little I can concerning this group of\nmiracles, I would protect myself against possible misapprehension.\nThe question concerning the nature of what is called _possession_\nhas nothing whatever to do with that concerning the existence or\nnonexistence of a personal and conscious power of evil, the one great\nadversary of the kingdom of heaven, commonly called Satan, or the devil.\nI say they are two distinct questions, and have so little in common that\nthe one may be argued without even an allusion to the other.\n\nMany think that in the cases recorded we have but the symptoms of\nwell-known diseases, which, from their exceptionally painful character,\ninvolving loss of reason, involuntary or convulsive motions, and\nother abnormal phenomena, the imaginative and unscientific Easterns\nattributed, as the easiest mode of accounting for them, to a foreign\npower taking possession of the body and mind of the man. They say there\nis no occasion whatever to resort to an explanation involving an agency\nof which we know nothing from any experience of our own; that, as our\nLord did not come to rectify men's psychological or physiological\ntheories, he adopted the mode of speech common amongst them, but cast\nout the evil spirits simply by healing the diseases attributed to their\ninfluences.\n\nThere seems to me nothing unchristian in this interpretation. All\ndiseases that trouble humanity may well be regarded as inroads of the\nevil powers upon the palaces and temples of God, where only the\nHoly Spirit has a right to dwell; and to cast out such, is a marvel\naltogether as great as to expel the intruding forces to which the\nJews attributed some of them. Certainly also our Lord must have used\nmultitudes of human expressions which did not more than adumbrate his\nown knowledge. And yet I cannot admit that the solution meets all the\nappearances of the difficulty. I say _appearances_, because I could not\nbe dogmatic here if I would. I know too little, understand too little,\nto dare give such an opinion as possesses even the authority of personal\nconviction. All I have to say on the subject must therefore come to\nlittle. Perhaps if the marvellous, as such, were to me more difficult\nof belief, anything I might have to say on the side of it would have\ngreater weight. But to me the marvellous is not therefore incredible,\nalways provided that in itself the marvellous thing appears worthy.\nI have no difficulty in receiving the old Jewish belief concerning\npossession; and I think it better explains the phenomena recorded than\nthe growing modern opinion; while the action of matter upon mind may\nwell be regarded as involving greater mystery than the action of one\nspiritual nature upon another. That a man should rave in madness because\nsome little cell or two in the grey matter of his brain is out of order,\nis surely no more within the compass of man's understanding than the\nsupposition that an evil spirit, getting close to the fountain of a\nman's physical life, should disturb all the goings on of that life, even\nto the production of the most appalling moral phenomena. In either case\nit is not the man himself who originates the resulting actions, but an\nexternal power operating on the man.\n\n\"But we do not even know that there are such spirits, and we do know\nthat a diseased brain is sufficient to account for the worst of the\nphenomena recorded.\" I will not insist on the fact that we do _not_ know\nthat the diseased brain is enough to account for the phenomena, that we\nonly know it as in many cases a concomitant of such phenomena; I will\ngrant so much, and yet insist that, as the explanation does not fit the\nstatements of the record, and as we know so little of what is, any hint\nof unknown possibilities falling from unknown regions, should, even as a\nstranger, receive the welcome of contemplation and conjecture, so long\nas in itself it involves no moral contradiction. The man who will not\nspeculate at all, can make no progress. The thinking about the possible\nis as genuine, as lawful, and perhaps as edifying an exercise of the\nmind as the severest induction. Better lies still beyond. Experiment\nitself must follow in the track of sober conjecture; for if we know\nalready, where is the good of experiment?\n\nThere seems to me nothing unreasonable in the supposition of the\nexistence of spirits who, having once had bodies such as ours, and\nhaving abused the privileges of embodiment, are condemned for a season\nto roam about bodiless, ever mourning the loss of their capacity for\nthe only pleasures they care for, and craving after them in their\nimaginations. Such, either in selfish hate of those who have what\nthey have lost, or from eagerness to come as near the possession of a\ncorporeal form as they may, might well seek to _enter into_ a man. The\nsupposition at least is perfectly consistent with the facts recorded.\nPossibly also it may be consistent with the phenomena of some of the\nforms of the madness of our own day, although all its forms are alike\nregarded as resulting from physical causes alone.\n\nThe first act of dispossession recorded is that told by St Mark and St\nLuke, as taking place at Capernaum, amongst his earliest miracles, and\npreceding the cure of Simon's mother-in-law. He was in the synagogue on\nthe Sabbath day, teaching the congregation, when a man present, who had\nan unclean spirit, cried out. If I accept the narrative, I find this cry\nfar more intelligible on the old than on the new theory. The speaker,\nno doubt using the organs of the man, brain and all, for utterance,\nrecognizes a presence--to him the cause of terror--which he addresses as\nthe Holy One of God. This holy one he would propitiate by entreaty and\nthe flattering acknowledgment of his divine mission, with the hope\nof being left unmolested in the usurpation and cruelty by which he\nministered to his own shadowy self-indulgences. Could anything be more\nconsistently diabolic?\n\nWhat other word could Jesus address to such than, \"Hold thy peace, and\ncome out of him\"? A being in such a condition could not be permitted to\nhold converse with the Saviour; for he recognized no salvation but what\nlay in the continuance of his own pleasures at the expense of another.\nThe form of the rebuke plainly assumes that it was not the man but some\none in the man who had spoken; and the narrative goes on to say that\nwhen the devil had thrown him down and torn him and cried with a loud\nvoice--his rage and disappointment, I presume, finding its last futile\nutterance in the torture of his captive--he came out of him and left him\nunhurt. Thereupon the people questioned amongst themselves saying, \"What\nthing is this? It is a teaching new, and with authority: he commandeth\neven the unclean spirits, and they obey him;\" [Footnote 8: St Mark, i. 27.\nAuthorized Version revised by Dean Alford.] thus connecting at once his\npower over the unclean spirits with the doctrine he taught, just as our\nLord in an after-instance associates power over demons with spiritual\ncondition. It was the truth in him that made him strong against the\npowers of untruth.\n\nMany such cures were performed, but the individual instances recorded\nare few. The next is that of the man--dumb, according to St Luke, both\nblind and dumb, according to St Matthew--who spake and saw as soon\nas the devil was cast out of him. With unerring instinct the people\nconcluded that he who did such deeds must be the Son of David; the\ndevils themselves, according to St Mark, were wont to acknowledge him\nthe Son of God; the Scribes and Pharisees, the would-be guides of\nthe people, alone refused the witness, and in the very imbecility of\nunbelief, eager after any theory that might seem to cover the facts\nwithout acknowledging a divine mission in one who would not admit\n_their_ authority, attributed to Beelzebub himself the deliverance of\ndistressed mortals from the powers of evil.\n\nRegarding the kingdom of God as a thing of externals, they were\nfortified against recognizing in Jesus himself or in his doctrine any\nsign that he was the enemy of Satan, and might even persuade themselves\nthat such a cure was only one of Satan's tricks for the advancement of\nhis kingdom with the many by a partial emancipation of the individual.\nBut our Lord attributes this false conclusion to its true cause--to\nno incapacity or mistake of judgement; to no over-refining about the\npossible chicaneries of Beelzebub; but to a preference for any evil\nwhich would support them in their authority with the people--in itself\nan evil. Careless altogether about truth itself, they would not give\na moment's quarter to any individual utterance of it which tended to\ndestroy their honourable position in the nation. Each man to himself was\nhis own god. The Spirit of God they shut out. To them forgiveness was\nnot offered. They must pay the uttermost farthing--whatever that may\nmean--and frightful as the doom must be. That he spoke thus against them\nwas but a further carrying out of his mission, a further inroad upon the\nkingdom of that Beelzebub. And yet they were the accredited authorities\nin the church of that day; and he who does not realize this, does not\nunderstand the battle our Lord had to fight for the emancipation of the\npeople. It was for the sake of the people that he called the Pharisees\n_hypocrites_, and not for their own sakes, for how should he argue with\nmen who taught religion for their own aggrandizement?\n\nIt is to be noted that our Lord recognizes the power of others besides\nhimself to cast out devils. \"By whom do your children cast them out?\"\n_Did you ever say of them it was by Beelzebub? Why say it of me_? What\nhe claims he freely allows. The Saviour had no tinge of that jealousy\nof rival teaching--as if truth could be two, and could avoid being\none--which makes so many of his followers grasp at any waif of false\nargument. He knew that all good is of God, and not of the devil. All\nwere _with_ him who destroyed the power of the devil.\n\nThey who were cured, and they in whom self-worship was not blinding the\njudgment, had no doubt that he was fighting Satan on his usurped ground.\nTorture was what might be expected of Satan; healing what might be\nexpected of God. The reality of the healing, the loss of the man,\nmorally as well as physically, to the kingdom of evil, was witnessed in\nall the signs that followed. Our Lord rests his argument on the fact\nthat Satan had lost these men.\n\nWe hear next, from St Luke, of certain women who followed him, having\nbeen healed of evil spirits and infirmities, amongst whom is mentioned\n\"Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils.\" No wonder a\nwoman thus delivered should devote her restored self to the service of\nhim who had recreated her. We hear nothing of the circumstances of the\ncure, only the result in her constant ministration. Hers is a curious\ninstance of the worthlessness of what some think it a mark of\nhigh-mindedness to regard alone--the opinion, namely, of posterity.\nWithout a fragment of evidence, this woman has been all but universally\nregarded as impure. But what a trifle to her! Down in this squabbling\nnursery of the race, the name of Mary Magdalene may be degraded even to\na subject for pictorial sentimentalities; but the woman herself is with\nthat Jesus who set her free. To the end of time they may call her what\nthey please: to her it is worth but a smile of holy amusement. And just\nas worthy is the applause of posterity associated with a name. To God\nalone we live or die. Let us fall, as, thank him, we must, into his\nhands. Let him judge us. Posterity may be wiser than we; but posterity\nis not our judge.\n\nWe come now to a narrative containing more of the marvellous than all\nthe rest. The miracle was wrought on the south-eastern side of the\nlake--St Matthew says, upon two demoniacs; St Mark and St Luke make\nmention only of one. The accounts given by the latter Evangelists are\nmuch more circumstantial than that by the former. It was a case of\npeculiarly frightful character. The man, possessed of many demons, was\nferocious, and of marvellous strength, breaking chains and fetters, and\nuntameable. It is impossible to analyse the phenomena, saying which\nwere the actions of the man, and which those of the possessing demons.\nExternally all were the man's, done by the man finally, some part, I\npresume, from his own poor withered will, far the greater from the\nurging of the demons. Even in the case of a man driven by appetite or\npassion, it is impossible to say how much is to be attributed to the man\nhimself, and how much to that lower nature in him which he ought to keep\nin subjection, but which, having been allowed to get the upper hand, has\nbecome a possessing demon. He met the Lord worshipping, and, as in a\nformer instance, praying for such clemency as devils can value. Was it\nthe devils, then, that urged the man into the presence of the Lord?\nWas it not rather the other spirit, the spirit of life, which not the\npresence of a legion of the wicked ones could drive from him? Was it not\nthe spirit of the Father in him which brought him, ignorant, fearing,\nyet vaguely hoping perhaps, to the feet of the Son? He knew not why he\ncame; but he came--drawn or driven; he could not keep away. When he\ncame, however, the words at least of his prayer were moulded by the\ndevils--\"I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not.\" Think of the\nman, tortured by such awful presences, praying to the healer not to\ntorment him! The prayer was compelled into this shape by the indwelling\ndemons. They would have him pray for indulgence for them. But the Lord\nheard the deeper prayer, that is, the need and misery of the man, the\nhorror that made him cry and cut himself with stones--and commanded the\nunclean spirit to come out of him. Thereupon, St Mark says, \"he besought\nhim much that he would not send them out of the country.\" Probably the\ncountry was one the condition of whose inhabitants afforded the demons\nunusual opportunities for their coveted pseudo-embodiment. St Luke says,\n\"They besought him that he would not command them to go out into the\ndeep\"--to such beings awful, chiefly because there they must be alone,\nafar from matter and all its forms. In such loneliness the good man\nwould be filled with the eternal presence of the living God; but they\nwould be aware only of their greedy, hungry selves--desires without\nobjects. No. Here were swine. \"Send us into the swine, that we may enter\ninto them.\" Deprived of the abode they preferred, debarred from men,\nswine would serve their turn. But even the swine--animals created to\nlook unclean, for a type to humanity of the very form and fashion of its\ngreed--could not endure their presence. The man had cut himself with\nstones in his misery; the swine in theirs rushed into the waters of the\nlake and were drowned. The evil spirits, I presume, having no further\nleave, had to go to their deep after all.\n\nThe destruction of the swine must not be regarded as miraculous. But\nthere must have been a special reason in the character and condition\nof the people of Gadara for his allowing this destruction of their\nproperty. I suppose that although it worked vexation and dismay at\nfirst, it prepared the way for some after-reception of the gospel. Now,\nseeing him who had been a raving maniac, sitting at the feet of Jesus,\nclothed and in his right mind, and hearing what had come to the swine,\nthey were filled with fear, and prayed the healer to depart from them.\n\nBut who can imagine the delight of the man when that wild troop of\nmaddening and defiling demons, which had possessed him with all\nuncleanness, vanished! Scarce had he time to know that he was naked,\nbefore the hands of loving human beings, in whom the good Spirit ruled,\nwere taking off their own garments, and putting them upon him. He was\na man once more, and amongst men with human faces, human hearts, human\nways. He was with his own; and that supreme form and face of the man who\nhad set him free was binding them all into one holy family. Now he could\npray of himself the true prayer of a soul which knew what it wanted, and\ncould say what it meant. He sat down like a child at the feet of the man\nwho had cured him; and when, yielding at once to the desire of those who\nwould be rid of his presence, Jesus went down to the boat, he followed,\npraying that he might be with him; for what could he desire but to\nbe near that power which had restored him his divine self, and the\nconsciousness thereof--his own true existence, that of which God was\nthinking when he made him?\n\nBut he would be still nearer the Lord in doing his work than in\nfollowing him about. It is remarkable that while more than once our Lord\ncharged the healed to be silent, he leaves this man as his apostle--his\nwitness with those who had banished him from their coasts. Something\nmay be attributed to the different natures of the individuals; some in\npreaching him would also preach themselves, and so hurt both. But this\nman was not of such. To be with the Lord was all his prayer. Therefore\nhe was fit to be without him, and to aid his work apart. But I think it\nmore likely that the reason lay in the condition of the people. Jud\u00e6a\nwas in a state of excitement about him--that excitement had unhealthy\nelements, and must not be fanned. In some places the Lord would not\nspeak at all. Through some he would pass unknown. But here all was\ndifferent. He had destroyed their swine; they had prayed him to depart;\nif he took from them this one sign of his real presence, that is, of the\nlove which heals, not the power which destroys, it would be to abandon\nthem.\n\nBut it is very noteworthy that he sent the man to his own house, to his\nown friends. They must be the most open to such a message as his, and\nfrom such lips--the lips of their own flesh and blood. He had been\nraving in tombs and deserts, tormented with a legion of devils; now he\nwas one of themselves again, with love in his eyes, adoration in the\nvery tones of his voice, and help in his hands--reason once more supreme\non the throne of his humanity. He obeyed, and published in Gadara, and\nthe rest of the cities of Decapolis, the great things, as Jesus himself\ncalled them, which God had done for him. For it was God who had done\nthem. He was doing the works of his Father.\n\nOne more instance remains, having likewise peculiar points of\ndifficulty, and therefore of interest.\n\nWhen Jesus was on the mount of transfiguration, a dumb, epileptic,\nand lunatic boy was brought by his father to those disciples who were\nawaiting his return.\n\nBut they could do nothing. To their disappointment, and probably to\ntheir chagrin, they found themselves powerless over the evil spirit.\nWhen Jesus appeared, the father begged of him the aid which his\ndisciples could not give: \"Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son, for\nhe is mine only child.\"\n\nWhoever has held in his arms his child in delirium, calling to his\nfather for aid as if he were distant far, and beating the air in wild\nand aimless defence, will be able to enter a little into the trouble of\nthis man's soul. To have the child, and yet see him tormented in some\nregion inaccessible; to hold him to the heart and yet be unable to reach\nthe thick-coming fancies which distract him; to find himself with a\ngreat abyss between him and his child, across which the cry of the\nchild comes, but back across which no answering voice can reach the\nconsciousness of the sufferer--is terror and misery indeed. But imagine\nin the case before us the intervals as well--the stupidity, the vacant\ngaze, the hanging lip, the pale flaccid countenance and bloodshot eyes,\nidiocy alternated with madness--no voice of human speech, only the\nanimal babble of the uneducated dumb--the misery of his falling down\nanywhere, now in the fire, now in the water, and the divine shines out\nas nowhere else--for the father loves his only child even to agony.\n\nWhat was there in such a child to love? _Everything_: the human was\nthere, else whence the torture of that which was not human? whence\nthe pathos of those eyes, hardly up to the dog's in intelligence, yet\nomnipotent over the father's heart? God was there. The misery was that\nthe devil was there too. Thence came the crying and tears. \"Rescue the\ndivine; send the devil to the deep,\" was the unformed prayer in the\nfather's soul.\n\nBefore replying to his prayer, Jesus uttered words that could not have\nbeen addressed to the father, inasmuch as he was neither faithless nor\nperverse. Which then of those present did he address thus? To which of\nthem did he say, \"How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer\nyou?\" I have thought it was the bystanders: but why they? They had not\nsurely reached the point of such rebuke. I have thought it was the\ndisciples, because perhaps it was their pride that rendered them unable\nto cast out the demon, seeing they tried it without faith enough in\nGod. But the form of address does not seem to belong to them: the word\ngeneration could not well apply to those whom he had chosen out of that\ngeneration. I have thought, and gladly would I continue to think, if\nI could honestly, that the words were intended for the devils who\ntormented his countrymen and friends; and but for St Mark's story, I\nmight have held to it. He, however, gives us one point which neither St\nMatthew nor St Luke mention--that \"when he came to his disciples he saw\na great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them.\" He\nsays the multitude were greatly amazed when they saw him--why, I do not\nknow, except it be that he came just at the point where his presence was\nneedful to give the one answer to the scribes pressing hard upon his\ndisciples because they could not cast out this devil. These scribes,\nthese men of accredited education, who, from their position as students\nof the law and the interpretations thereof, arrogated to themselves a\nmastery over the faith of the people, but were themselves so careless\nabout the truth as to be utterly opaque to its illuminating power--these\nscribes, I say, I do think it was whom our Lord addressed as \"faithless\nand perverse generation.\" The immediately following request to the\nfather of the boy, \"Bring him unto me,\" was the one answer to their\narguments.\n\nA fresh paroxysm was the first result. But repressing all haste, the\nLord will care for the father as much as for the child. He will help his\ngrowing faith.\n\n\"How long is it ago since thus hath come unto him?\"\n\n\"From a child. And oft-times it hath cast him into the fire, and\ninto the waters, to destroy him; but if thou canst do anything, have\ncompassion on us, and help us.\" [Footnote 9: Again the _us_--so full of\npathos.] \"_If thou canst_?\" [Footnote 10: The oldest manuscripts. (_Dean\nAlford_). \"If thou canst have faith--All things,\" &c. (\"New Translation\nof the Gospel of St Mark.\" _Rev. F.H. Godwin_).] All things are possible\nto him that believeth.\"\n\n\"Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.\"\n\nWhether the words of Jesus, \"him that believeth,\" meant himself as\nbelieving in the Father, and therefore gifted with all power, or the man\nas believing in him, and therefore capable of being the recipient of\nthe effects of that power, I am not sure. I incline to the former. The\nresult is the same, for the man resolves the question practically and\npersonally: what was needful in him should be in him. \"I believe; help\nthou mine unbelief.\"\n\nIn the honesty of his heart, lest he should be saying more than was\ntrue--for how could he be certain that Jesus would cure his son? or how\ncould he measure and estimate his own faith?--he appeals to the Lord of\nTruth for all that he ought to be, and think, and believe. \"Help thou\nmine unbelief.\" It is the very triumph of faith. The unbelief itself\ncast like any other care upon him who careth for us, is the highest\nexercise of belief. It is the greatest effort lying in the power of the\nman. No man can help doubt. The true man alone, that is, the faithful\nman, can appeal to the Truth to enable him to believe what is true, and\nrefuse what is false. How this applies especially to our own time and\nthe need of the living generations, is easy to see. Of all prayers it is\nthe one for us.\n\nPossibly our Lord might have held a little farther talk with him, but\nthe people came crowding about. \"He rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto\nhim, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and\nenter no more into him. And the spirit cried and rent him sore, and came\nout of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead.\nBut Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.\"\n\n\"Why could not we cast him out?\" asked his disciples as soon as they\nwere alone.\n\n\"This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting.\"\n\nWhat does this answer imply? The prayer and fasting must clearly be\non the part of those who would heal. They cannot be required of one\npossessed with a demon. If he could fast and pray, the demon would be\ngone already.\n\nIt implies that a great purity of soul is needful in him who would\nmaster the powers of evil. I take prayer and fasting to indicate\na condition of mind elevated above the cares of the world and the\npleasures of the senses, in close communion with the God of life;\ntherefore by its very purity an awe and terror to the unclean spirits, a\nfit cloud whence the thunder of the word might issue against them. The\nexpulsion would appear to be the result of moral, and hence natural,\nsuperiority--a command resting upon oneness with the ultimate will of\nthe Supreme, in like manner as an evil man is sometimes cowed in the\npresence of a good man. The disciples had not attained this lofty\ncondition of faith.\n\nFrom this I lean to think that the words of our Lord--\"All things\nare possible to him that believeth\"--apply to our Lord himself. The\ndisciples could not help the child: \"If thou canst do anything,\" said\nthe father. \"All things are possible to him that believeth,\" says our\nLord. _He_ can help him. That it was the lack of faith in the disciples\nwhich rendered the thing impossible for them, St Matthew informs us\nexplicitly, for he gives the reply of our Lord more fully than the rest:\n\"Because of your unbelief,\" he said, and followed with the assertion\nthat faith could remove mountains.\n\nBut the words--_\"This kind\"_--suggest that the case had its\npeculiarities. It would appear--although I am not certain of this\ninterpretation--that some kinds of spirits required for their expulsion,\nor at least some cases of possession required for their cure, more than\nothers of the presence of God in the healer. I do not care to dwell upon\nthis farther than to say that there are points in the narrative which\nseem to indicate that it was an unusually bad case. The Lord asked how\nlong he had been ill, and was told, from childhood. The demon--to use\nthe language of our ignorance--had had time and opportunity, in his\nundeveloped condition, to lay thorough hold upon him; and when he did\nyield to the superior command of the Lord, he left him as dead--so close\nhad been the possession, that for a time the natural powers could not\noperate when deprived of the presence of a force which had so long\nusurped, maltreated, and exhausted, while falsely sustaining them. The\ndisciples, although they had already the power to cast out demons, could\nnot cast this one out, and were surprised to find it so. There appears\nto me no absurdity, if we admit the demons at all, in admitting also\nthat some had greater force than others, be it regarded as courage or\nobstinacy, or merely as grasp upon the captive mortal.\n\nIn all these stories there is much of comfort both to the friends of\nthose who are insane, and to those who are themselves aware of their own\npartial or occasional insanity. For such sorrow as that of Charles and\nMary Lamb, walking together towards the asylum, when the hour had come\nfor her to repair thither, is there not some assuagement here? It may be\nanswered--We have no ground to hope for such cure now. I think we\nhave; but if our faith will not reach so far, we may at least, like\nAthanasius, recognize the friendship of Death, for death is the divine\ncure of many ills.\n\nBut we all need like healing. No man who does not yet love the truth\nwith his whole being, who does not love God with all his heart and soul\nand strength and mind, and his neighbour as himself, is in his sound\nmind, or can act as a rational being, save more or less approximately.\nThis is as true as it would be of us if possessed by other spirits\nthan our own. Every word of unkindness, God help us! every unfair hard\njudgment, every trembling regard of the outward and fearless disregard\nof the inward life, is a siding with the spirit of evil against the\nspirit of good, with our lower and accidental selves, against our higher\nand essential--our true selves. These the spirit of good would set free\nfrom all possession but his own, for that is their original life. Out\nof us, too, the evil spirits can go by that prayer alone in which a man\ndraws nigh to the Holy. Nor can we have any power over the evil spirit\nin others except in proportion as by such prayer we cast the evil spirit\nout of ourselves.\n\n\n\n\nVIII. THE RAISING OF THE DEAD.\n\n\nI linger on the threshold. How shall I enter the temple of this wonder?\nThrough all ages men of all degrees and forms of religion have hoped at\nleast for a continuance of life beyond its seeming extinction. Without\nsuch a hope, how could they have endured the existence they had? True,\nthere are in our day men who profess unbelief in that future, and yet\nlead an enjoyable life, nor even say to themselves, \"Let us eat and\ndrink, for to-morrow we die;\" but say instead, with nobleness, \"Let us\ndo what good we may, for there are men to come after us.\" Of all things\nlet him who would be a Christian be fair to every man and every class of\nmen. Before, however, I could be satisfied that I understood the mental\ncondition of such, I should require a deeper insight than I possess in\nrespect of other men. These, however numerous they seem in our day,\nwould appear to be exceptions to the race. No doubt there have always\nbeen those who from absorption in the present and its pleasures, have\nnot cared about the future, have not troubled themselves with the\nthought of it. Some of them would rather not think of it, because if\nthere be such a future, they cannot be easy concerning their part in it;\nwhile others are simply occupied with the poor present--a present grand\nindeed if it be the part of an endless whole, but poor indeed if it\nstand alone. But here are thoughtful men, who say, \"There is no\nmore. Let us make the best of this.\" Nor is their notion of _best_\ncontemptible, although in the eyes of some of us, to whom the only worth\nof being lies in the hope of becoming that which, at the rate of present\nprogress, must take ages to be realized, it is poor. I will venture one\nor two words on the matter.\n\nTheir ideal does not approach the ideal of Christianity for _this_ life\neven.\n\nBefore I can tell whether their words are a true representation of\nthemselves, in relation to this future, I must know both their conscious\nand unconscious being. No wonder I should be loath to judge them.\n\nNo poet of high rank, as far as I know, ever disbelieved in the future.\nHe might fear that there was none; but that very fear is faith. The\ngreatest poet of the present day believes with ardour. That it is not\nproven to the intellect, I heartily admit. But if it were true, it were\nsuch as the intellect could not grasp, for the understanding must be the\noffspring of the life--in itself essential. How should the intellect\nunderstand its own origin and nature? It is too poor to grasp this\nquestion; for the continuity of existence depends on the nature of\nexistence, not upon external relations. If after death we should be\nconscious that we yet live, we shall even then, I think, be no more\nable to prove a further continuance of life, than we can now prove our\npresent being. It may be easier to believe--that will be all. But we\nconstantly act upon grounds which we cannot prove, and if we cannot feel\nso sure of life beyond the grave as of common every-day things, at least\nthe want of proof ought neither to destroy our hope concerning it, nor\nprevent the action demanded by its bare possibility.\n\nBut last, I do say this, that those men, who, disbelieving in a future\nstate, do yet live up to the conscience within them, however much lower\nthe requirements of that conscience may be than those of a conscience\nwhich believes itself enlightened from \"the Lord, who is that spirit,\"\nshall enter the other life in an immeasurably more enviable relation\nthereto than those who say _Lord, Lord_, and do not the things he says\nto them.\n\nIt may seem strange that our Lord says so little about the life to\ncome--as we call it--though in truth it is one life with the present--as\nthe leaf and the blossom are one life. Even in argument with the\nSadducees he supports his side upon words accepted by them, and upon the\nnature of God, but says nothing of the question from a human point of\nregard. He seems always to have taken it for granted, ever turning the\nminds of his scholars towards that which was deeper and lay at its\nroot--the life itself--the oneness with God and his will, upon which the\ncontinuance of our conscious being follows of a necessity, and without\nwhich if the latter were possible, it would be for human beings an utter\nevil.\n\nWhen he speaks of the world beyond, it is as _his Father's house_. He\nsays there are many mansions there. He attempts in no way to explain.\nMan's own imagination enlightened of the spirit of truth, and working\nwith his experience and affections, was a far safer guide than his\nintellect with the best schooling which even our Lord could have given\nit. The memory of the poorest home of a fisherman on the shore of\nthe Galilean lake, where he as a child had spent his years of divine\ncarelessness in his father's house, would, at the words of our Lord _my\nFather's house_, convey to Peter or James or John more truth concerning\nthe many mansions than a revelation to their intellect, had it been\npossible, as clear as the Apocalypse itself is obscure.\n\nWhen he said \"I have overcome the _world_\" he had overcome the cause of\nall doubt, the belief in the outside appearances and not in the living\ntruth: he left it to his followers to say, from their own experience\nknowing the thing, not merely from the belief of his resurrection, \"He\nhas conquered death and the grave. O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave,\nwhere is thy victory?\" It is the inward life of truth that conquers\nthe outward death of appearance; and nothing else, no revelation from\nwithout, could conquer it.\n\nThese miracles of our Lord are the nearest we come to news of any kind\nconcerning--I cannot say _from_--the other world. I except of course our\nLord's own resurrection. Of that I shall yet speak as a miracle,\nfor miracle it was, as certainly as any of our Lord's, whatever\ninterpretation be put upon the word. And I say _the nearest to news we\ncome_, because not one of those raised from the dead gives _us_ at least\nan atom of information. Is it possible they may have told their friends\nsomething which has filtered down to us in any shape?\n\nI turn to the cases on record. They are only three. The day after he\ncured the servant of the centurion at Capernaum, Jesus went to Nain, and\nas they approached the gate--but I cannot part the story from the lovely\nwords in which it is told by St Luke: \"There was a dead man carried out,\nthe only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and much people of the\ncity was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her,\nand said unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier; and they\nthat bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee,\nArise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered\nhim to his mother.\"\n\nIn each of the cases there is an especial fitness in the miracle. This\nyouth was the only son of a widow; the daughter of Jairus was his \"one\nonly daughter;\" Lazarus was the brother of two orphan sisters.\n\nI will not attempt by any lingering over the simple details to render\nthe record more impressive. That lingering ought to be on the part of\nthe reader of the narrative itself. Friends crowded around a loss--the\ncentre of the gathering that which _was not_--the sole presence the\nhopeless sign of a vanished treasure--an open gulf, as it were, down\nwhich love and tears and sad memories went plunging in a soundless\ncataract: the weeping mother--the dead man borne in the midst. They\nwere going to the house of death, but Life was between them and it--was\nwalking to meet them, although they knew it not. A face of tender pity\nlooks down on the mother. She heeds him not. He goes up to the bier, and\nlays his hand on it. The bearers recognize authority, and stand. A\nword, and the dead sits up. A moment more, and he is in the arms of his\nmother. O mother! mother! wast thou more favoured than other mothers? Or\nwas it that, for the sake of all mothers as well as thyself, thou wast\nmade the type of the universal mother with the dead son--the raising\nof him but a foretaste of the one universal bliss of mothers with dead\nsons? That thou wert an exception would have ill met thy need, for thy\nmotherhood could not be justified in thyself alone. It could not have\nits rights save on grounds universal. Thy motherhood was common to all\nthy sisters. To have helped thee by exceptional favour would not have\nbeen to acknowledge thy motherhood. That must go mourning still, even\nwith thy restored son in its bosom, for its claims are universal or they\n_are_ not. Thou wast indeed a chosen one, but that thou mightest show to\nall the last fate of the mourning mother; for in God's dealings there\nare no exceptions. His laws are universal as he is infinite. Jesus\nwrought no new thing--only the works of the Father. What matters it that\nthe dead come not back to us, if we go to them? _What matters it?_ said\nI! It is tenfold better. Dear as home is, he who loves it best must know\nthat what he calls home is not home, is but a shadow of home, is but the\nopen porch of home, where all the winds of the world rave by turns, and\nthe glowing fire of the true home casts lovely gleams from within.\n\nCertainly this mother did not thus lose her son again. Doubtless next\nshe died first, knowing then at last that she had only to wait. The dead\nmust have their sorrow too, but when they find it is well with them,\nthey can sit and wait by the mouth of the coming stream better than\nthose can wait who see the going stream bear their loves down to the\nocean of the unknown. The dead sit by the river-mouths of Time: the\nliving mourn upon its higher banks.\n\nBut for the joy of the mother, we cannot conceive it. No mother even who\nhas lost her son, and hopes one blessed eternal day to find him again,\ncan conceive her gladness. Had it been all a dream? A dream surely in\nthis sense, that the final, which alone, in the full sense, is God's\nwill, must ever cast the look of a dream over all that has gone before.\nWhen we last awake, we shall know that we dreamed. Even every honest\njudgment, feeling, hope, desire, will show itself a dream--with this\ndifference from some dreams, that the waking is the more lovely, that\nnothing is lost, but everything gained, in the full blaze of restored\ncompleteness. How triumphant would this mother die, when her turn came!\n\nAnd how calmly would the restored son go about the duties of the\nworld. [Footnote:11 Those who can take the trouble, and are capable of\nunderstanding it, will do well to study Robert Browning's \"Epistle of an\nArab Physician.\"]\n\nHe sat up and began to speak.\n\nIt is vain to look into that which God has hidden; for surely it is by\nno chance that we are left thus in the dark. \"He began to speak.\" Why\ndoes not the Evangelist go on to give us some hint of what he said?\nWould not the hearts of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives,\nchildren, husbands--who shall say where the divine madness of love\nwill cease?--grandfathers, grandmothers--themselves with flickering\nflame--yes, grandchildren, weeping over the loss of the beloved gray\nhead and tremulously gentle voice--would not all these have blessed God\nfor St Luke's record of what the son of the widow said? For my part, I\nthank God he was silent.\n\nWhen I think of the pictures of heaven drawn from the attempt of\nprophecy to utter its visions in the poor forms of the glory of earth, I\nsee it better that we should walk by faith, and not by a fancied sight.\nI judge that the region beyond is so different from ours, so comprising\nin one surpassing excellence all the goods of ours, that any attempt\nof the had-been-dead to describe it, would have resulted in the most\nwretched of misconceptions. Such might please the lower conditions of\nChristian development--but so much the worse, for they could not fail to\nobstruct its further growth. It is well that St Luke is silent; or that\nthe mother and the friends who stood by the bier, heard the words of the\nreturning spirit only as the babble of a child from which they could\ndraw no definite meaning, and to which they could respond only by\ncaresses.\n\nThe story of the daughter of Jairus is recorded briefly by St Matthew,\nmore fully by St Luke, most fully by St Mark. One of the rulers of the\nsynagogue at Capernaum falls at the feet of our Lord, saying his little\ndaughter is at the point of death. She was about twelve years of age. He\nbegs the Lord to lay his hands on her that she may live. Our Lord goes\nwith him, followed by many people. On his way to restore the child he is\narrested by a touch. He makes no haste to outstrip death. We can imagine\nthe impatience of the father when the Lord stood and asked who touched\nhim. What did that matter? his daughter was dying; Death would not wait.\n\nBut the woman's heart and soul must not be passed by. The father with\nthe only daughter must wait yet a little. The will of God cannot be\noutstripped.\n\n\"While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house\ncertain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master\nany further?\" \"Ah! I thought so! There it is! Death has won the race!\"\nwe may suppose the father to say--bitterly within himself. But Jesus,\nwhile he tried the faith of men, never tried it without feeding its\nstrength. With the trial he always gives the way of escape. \"As soon as\nJesus heard the word that was spoken\"--not leaving it to work its agony\nof despair first--\"he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not\nafraid; only believe.\" They are such simple words--commonplace in the\nears of those who have heard them often and heeded them little! but\ncontaining more for this man's peace than all the consolations of\nphilosophy, than all the enforcements of morality; yea, even than the\nraising of his daughter itself. To arouse the higher, the hopeful, the\ntrusting nature of a man; to cause him to look up into the unknown\nregion of mysterious possibilities--the God so poorly known--is to do\ninfinitely more for a man than to remove the pressure of the direst evil\nwithout it. I will go further: To arouse the hope that there may be a\nGod with a heart like our own is more for the humanity in us than to\nproduce the absolute conviction that there is a being who made the\nheaven and the earth and the sea and the fountains of waters. Jesus is\nthe express image of God's substance, and in him we know the heart of\nGod. To nourish faith in himself was the best thing he could do for the\nman.\n\nWe hear of no word from the ruler further. If he answered not our Lord\nin words, it is no wonder. The compressed lip and the uplifted eye would\nsay more than any words to the heart of the Saviour.\n\nNow it would appear that he stopped the crowd and would let them go no\nfarther. They could not all see, and he did not wish them to see. It was\nnot good for men to see too many miracles. They would feast their eyes,\nand then cease to wonder or think. The miracle, which would be all, and\nquite dissociated from religion, with many of them, would cease to be\nwonderful, would become a common thing with most. Yea, some would cease\nto believe that it had been. They would say she did sleep after all--she\nwas not dead. A wonder is a poor thing for faith after all; and the\nmiracle could be only a wonder in the eyes of those who had not prayed\nfor it, and could not give thanks for it; who did not feel that in it\nthey were partakers of the love of God.\n\nJesus must have hated anything like display. God's greatest work has\nnever been done in crowds, but in closets; and when it works out from\nthence, it is not upon crowds, but upon individuals. A crowd is not\na divine thing. It is not a body. Its atoms are not members one of\nanother. A crowd is a chaos over which the Spirit of God has yet to\nmove, ere each retires to his place to begin his harmonious work, and\nunite with all the rest in the organized chorus of the human creation.\nThe crowd must be dispersed that the church may be formed.\n\nThe relation of the crowd to the miracle is rightly reflected in what\ncame to the friends of the house. To them, weeping and wailing greatly,\nafter the Eastern fashion, he said when he entered, \"Why make ye this\nado, and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.\" They laughed him\nto scorn. He put them all out.\n\nBut what did our Lord mean by those words--\"The damsel is not dead, but\nsleepeth\"? Not certainly that, as we regard the difference between death\nand sleep, his words were to be taken literally; not that she was only\nin a state of coma or lethargy; not even that it was a case of suspended\nanimation as in catalepsy; for the whole narrative evidently intends us\nto believe that she was dead after the fashion we call death. That this\nwas not to be dead after the fashion our Lord called death, is a blessed\nand lovely fact.\n\nNeither can it mean, that she was not dead as others, in that he was\ngoing to wake her so soon; for they did not know that, and therefore it\ncould give no ground for the expostulation, \"Why make ye this ado, and\nweep?\"\n\nNor yet could it come only from the fact that to his eyes death and\nsleep were so alike, the one needing the power of God for awaking just\nas much as the other. True they must be more alike in his eyes than even\nin the eyes of the many poets who have written of \"Death and his brother\nSleep;\" but he sees the differences none the less clearly, and how they\nlook to us, and his knowledge could be no reason for reproaching our\nignorance. The explanation seems to me large and simple. These people\nprofessed to believe in the resurrection of the dead, and did believe\nafter some feeble fashion. They were not Sadducees, for they were the\nfriends of a ruler of the synagogue. Our Lord did not bring the news of\nresurrection to the world: that had been believed, in varying degrees,\nby all peoples and nations from the first: the resurrection he taught\nwas a far deeper thing--the resurrection from dead works to serve the\nliving and true God. But as with the greater number even of Christians,\nalthough it was part of their creed, and had some influence upon their\nmoral and spiritual condition, their practical faith in the resurrection\nof the body was a poor affair. In the moment of loss and grief, they\nthought little about it. They lived then in the present almost alone;\nthey were not saved by hope. The reproach therefore of our Lord was\nsimply that they did not take from their own creed the consolation they\nought. If the child was to be one day restored to them, then she was not\ndead as their tears and lamentations would imply. Any one of themselves\nwho believed in God and the prophets, might have stood up and\nsaid--\"Mourners, why make such ado? The maid is not dead, but sleepeth.\nYou shall again clasp her to your bosom. Hope, and fear not--only\nbelieve.\" It was in this sense, I think, that our Lord spoke.\n\nBut it may not at first appear how much grander the miracle itself\nappears in the light of this simple interpretation of the Master's\nwords. The sequel stands in the same relation to the words as\nif--turning into the death-chamber, and bringing the maid out by the\nhand--he had said to them: \"See--I told you she was not dead but\nsleeping.\" The words apply to all death, just as much as to that in\nwhich this girl lay. The Lord brings his assurance, his knowledge of\nwhat we do not know, to feed our feeble faith. It is as if he told us\nthat our notion of death is all wrong, that there is no such thing as we\nthink it; that we should be nearer the truth if we denied it altogether,\nand gave to what we now call death the name of sleep, for it is but a\npassing appearance, and no right cause of such misery as we manifest in\nits presence. I think it was from this word of our Lord, and from the\nsame utterance in the case of Lazarus, that St Paul so often uses the\nword sleep for die and for death. Indeed the notion of death, as we feel\nit, seems to have vanished entirely from St Paul's mind--he speaks of\nthings so in a continuity, not even referring to the change--not\neven saying before death or after death, as if death made no atom of\ndifference in the progress of holy events, the divine history of the\nindividual and of the race together. In a word, when he raised the\ndead, the Son did neither more nor less nor other than the work of the\nFather--what he is always doing; he only made it manifest a little\nsooner to the eyes and hearts of men.\n\nBut they to whom he spoke laughed him to scorn. They knew she was dead,\nand their unfaithfulness blinded their hearts to what he meant. They\nwere unfit to behold the proof of what he had said. Such as they, in\nsuch mood, could gather from it no benefit. A faithful heart alone is\ncapable of understanding the proof of the truest things. It is faith\ntowards God which alone can lay hold of any of his facts. There is a\nforegoing fitness. Therefore he put them all out. But the father and\nmother, whose love and sorrow made them more easily persuaded of mighty\nthings, more accessible to holy influences, and the three disciples,\nwhose faith rendered them fit to behold otherwise dangerous wonders,\nhe took with him into the chamber where the damsel lay--dead toward\nmen--sleeping toward God. Dead as she was, she only slept.\n\n\"Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.\" \"And her spirit came again,\" \"and\nstraightway the damsel arose and walked,\" \"and he commanded to give her\nmeat.\" For in the joy of her restoration, they might forget that the\nmore complete the health of a worn and exhausted body, the more needful\nwas food--food which, in all its commonness, might well support the\nmiracle; for not only did it follow by the next word to that which had\nwrought the miracle, but it worked in perfect harmony with the law which\ntook shape in this resurrection, and in its relations to the human being\ninvolved no whit less marvel than lay in the miracle itself. The\nraising of the dead and the feeding of the living are both and equally\ndivine--therefore in utter harmony. And we do not any more understand\nthe power in the body which takes to itself that food, than we\nunderstand the power going out from Jesus to make this girl's body\ncapable of again employing its ministrations. They are both of one and\nmust be perfect in harmony, the one as much the outcome of law as the\nother.\n\nHe charges the parents to be silent, it may be for his sake, who did not\nwant to be made a mere wonder of, but more probably for their sakes,\nthat the holy thing might not evaporate in speech, or be defiled with\nfoolish talk and the glorification of self-importance in those for whom\na mighty wonder had been done; but that in silence the seed might take\nroot in their hearts and bring forth living fruit in humility, and\nuprightness, and faith.\n\nAnd now for the wonderful story of Lazarus. In this miracle one might\nthink the desire of Jesus for his friend's presence through his own\ncoming trouble, might have had a share, were it not that we never find\nhim working a miracle for himself. He knew the perfect will of the\nFather, and left all to him. Those who cannot know that will and do not\ncare for it, have to fall into trouble that they may know God as the\nSaviour from their own doings--as the fountain of all their well-being.\nThis Jesus had not to learn, and therefore could need no miracle wrought\nfor him. Even his resurrection was all for others. That miracle was\nwrought in, not for him.\n\nHe knew Lazarus was dying. He abode where he was and let him die. For a\nhard and therefore precious lesson for sisters and friends lay in that\ndeath, and the more the love the more precious the lesson--the same\nthat lies in every death; and the end the same for all who\nlove--resurrection. The raising of Lazarus is the type of the raising\nof all the dead. Of Lazarus, as of the daughter of Jairus, he said \"he\nsleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.\" He slept as every\ndead man sleeps.\n\nRead the story. Try to think not only what the disciples felt, but what\nJesus was thinking; how he, who saw the other side, regarded the death\nhe was about to destroy.\n\n\"Lord, if thou hadst been here,\" said Martha, \"my brother had not died.\"\n\nDid she mean to hint what she had not faith enough to ask?\n\n\"Thy brother shall rise again,\" said the Lord.\n\nBut her faith was so weak that she took little comfort from the\nassurance. Alas! she knew what it meant. She knew all about it. He spoke\nof the general far-off resurrection, which to her was a very little\nthing. It was true he should rise again; but what was that to the\npresent consuming grief? A thousand years might be to God as one day,\nbut to Martha the one day was a thousand years. It is only to him who\nentirely believes in God that the thousand years become one day also.\nFor he that believes shares in the vision of him in whom he believes. It\nis through such faith that Jesus would help her--far beyond the present\nawful need. He seeks to raise her confidence in himself by the strongest\nassertions of the might that was in him. \"I am the resurrection and the\nlife: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live!\"\nThe death of not believing in God--the God revealed in Jesus--is\nthe only death. The other is nowhere but in the fears and fancies of\nunbelief. \"And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.\"\nThere is for him nothing to be called death; nothing that is what death\nlooks to us.\n\n\"Believest thou this?\"\n\nMartha was an honest woman. She did not fully understand what he meant.\nShe could not, therefore, do more than assent to it. But she believed in\nhim, and that much she could tell him plainly.\n\n\"Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which\nshould come into the world.\"\n\nAnd that hope with the confession arose in her heart, she gave the\nloveliest sign: she went and called her sister. But even in the\nprofounder Mary faith reached only to the words of her sister:\n\n\"Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.\"\n\nWhen he saw her trouble, and that of the Jews with her, he was troubled\nlikewise. But why? The purest sympathy with what was about to vanish\nwould not surely make him groan in his spirit. Why, then, this trouble\nin our Lord's heart? We have a right, yea, a duty, to understand it if\nwe can, for he showed it.\n\nI think it was caused by an invading sense of the general misery of poor\nhumanity from the lack of that faith in the Father without which he, the\nSon, could do, or endure, nothing. If the Father ceased the Son must\ncease. It was the darkness between God and his creatures that gave room\nfor and was filled with their weeping and wailing over their dead.\nTo them death must appear an unmitigated and irremediable evil. How\nfrightful to feel as they felt! to see death as they saw it! Nothing\ncould help their misery but that faith in the infinite love which he had\ncome to bring them; but how hard it was to persuade them to receive\nit! And how many weeping generations of loving hearts must follow! His\nFather was indeed with them all, but how slowly and painfully would each\nlearn the one precious fact!\n\n\"Where have ye laid him?\" he asked.\n\n\"Lord, come and see,\" they answered, in such mournful accents of human\nmisery that he wept with them.\n\nThey come to the grave.\n\n\"Take ye away the stone.\"\n\n\"Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days,\" said\nshe who believed in the Resurrection and the Life! They are the saddest\nof sad words. I hardly know how to utter the feeling they raise. In all\nthe relations of mortality to immortality, of body to soul, there are\npainful and even ugly things, things to which, by common consent, we\nrefer only upon dire necessity, and with a sense of shame. Happy they in\nwhom the mortal has put on immortality! Decay and its accompaniments,\nall that makes the most beloved of the _appearances_ of God's creation a\nterror, compelling us to call to the earth for succour, and pray her to\ntake our dead out of our sight, to receive her own back into her bosom,\nand unmake in secret darkness that which was the glory of the light in\nour eyes--this was upper-most with Martha, even in the presence of him\nto whom Death was but a slave to come and go at his will. Careful of his\nfeelings, of the shock to his senses, she would oppose his will. For\nthe dead brother's sake also, that he should not be dishonoured in his\nprivacy, she would not have had that stone removed. But had it been as\nMartha feared, who so tender with feeble flesh as the Son of Man? Who so\nunready to impute the shame it could not help? Who less fastidious over\nthe painful working of the laws of his own world?\n\n  Entire affection hateth nicer hands.\n\nAnd at the worst, what was decay to him, who could recall the disuniting\natoms under the restored law of imperial life?\n\n\"Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see\nthe glory of God?\"\n\nAgain I say _the essential_ glory of God who raises all the dead, not\nmerely _an exceptional_ glory of God in raising this one dead man.\n\nThey should see not corruption but glory. No evil odour of dissolution\nshould assail them, but glowing life should spring from the place of the\ndead; light should be born from the very bosom of the darkness.\n\nThey took away the friendly stone. Then Jesus spoke, not to the dead\nman, but to the living Father. The men and women about him must know it\nas the Father's work. \"And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father,\nI thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me\nalways: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they\nmay believe that thou hast sent me.\" So might they believe that the work\nwas God's, that he was doing the will of God, and that they might trust\nin the God whose will was such as this. He claimed the presence of God\nin what he did, that by the open claim and the mighty deed following it\nthey might see that the Father justified what the Son said, and might\nreceive him and all that he did as the manifestation of the Father. And\nnow--\n\n\"Lazarus, come forth.\"\n\nSlow toiling, with hand and foot bound in the grave clothes, he that had\nbeen dead struggled forth to the light. What an awful moment! When did\never corruption and glory meet and embrace as now! Oh! what ready hands,\neager almost to helplessness, were stretched trembling towards the\nfeeble man returning from his strange journey, to seize and carry\nhim into the day--their poor day, which they thought _all_ the day,\nforgetful of that higher day which for their sakes he had left behind,\ncontent to walk in moonlight a little longer, gladdened by the embraces\nof his sisters, and--perhaps--I do not know--comforting their hearts\nwith news of the heavenly regions!\n\nJoy of all joys! The dead come back! Is it any wonder that this Mary\nshould spend three hundred pence on an ointment for the feet of the\nRaiser of the Dead?\n\nI doubt if he told them anything? I do not think he could make even his\nown flesh and blood--of woman-kind, quick to understand--know the things\nhe had seen and heard and felt. All that can be said concerning this, is\nthus said by our beloved brother Tennyson in his book _In Memoriam_:\n\n  'Where wert thou, brother, those four days?'\n  There lives no record of reply,\n  Which telling what it is to die,\n  Had surely added praise to praise.\n\n  Behold a man raised up by Christ!\n  The rest remaineth unrevealed;\n  He told it not; or something sealed\n  The lips of that Evangelist.\n\nWhy are we left in such ignorance?\n\nWithout the raising of the dead, without the rising of the Saviour\nhimself, Christianity would not have given what it could of _hope_ for\nthe future. Hope is not faith, but neither is faith sight; and if we\nhave hope we are not miserable men. But Christianity must not, could not\ninterfere with the discipline needful for its own fulfilment, could\nnot depose the schoolmaster that leads unto Christ. One main doubt and\nterror which drives men towards the revelation in Jesus, is this strange\nthing Death. How shall any man imagine he is complete in himself, and\ncan do without a Father in heaven, when he knows that he knows neither\nthe mystery whence he sprung by birth, nor the mystery to which he goes\nby death? God has given us room away from himself as Robert Browning\nsays:--\n\n  ...\"God, whose pleasure brought\n\n  Man into being, stands away,\n  As it were, an hand-breadth off, to give\n  Room for the newly-made to live,\n  And look at Him from a place apart,\n  And use His gifts of brain and heart\"--\n\nand this room, in its time-symbol, is bounded by darkness on the one\nhand, and darkness on the other. Whence I came and whither I go are\ndark: how can I live in peace without the God who ordered it thus? Faith\nis my only refuge--an absolute belief in a being so much beyond myself,\nthat he can do all for this _me_ with utter satisfaction to this _me_,\nprotecting all its rights, jealously as his own from which they spring,\nthat he may make me at last one with himself who is my deeper self,\ninasmuch as his thought of me is my life. And not to know him, even if I\ncould go on living and happy without him, is death.\n\nIt may be said, \"Why all this? Why not go on like a brave man to meet\nyour fate, careless of what that fate may be?\"\n\n\"But what if this fate _should_ depend on myself? Am I to be careless\nthen?\" I answer.\n\n\"The fate is so uncertain! If it be annihilation, why quail before it?\nCowardice at least is contemptible.\"\n\n\"Is not indifference more contemptible? That one who has once thought\nshould not care to go on to think? That this glory should perish--is it\nno grief? Is life not a good with all its pain? Ought one to be willing\nto part with a good? Ought he not to cleave fast thereto? Have you never\ngrudged the coming sleep, because you must cease for the time to _be_\nso much as you were before? For my part, I think the man who can go to\nsleep without faith in God has yet to learn what being is. He who knows\nnot God cannot, however, have much to lose in losing being. And yet--and\nyet--did he never love man or woman or child? Is he content that there\nshould be no more of it? Above all, is he content to go on with man and\nwoman and child now, careless of whether the love is a perishable thing?\nIf it be, why does he not kill himself, seeing it is all a lie--a false\nappearance of a thing too glorious to be fact, but for which our best\nnature calls aloud--and cannot have it? If one knew for certain that\nthere was no life beyond this, then the noble thing would be to make the\nbest of this, yea even then to try after such things as are written in\nthe Gospel as we call it--for they _are_ the noblest. That I am sure of,\nwhatever I may doubt. But not to be sure of annihilation, and yet choose\nit to be true, and act as if it were true, seems to me to indicate\na nature at strife with immortality--bound for the dust by its own\nchoice--of the earth, and returning to the dust.\"\n\nThe man will say, \"That is yielding everything. Let us eat and drink,\nfor to-morrow we die. I am of the dust, for I believe in nothing\nbeyond.\"\n\n\"No,\" I return. \"I recognize another law in myself which seems to me\ninfinitely higher. And I think that law is in you also, although you are\nat strife with it, and will revive in you to your blessed discontent.\nBy that I will walk, and not by yours--a law which bids me strive after\nwhat I am not but may become--a law in me striving against the law of\nsin and down-dragging decay--a law which is one with my will, and, if\ntrue, must of all things make one at last. If I am made to live I ought\nnot to be willing to cease. This unwillingness to cease--above all,\nthis unwillingness to cease to love my own, the fore-front to me of my\nall men--may be in me the sign, may _well_ be in me the sign that I am\nmade to live. Above all to pass away without the possibility of making\nreparation to those whom I have wronged, with no chance of saying _I am\nsorry--what shall I do for you? Grant me some means of delivering myself\nfrom this burden of wrong_--seems to me frightful. No God to help one\nto be good now! no God who cares whether one is good or not! if a God,\nthen one who will not give his creature time enough to grow good, even\nif he is growing better, but will blot him out like a rain-drop! Great\nGod, forbid--if thou art. If thou art not, then this, like all other\nprayers, goes echoing through the soulless vaults of a waste universe,\nfrom the thought of which its peoples recoil in horror. Death, then, is\ngenial, soul-begetting, and love-creating; and Life is nowhere, save in\nthe imaginations of the children of the grave. Whence, then, oh! whence\ncame those their imaginations? Death, thou art not my father! Grave,\nthou art not my mother! I come of another kind, nor shall ye usurp\ndominion over me.\"\n\nWhat better sign of immortality than the raising of the dead could God\ngive? He cannot, however, be always raising the dead before our eyes;\nfor then the holiness of death's ends would be a failure. We need death;\nonly it shall be undone once and again for a time, that we may know it\nis not what it seems to us. I have already said that probably we are not\ncapable of being told in words what the other world is. But even the\nvery report through the ages that the dead came back, as their friends\nhad known them, with the old love unlost in the grave, with the same\nface to smile and bless, is precious indeed. That they remain the same\nin all that made them lovely, is the one priceless fact--if we may but\nhope in it as a fact. That we shall behold, and clasp, and love them\nagain follows of simple necessity. We cannot be sure of the report as if\nit were done before our own eyes, yet what a hope it gives even to him\nwhose honesty and his faith together make him, like Martha, refrain\nspeech, not daring to say _I believe_ of all that is reported! I think\nsuch a one will one day be able to believe more than he even knows how\nto desire. For faith in Jesus will well make up for the lack of the\nsight of the miracle.\n\nDoes God, then, make death look what it is not? Why not let it appear\nwhat it is, and prevent us from forming false judgments of it?\n\nIt is our low faithlessness that makes us misjudge it, and nothing but\nfaith could make us judge it aright. And that, while in faithlessness,\nwe should thus misjudge it, is well. In what it appears to us, it is a\ntype of what we are without God. But there is no falsehood in it. The\ndust must go back to the dust. He who believes in the body more than in\nthe soul, cleaves to this aspect of death: he who believes in thought,\nin mind, in love, in truth, can see the other side--can rejoice over\nthe bursting shell which allows the young oak to creep from its\nkernel-prison. The lower is true, but the higher overcomes and absorbs\nit. \"When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part\nshall be done away.\" When the spirit of death is seen, the body of death\nvanishes from us. Death is God's angel of birth. We fear him. The dying\nstretches out loving hands of hope towards him. I do not believe that\ndeath is to the dying the dreadful thing it looks to the beholders. I\nthink it is more like what the spirit may then be able to remember\nof its own birth as a child into this lower world, this porch of the\nheavenly. How will he love his mother then! and all humanity in her, and\nGod who gave her, and God who gives her back!\n\nThe future lies dark before us, with an infinite hope in the darkness.\nTo be at peace concerning it on any other ground than the love of\nGod, would be an absolute loss. Better fear and hope and prayer, than\nknowledge and peace without the prayer.\n\nTo sum up: An express revelation in words would probably be little\nintelligible. In Christ we have an ever-growing revelation. He is the\nresurrection and the life. As we know him we know our future.\n\nIn our ignorance lies a force of need, compelling us towards God.\n\nIn our ignorance likewise lies the room for the development of the\nsimple will, as well as the necessity for arousing it. Hence this\nignorance is but the shell of faith.\n\nIn this, as in all his miracles, our Lord _shows_ in one instance what\nhis Father is ever doing without showing it.\n\nEven the report of this is the best news we can have from the _other_\nworld--as we call it.\n\n\n\n\nIX. THE GOVERNMENT OF NATURE.\n\n\nThe miracles I include in this class are the following:--\n\n1. The turning of water into wine, already treated of, given by St John.\n2. The draught of fishes, given by St Luke. 3. The draught of fishes,\ngiven by St John. 4 The feeding of the four thousand, given by St\nMatthew and St Mark. 5. The feeding of the five thousand, recorded by\nall the Evangelists. 6. The walking on the sea, given by St Matthew, St\nMark, and St John. 7. The stilling of the storm, given by St Matthew, St\nMark, and St Luke. 8. The fish bringing the piece of money, told by St\nMatthew alone.\n\nThese miracles, in common with those already considered, have for their\nend the help or deliverance of man. They differ from those, however, in\noperating mediately, through a change upon external things, and not at\nonce on their human objects.\n\nBut besides the fact that they have to do with what we call nature, they\nwould form a class on another ground. In those cases of disease,\nthe miracles are for the setting right of what has gone wrong, the\nrestoration of the order of things,--namely, of the original condition\nof humanity. No doubt it is a law of nature that where there is sin\nthere should be suffering; but even its cure helps to restore that\nrighteousness which is highest nature; for the cure of suffering must\nnot be confounded with the absence of suffering. But the miracles of\nwhich I have now to speak, show themselves as interfering with what we\nmay call the righteous laws of nature. Water should wet the foot, should\ningulf him who would tread its surface. Bread should come from the\noven last, from the field first. Fishes should be now here now there,\naccording to laws ill understood of men--nay, possibly according to a\npiscine choice quite unknown of men. Wine should take ripening in the\ngrape and in the bottle. In all these cases it is otherwise. Yet even\nin these, I think, the restoration of an original law--the supremacy of\nrighteous man, is foreshown. While a man cannot order his own house as\nhe would, something is wrong in him, and therefore in his house. I\nthink a true man should be able to rule winds and waters and loaves and\nfishes, for he comes of the Father who made the house for him. Had Jesus\nnot been capable of these things, he might have been the best of men,\nbut either he could not have been a perfect man, or the perfect God, if\nsuch there were, was not in harmony with the perfect man. Man is not\nmaster in his own house because he is not master in himself, because he\nis not a law unto himself--is not himself obedient to the law by which\nhe exists. Harmony, that is law, alone is power. Discord is weakness.\nGod alone is perfect, living, self-existent law.\n\nI will try, in a few words, to give the ground on which I find it\npossible to accept these miracles. I cannot lay it down as for any\nother man. I do not wonder at most of those to whom the miracles are a\nstumbling-block. I do a little wonder at those who can believe in Christ\nand yet find them a stumbling-block.\n\nHow God creates, no man can tell. But as man is made in God's image, he\nmay think about God's work, and dim analogies may arise out of the depth\nof his nature which have some resemblance to the way in which God works.\nI say then, that, as we are the offspring of God--the children of his\nwill, like as the thoughts move in a man's mind, we live in God's mind.\nWhen God thinks anything, then that thing _is_. His thought of it is its\nlife. Everything is because God thinks it into being. Can it then be\nvery hard to believe that he should alter by a thought any form or\nappearance of things about us?\n\n\"It is inconsistent to work otherwise than by law.\"\n\nTrue; but we know so little of this law that we cannot say what is\nessential in it, and what only the so far irregular consequence of the\nunnatural condition of those for whom it was made, but who have not yet\nwilled God's harmony. We know so little of law that we cannot certainly\nsay what would be an infringement of this or that law. That which at\nfirst sight appears as such, may be but the operating of a higher law\nwhich rightly dominates the other. It is the law, as we call it, that a\nstone should fall to the ground. A man may place his hand beneath the\nstone, and then, _if his hand be strong enough_, it is the law that the\nstone shall not fall to the ground. The law has been lawfully prevented\nfrom working its full end. In similar ways, God might stop the working\nof one law by the intervention of another. Such intervention, if not\nunderstood by us, would be what we call a miracle. Possibly a different\ncondition of the earth, producible according to law, might cause\neverything to fly off from its surface instead of seeking it. The\nquestion is whether or not we can believe that the usual laws might be\nset aside by laws including higher principles and wider operations.\nAll I have to answer is--Give me good reason, and I can. A man may\nsay--\"What seems good reason to you, does not to me.\" I answer, \"We are\nboth accountable to that being, if such there be, who has lighted in us\nthe candle of judgment. To him alone we stand or fall. But there must\nbe a final way of right, towards which every willing heart is led,--and\nwhich no one can find who does not seek it.\" All I want to show here,\nis a conceivable region in which a miracle might take place without\nany violence done to the order of things. Our power of belief depends\ngreatly on our power of imagining a region in which the things might be.\nI do not see how some people _could_ believe what to others may offer\nsmall difficulty. Let us beware lest what we call faith be but the mere\nassent of a mind which has cared and thought so little about the objects\nof its so-called faith, that it has never seen the difficulties\nthey involve. Some such believers are the worst antagonists of true\nfaith--the children of the Pharisees of old.\n\nIf any one say we ought to receive nothing of which we have no\nexperience; I answer, there is in me a necessity, a desire before which\nall my experience shrivels into a mockery. Its complement must lie\nbeyond. We ought, I grant, to accept nothing for which we cannot see\nthe probability of some sufficient reason, but I thank God that this\nsufficient reason is not for me limited to the realm of experience. To\nsuppose that it was, would change the hope of a life that might be an\never-burning sacrifice of thanksgiving, into a poor struggle with events\nand things and chances--to doom the Psyche to perpetual imprisonment in\nthe worm. I desire the higher; I care not to live for the lower. The one\nwould make me despise my fellows and recoil with disgust from a self I\ncannot annihilate; the other fills me with humility, hope, and love.\nIs the preference for the one over the other foolish then--even to the\nmeanest judgment?\n\nA higher condition of harmony with law, may one day enable us to do\nthings which must now _appear_ an interruption of law. I believe it is\nin virtue of the absolute harmony in him, his perfect righteousness,\nthat God can create at all. If man were in harmony with this, if he too\nwere righteous, he would inherit of his Father a something in his degree\ncorrespondent to the creative power in Him; and the world he inhabits,\nwhich is but an extension of his body, would, I think, be subject to him\nin a way surpassing his wildest dreams of dominion, for it would be the\nperfect dominion of holy law--a virtue flowing to and from him through\nthe channel of a perfect obedience. I suspect that our Lord in all his\ndominion over nature, set forth only the complete man--man as God means\nhim one day to be. Why should he not know where the fishes were? or\neven make them come at his will? Why should not that will be potent as\nimpulse in them? If we admit what I hail as the only fundamental idea\nupon which I can speculate harmoniously with facts, and as alone\ndisclosing regions wherein contradictions are soluble, and doubts\nprevisions of loftier truth--I mean the doctrine of the Incarnation; or\nif even we admit that Jesus was good beyond any other goodness we know,\nwhy should it not seem possible that the whole region of inferior\nthings might be more subject to him than to us? And if more, why not\naltogether? I believe that some of these miracles were the natural\nresult of a physical nature perfect from the indwelling of a perfect\nsoul, whose unity with the Life of all things and in all things was\nabsolute--in a word, whose sonship was perfect.\n\nIf in the human form God thus visited his people, he would naturally\nshow himself Lord over their circumstances. He will not lord it over\ntheir minds, for such lordship is to him abhorrent: they themselves must\nsee and rejoice in acknowledging the lordship which makes them free.\nThere was no grand display, only the simple doing of what at the time\nwas needful. Some say it is a higher thing to believe of him that he\ntook things just as they were, and led the revealing life without the\naid of wonders. On any theory this is just what he did as far as his own\nlife was concerned. But he had no ambition to show himself the best of\nmen. He comes to reveal the Father. He will work even wonders to that\nend, for the sake of those who could not believe as he did and had to be\ntaught it. No miracle was needful for himself: he saw the root of the\nmatter--the care of God. But he revealed this root in a few rare and\nhastened flowers to the eyes that could not see to the root. There is\nperfect submission to lower law for himself, but revelation of the\nFather to them by the introduction of higher laws operating in the upper\nregions bordering upon ours, not separated from ours by any impassable\ngulf--rather connected by gently ascending stairs, many of whose\ngradations he could blend in one descent. He revealed the Father as\nbeing _under_ no law, but as law itself, and the cause of the laws we\nknow--the cause of all harmony because himself _the_ harmony. Men had\nto be delivered not only from the fear of suffering and death, but from\nthe fear, which is a kind of worship, of nature. Nature herself must be\nshown subject to the Father and to him whom the Father had sent. Men\nmust believe in the great works of the Father through the little works\nof the Son: all that he showed was little to what God was doing. They\nhad to be helped to see that it was God who did such things as often as\nthey were done. He it is who causes the corn to grow for man. He gives\nevery fish that a man eats. Even if things are terrible yet they are\nGod's, and the Lord will still the storm for their faith in Him--tame\na storm, as a man might tame a wild beast--for his Father measures the\nwaters in the hollow of his hand, and men are miserable not to know it.\nFor himself, I repeat, his faith is enough; he sleeps on his pillow nor\ndreams of perishing.\n\nOn the individual miracles of this class, I have not much to say. The\nfirst of them was wrought in the animal kingdom.\n\nHe was teaching on the shore of the lake, and the people crowded him.\nThat he might speak with more freedom, he stepped into an empty boat,\nand having prayed Simon the owner of it, who was washing his nets near\nby, to thrust it a little from the shore, sat down, and no longer\nincommoded by the eagerness of his audience, taught them from the boat.\nWhen he had ended he told Simon to launch out into the deep, and let\ndown his nets for a draught. Simon had little hope of success, for there\nhad been no fish there all night; but he obeyed, and caught such a\nmultitude of fishes that the net broke. They had to call another boat to\ntheir aid, and both began to sink from the overload of fishes. But the\ngreat marvel of it wrought on the mind of Simon as every wonder tends to\noperate on the mind of an honest man: it brought his sinfulness before\nhim. In self-abasement he fell down at Jesus' knees. Whether he thought\nof any individual sins at the moment, we cannot tell; but he was\npainfully dissatisfied with himself. He knew he was not what he ought to\nbe. I am unwilling however to believe that such a man desired, save, it\nmay be, as a passing involuntary result of distress, to be rid of the\nholy presence. I judge rather that his feeling was like that of the\ncenturion--that he felt himself unworthy to have the Lord in his boat.\nHe may have feared that the Lord took him for a good man, and his\nhonesty could not endure such a mistake:\n\n\"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.\"\n\nThe Lord accepted the spirit, therefore _not_ the word of his prayer.\n\n\"Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.\"\n\nHis sense of sinfulness, so far from driving the Lord from him, should\ndraw other men to him. As soon as that cry broke from his lips, he had\nbecome fit to be a fisher of men. He had begun to abjure that which\nseparated man from man.\n\nAfter his resurrection, St John tells us the Lord appeared one morning,\non the shore of the lake, to some of his disciples, who had again been\ntoiling all night in vain. He told them once more how to cast their net,\nand they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.\n\n\"It is the Lord,\" said St John, purer-hearted, perhaps therefore\nkeener-eyed, than the rest.\n\nSince the same thing had occurred before, Simon had become the fisher of\nmen, but had sinned grievously against his Lord. He knew that Lord so\nmuch better now, however, that when he heard it was he, instead of\ncrying _Depart from me_, he cast himself into the sea to go to him.\n\nI take next the feeding of the four thousand with the seven loaves and\nthe few little fishes, and the feeding of the five thousand with the\nfive loaves and the two fishes.\n\nConcerning these miracles, I think I have already said almost all I have\nto say. If he was the Son of God, the bread might as well grow in his\nhands as the corn in the fields. It is, I repeat, only a doing in\ncondensed form, hence one more easily associated with its real source,\nof that which God is for ever doing more widely, more slowly, and with\nmore detail both of fundamental wonder and of circumstantial loveliness.\nWhence more fittingly might food come than from the hands of such an\nelder brother? No doubt there will always be men who cannot believe\nit:--happy are they who demand a good reason, and yet can believe a\nwonder! Associated with words which appeared to me foolish, untrue, or\neven poor in their content, I should not believe it. Associated with\nsuch things as he spoke, I can receive it with ease, and I cherish it\nwith rejoicing. It must be noted in respect of the feeding of the five\nthousand, that while the other evangelists merely relate the deed as\ndone for the necessities of the multitude, St John records also the\nuse our Lord made of the miracle. It was the outcome of his essential\nrelation to humanity. Of humanity he was ever the sustaining food. To\nhumanity he was about to give himself in an act of such utter devotion\nas could only be shadowed--now in the spoken, afterwards in the acted\nsymbol of the eucharist. The miracle was a type of his life as the life\nof the world, a sign that from him flows all the weal of his creatures.\nThe bread we eat is but its outer husk: the true bread is the Lord\nhimself, to have whom in us is eternal life. \"Except ye eat the flesh of\nthe Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you.\" He knew that\nthe grand figure would disclose to the meditation of the loving heart\ninfinitely more of the truth of the matter than any possible amount\nof definition and explanation, and yet must ever remain far short of\nsetting forth the holy fact to the boldest and humblest mind. But lest\nthey should start upon a wrong track for the interpretation of it, he\nsays to his disciples afterwards, that this body of his should return to\nGod; that what he had said concerning the eating of it had a spiritual\nsense: \"It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth\nnothing\"--for that. In words he contradicts what he said before, that\nthey might see the words to have meant infinitely more than as words\nthey were able to express; that not their bodies on his body, but their\nsouls must live on his soul, by a union and communion of which the\neating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood was, after all, but a\npoor and faint figure. In this miracle, for the souls as for the bodies\nof men, he did and revealed the work of the Father. He who has once\nunderstood the meaning of Christ's words in connection with this\nmiracle, can never be content they should be less than true concerning\nhis Father in heaven. Whoever would have a perfect Father, must believe\nthat he bestows his very being for the daily food of his creatures. He\nwho loves the glory of God will be very jealous of any word that would\nenhance his greatness by representing him incapable of suffering. Verily\nGod has taken and will ever take and endure his share, his largest share\nof that suffering in and through which the whole creation groans for the\nsonship.\n\nFollows at once the equally wonderful story of his walking on the sea to\nthe help of his disciples. After the former miracle, the multitude would\nhave taken him by force to make him their king. Any kind of honour they\nwould readily give him except that obedience for the truth's sake which\nwas all he cared for. He left them and went away into a mountain alone\nto pray to his Father. Likely he was weary in body, and also worn in\nspirit for lack of that finer sympathy which his disciples could not\ngive him being very earthly yet. He who loves his fellows and labours\namong those who can ill understand him will best know what this\nweariness of our Lord must have been like. He had to endure the\nworld-pressure of surrounding humanity in all its ungodlike phases. Hence\neven he, the everlasting Son of the Father, found it needful to retire\nfor silence and room and comfort into solitary places. There his senses\nwould be free, and his soul could the better commune with the Father.\nThe mountain-top was his chamber, the solitude around him its closed\ndoor, the evening sky over his head its open window. There he gathered\nstrength from the will of the Father for what yet remained to be done\nfor the world's redemption. How little could the men below, who would\nhave taken him by force and made him a king, understand of such\ncommunion! Yet every one of them must go hungering and thirsting and\ngrasping in vain, until the door of that communion was opened for him.\nThey would have made him a king: he would make them poor in spirit,\nmighty in aspiration, all kings and priests unto God.\n\nBut amidst his prayer, amidst the eternal calm of his rapturous\ncommunion, he saw his disciples thwarted by a wind stronger than all\ntheir rowing: he descended the hill and walked forth on the water to\ntheir help.\n\nIf ignorant yet devout speculation may be borne with here, I venture\nto say that I think the change of some kind that was necessary somehow\nbefore the body of the Son of Man could, like the Spirit of old, move\nupon the face of the waters, passed, not upon the water, but, by the\nwill of the Son of Man himself, upon his own body. I shall have more to\nsay concerning this in a following chapter--now I merely add that we\nknow nothing yet, or next to nothing, of the relation between a right\nsoul and a healthy body. To some no doubt the notion of a healthy body\nimplies chiefly a perfection of all the animal functions, which is,\non the supposition, a matter of course; but what I should mean by an\nabsolutely healthy body is, one entirely under the indwelling spirit,\nand responsive immediately to all the laws of its supremacy, whatever\nthose laws may be in the divine ideal of a man. As we are now, we find\nthe diseased body tyrannizing over the almost helpless mind: the healthy\nbody would be the absolutely obedient body.\n\nWhat power over his own dwelling a Saviour coming fresh from the closest\nspeech with him who made that body for holy subjection, might have, who\ncan tell! If I hear of any reasonable wonder resulting therefrom, I\nshall not find it hard to believe, and shall be willing to wait until I,\npure, inhabit an obedient house, to understand the plain thing which\nis now a mystery. Meantime I can honour the laws I do know, and which\nhonest men tell me they have discovered, no less than those honest\nmen who--without my impulse, it may be, to speculate in this\ndirection--think such as I foolish in employing the constructive faculty\nwith regard to these things. But where, I pray them, lies any field so\nabsolutely its region as the unknown which yet the heart yearns to\nknow? Such cannot be the unknowable. It is endless comfort to think of\nsomething that _might_ be true. And the essence of whatever seems to a\nhuman heart to be true, I expect to find true--in greater forms, and\nwithout the degrading accidents which so often accompany it in the brain\nof the purest thinker. Why should I not speculate in the only direction\nin which things to me worthy of speculation appear likely to lie? There\nis a wide _may be_ around us; and every true speculation widens the\nprobability of changing the may _be_ into the _is_. The laws that are\nknown and the laws that shall be known are all lights from the Father\nof lights: he who reverently searches for such will not long mistake\na flash in his own brain for the candle of the Lord. But if he should\nmistake, he will be little the worse, so long as he is humble, and ready\nto acknowledge error; while, if he should be right, he will be none the\nworse for having seen the glimmer of the truth from afar--may, indeed,\ncome to gather a little honour from those who, in the experimental\nverification of an idea, do not altogether forget that, without some\nforegone speculation, the very idea on which they have initiated their\nexperiment, and are now expending their most valued labour, would\nnever have appeared in their firmament to guide them to new facts and\nrealities.\n\nNor would it be impossible to imagine how St Peter might come within the\nsphere of the holy influence, so that he, too, for a moment should walk\non the water. Faith will yet prove itself as mighty a power as it\nis represented by certain words of the Lord which are at present a\nstumbling-block even to devout Christians, who are able to accept them\nonly by putting explanations upon them which render them unworthy of\nhis utterance. When I say _a power_, I do not mean in itself, but as\nconnecting the helpless with the helpful, as uniting the empty need with\nthe full supply, as being the conduit through which it is right and\npossible for the power of the creating God to flow to the created\nnecessity.\n\nWhen the Lord got into the boat, the wind ceased, \"and immediately,\"\nsays St John, \"the ship was at the land whither they went.\" As to\nwhether the ceasing of the wind was by the ordinary laws of nature, or\nsome higher law first setting such in operation, no one who has followed\nthe spirit of my remarks will wonder that I do not care to inquire: they\nare all of one. Nor, in regard to their finding themselves so quickly at\nthe end of their voyage, will they wonder if I think that we may have\njust one instance of space itself being subject to the obedient God, and\nthat his wearied disciples, having toiled and rowed hard for so long,\nmight well find themselves at their desired haven as soon as they\nreceived him into their boat. Either God is all in all, or he is\nnothing. Either Jesus is the Son of the Father, or he did no miracle.\nEither the miracles are fact, or I lose--not my faith in this man--but\ncertain outward signs of truths which these very signs have aided me to\ndiscover and understand and see in themselves.\n\nThe miracle of the stilling of the storm naturally follows here.\n\nWhy should not he, who taught his disciples that God numbered the very\nhairs of their heads, do what his Father is constantly doing--still\nstorms--bring peace out of uproar? Of course, if the storm was stilled,\nit came about by natural causes--that is, by such as could still a\nstorm. That anything should be done by unnatural causes, that is, causes\nnot of the nature of the things concerned, is absurd. The sole question\nis whether Nature works alone, as some speculators think, or whether\nthere is a soul in her, namely, an intent;--whether these things are\nthe result of thought, or whether they spring from a dead heart;\nunconscious, yet productive of conscious beings, to think, yea,\nspeculate eagerly concerning a conscious harmony hinted at in their\nbroken music and conscious discord; beings who, although thus born\nof unthinking matter, invent the notion of an all lovely, perfect,\nself-denying being, whose thought gives form to matter, life to nature,\nand thought to man--subjecting himself for their sakes to the troubles\ntheir waywardness has brought upon them, that they too may at length\nbehold a final good--may see the Holy face to face--think his thoughts\nand will his wisdom!\n\nThat things should go by a law which does not recognize the loftiest\nin him, a man feels to be a mockery of him. There lies little more\nsatisfaction in such a condition of things than if the whole were the\nfortuitous result of ever conflicting, never combining forces. Wherever\nindividual and various necessity, choice, and prayer, come in, there\nmust be the present God, able and ready to fit circumstances to the\nvarying need of the thinking, willing being he has created. Machinery\nwill not do here--perfect as it may be. That God might make a world to\ngo on with absolute physical perfection to all eternity, I could easily\nbelieve; but where the gain?--nay, where the fitness, if he would train\nthinking beings to his own freedom? For such he must be ever present,\never have room to order things for their growth and change and\ndiscipline and enlightenment. The present living idea informing the\ncosmos, is nobler than all forsaken perfection--nobler, as a living man\nis nobler than an automaton.\n\nIf one should say: \"The laws of God ought to admit of no change,\"\nI answer: The same working of unalterable laws might under new\ncircumstances _look_ a breach of those laws. That God will never alter\nhis laws, I fully admit and uphold, for they are the outcome of his\ntruth and fact; but that he might not act in ways unrecognizable by us\nas consistent with those laws, I have yet to see reason ere I believe.\nWhy should his perfect will be limited by our understanding of that\nwill? Should he be paralyzed because we are blind? That he should ever\nrequire us to believe of him what we think wrong, I do not believe;\nthat he should present to our vision what may be inconsistent with our\nhalf-digested and constantly changing theories, I can well believe. Why\nnot--if only to keep us from petrifying an imperfect notion, and calling\nit an _Idea_? What I would believe is, that a present God manages the\ndirection of those laws, even as a man, in his inferior way, works out\nhis own will in the midst and by means of those laws. Shall God create\nthat which shall fetter and limit and enslave himself? What should\nhis laws, as known to us, be but the active mode in which he embodies\ncertain truths--that mode also the outcome of his own nature? If so,\nthey must be always capable of falling in with any, if not of effecting\nevery, expression of his will.\n\nThere remains but one miracle of this class to consider--one to some\nminds involving greater difficulties than all the rest. They say the\nstory of the fish with a piece of money in its mouth is more like one of\nthe tales of eastern fiction than a sober narrative of the quiet-toned\ngospel. I acknowledge a likeness: why might there not be some likeness\nbetween what God does and what man invents? But there is one noticeable\ndifference: there is nothing of colour in the style of the story. No\ngreat roc, no valley of diamonds, no earthly grandeur whatever is hinted\nat in the poor bare tale. Peter had to do with fishes every day of his\nlife: an ordinary fish, taken with the hook, was here the servant of the\nLord--and why should not the poor fish have its share in the service\nof the Master? Why should it not show for itself and its kind that they\nwere utterly his? that along with the waters in which they dwelt, and\nthe wind which lifteth up the waves thereof, they were his creatures,\nand gladly under his dominion? What the scaly minister brought was\nno ring, no rich jewel, but a simple piece of money, just enough, I\npresume, to meet the demand of those whom, although they had no legal\nclaim, our Lord would not offend by a refusal; for he never cared to\nstand upon his rights, or treat that as a principle which might be\nwaived without loss of righteousness. I take for granted that there was\nno other way at hand for those poor men to supply the sum required of\nthem.\n\n\n\n\nX. MIRACLES OF DESTRUCTION.\n\n\nIF we regard the miracles of our Lord as an epitome of the works of his\nFather, there must be room for what we call destruction.\n\nIn the grand process of existence, destruction is one of the phases of\ncreation; for the inferior must ever be giving way for the growth of the\nsuperior: the husk must crumble and decay, that the seed may germinate\nand appear. As the whole creation passes on towards the sonship, death\nmust ever be doing its sacred work about the lower regions, that life\nmay ever arise triumphant, in its ascent towards the will of the Father.\n\nI cannot therefore see good reason why the almost solitary act of\ndestruction recorded in the story should seem unlike the Master. True\nthis kind is unlike the other class in this, that it has only an all but\nsolitary instance: he did not come for the manifestation of such power.\nBut why, when occasion appeared, should it not have its place? Why might\nnot the Lord, consistently with his help and his healing, do that in one\ninstance which his Father is doing every day? I refer now, of course, to\nthe withering of the fig-tree. In the midst of the freshest greenery of\nsummer, you may see the wan branches of the lightning-struck tree. As\na poet drawing his pen through syllable or word that mars his clear\nutterance or musical comment, such is the destruction of the Maker. It\nis the indrawn sigh of the creating Breath.\n\nOur Lord had already spoken the parable of the fig-tree that bore no\nfruit. This miracle was but the acted parable. Here he puts into visible\nform that which before he had embodied in words. All shapes of argument\nmust be employed to arouse the slumbering will of men. Even the\nobedience that comes of the lowest fear is a first step towards an\ninfinitely higher condition than that of the most perfect nature created\nincapable of sin.\n\nThe right interpretation of the external circumstances, however, is of\ncourse necessary to the truth of the miracle. It seems to me to be the\nfollowing. I do not know to whom I am primarily indebted for it.\n\nThe time of the gathering of figs was near, but had not yet arrived:\nupon any fruitful tree one might hope to find a few ripe figs, and more\nthat were eatable. The Lord was hungry as he went to Jerusalem from\nBethany, and saw on the way a tree with all the promise that a perfect\nfoliage could give. He went up to it, \"if haply he might find anything\nthereon.\" The leaves were all; fruit there was none in any stage; the\ntree was a pretence; it fulfilled not that for which it was sent. Here\nwas an opportunity in their very path of enforcing, by a visible sign\nproceeding from himself, one of the most important truths he had striven\nto teach them. What he had been saying was in him a living truth: he\ncondemned the tree to become in appearance that which it was in fact--a\nuseless thing: when they passed the following morning, it had withered\naway, was dried up from the roots. He did not urge in words the lesson\nof the miracle-parable; he left that to work when the fate of fruitless\nJerusalem should also have become fact.\n\n  For the present the marvel of it possessed them too\n  much for the reading of its lesson; therefore, perhaps,\n  our Lord makes little of the marvel and much of the\n  power of faith; assuring them of answers to their prayers,\n  but adding, according to St Mark, that forgiveness of\n  others is the indispensable condition of their own acceptance\n  --fit lesson surely to hang on that withered tree.\n\nAfter all, the thing destroyed was only a tree. In respect of humanity\nthere is but one distant, and how distant approach to anything similar!\nIn the pseudo-evangels there are several tales of vengeance--not one in\nthese books. The fact to which I refer is recorded by St John alone. It\nis, that when the \"band of men and officers from the chief priests and\nPharisees\" came to take him, and \"Jesus went forth and said unto them,\nWhom seek ye?\" and in reply to theirs, had said \"I am he, they went\nbackward and fell to the ground.\"\n\nThere are one or two facts in connection with the record of this\nincident, which although not belonging quite immediately to my present\ndesign, I would yet note, with the questions they suggest.\n\nThe synoptical Gospels record the Judas-kiss: St John does not.\n\nSt John alone records the going backward and falling to the\nground--prefacing the fact with the words, \"And Judas also, which\nbetrayed him, stood with them.\"\n\nHad not the presence of Judas, then--perhaps his kiss--something to\ndo with the discomfiture of these men? If so--and it seems to me\nprobable--how comes it that St John alone omits the kiss--St John alone\nrecords the recoil? I repeat--if the kiss had to do with the recoil--as\nwould seem from mystical considerations most probable, from artistic\nmost suitable--why are they divided? I think just because those who\nsaw, saw each a part, and record only what they saw or had testimony\nconcerning. Had St John seen the kiss, he who was so capable of\nunderstanding the mystical fitness of the connection of such a kiss with\nsuch a recoil, could hardly have omitted it, especially seeing he makes\nsuch a point of the presence of Judas. Had he been an inventor--here is\njust such a thing as he would have invented; and just here his record is\nbarer than that of the rest--bare of the one incident which would\nhave best helped out his own idea of the story. The consideration is\nsuggestive.\n\nBut why this exercise of at least repellent, which is half-destructive\nforce, reminding us of Milton's words--\n\n  Yet half his strength he put not forth,\n  But checked His thunder in mid volley?\n\nIt may have had to do with the repentance of Judas which followed.\nIt may have had to do with the future history of the Jewish men who\ncomposed that band. But I suspect the more immediate object of our\nLord was the safety of his disciples. As soon as the men who had gone\nbackward and fallen to the ground, had risen and again advanced, he\nrepeated the question--\"Whom seek ye?\" \"Jesus of Nazareth,\" they\nreplied. \"I am he,\" said the Lord again, but added, now that they had\nfelt his power--\"If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way.\" St\nJohn's reference in respect of these words to a former saying of the\nLord, strengthens this conclusion. And there was no attempt even to lay\nhands on them. He had astonished and terrified his captors to gain of\nthem his sole request--that his friends should go unhurt. There was work\nfor them to do in the world; and he knew besides that they were not\nyet capable of enduring for his sake. At all events it was neither\nfor vengeance nor for self-preservation that this gentlest form of\ndestruction was manifested. I suspect it was but another shape of the\nvirtue that went forth to heal. A few men fell to the ground that his\ndisciples might have time to grow apostles, and redeem the world with\nthe news of him and his Father. For the sake of humanity the fig-tree\nwithered; for the resurrection of the world, his captors fell: small\nhurt and mighty healing.\n\nDaring to interpret the work of the Father from the work of the Son, I\nwould humbly believe that all destruction is for creation--that, even\nfor this, death alone is absolutely destroyed--that, namely, which\nstands in the way of the outgoing of the Father's will, then only\ncompleting its creation when men are made holy.\n\nGod does destroy; but not life. Its outer forms yield that it may grow,\nand growing pass into higher embodiments, in which it can grow yet\nmore. That alone will be destroyed which has the law of death in\nitself--namely, sin. Sin is death, and death must be swallowed up of\nhell. Life, that is God, is the heart of things, and destruction must be\ndestroyed. For this victory endless _forms_ of life must yield;--even\nthe _form_ of the life of the Son of God himself must yield upon the\ncross, that the life might arise a life-giving spirit; that his own\nwords might be fulfilled--\"For if I depart not, the Comforter will not\ncome unto you.\" All spirit must rise victorious over form; and the form\nmust die lest it harden to stone around the growing life. No form is\nor can be great enough to contain the truth which is its soul; for all\ntruth is infinite being a thought of God. It is only in virtue of the\nflowing away of the form, that is death, and the ever gathering of new\nform behind, that is birth or embodiment, that any true revelation is\npossible. On what other terms shall the infinite embrace the finite but\nthe terms of an endless change, an enduring growth, a recognition of\nthe divine as for ever above and beyond, a forgetting of that which is\nbehind, a reaching unto that which is before? Therefore destruction\nitself is holy. It is as if the Eternal said, \"I will show myself; but\nthink not to hold me in any form in which I come. The form is not I.\"\nThe still small voice is ever reminding us that the Lord is neither in\nthe earthquake nor the wind nor the fire; but in the lowly heart that\nfinds him everywhere. The material can cope with the eternal only in\nvirtue of everlasting evanescence.\n\n\n\n\nXI. THE RESURRECTION.\n\n\nThe works of the Lord he himself represents as given him of the Father:\nit matters little whether we speak of his resurrection as a miracle\nwrought by himself, or wrought in him by the Father. If he was one with\nthe Father, the question cannot be argued, seeing that Jesus apart from\nthe Father is not a conceivable idea. It is only natural that he who\nhad power to call from the grave the body which had lain there for four\ndays, should have power over the body he had himself laid down, to take\nit again with reanimating possession. For distinctly do I hold that he\ntook again the same body in which he had walked about on the earth,\nsuffered, and yielded unto death. In the same body--not merely the same\nform, in which he had taught them, he appeared again to his disciples,\nto give them the final consolations of a visible presence, before\ndeparting for the sake of a yet higher presence in the spirit of truth,\na presence no longer limited by even the highest forms of the truth.\n\nIt is not surprising that the records of such a marvel, grounded upon\nthe testimony of men and women bewildered first with grief, and next all\nbut distracted with the sudden inburst of a gladness too great for that\nequanimity which is indispensable to perfect observation, should not\naltogether correspond in the minutiae of detail. All knew that the Lord\nhad risen indeed: what matter whether some of them saw one or two angels\nin the tomb? The first who came saw one angel outside and another inside\nthe sepulchre. One at a different time saw two inside. What wonder\nthen that one of the records should say of them all, that they saw\ntwo angels? I do not care to set myself to the reconciliation of the\ndiffering reports. Their trifling disagreement is to me even valuable\nfrom its truth to our human nature. All I care to do is to suggest to\nany one anxious to understand the records the following arrangement of\nfacts. When Mary Magdalene found the tomb empty, not seeing, or heedless\nof the angel, she forsook her companions, and ran to the chief of the\ndisciples to share the agony of this final loss. Perhaps something might\nyet be done to rescue the precious form, and lay it aside with all\nfutile honours. With Peter and John she returned to the grave, whence,\nin the mean time, her former companions, having seen and conversed with\nthe angel outside and the angel inside, had departed to find their\nfriends. Peter and John, having, the one entered, the other looked into\nthe tomb, and seen only the folded garments of desertion, returned home,\nbut Mary lingered weeping by the place which was not now even the\ngrave of the beloved, so utterly had not only he but the signs of him\nvanished. As she wept, she stooped down into the sepulchre. There sat\nthe angels in holy contemplation, one at the head, the other at the feet\nwhere the body of Jesus had lain. Peter nor John had beheld them: to the\neyes of Mary as of the other women they were manifest. It is a lovely\nstory that follows, full of marvel, as how should it not be?\n\n\"Woman, why weepest thou?\" said the angels.\n\n\"Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have\nlaid him,\" answered Mary, and turning away, tear-blinded, saw the\ngardener, as she thought.\n\n\"Woman, why weepest thou?\" repeats the gardener.\n\n\"Whom seekest thou?\"\n\nHopelessness had dulled every sense: not even a start at the sound of\nhis voice!\n\n\"Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him,\nand I will take him away.\"\n\n\"Mary!\"\n\n\"Master!\"\n\n\"Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my\nbrethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father;\nand to my God and your God.\"\n\nShe had the first sight of him. It would almost seem that, arrested by\nher misery, he had delayed his ascent, and shown himself sooner than his\nfirst intent. \"Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended.\" She was about\nto grasp him with the eager hands of reverent love: why did he refuse\nthe touch?\n\nDoubtless the tone of the words deprived them of any sting. Doubtless\nthe self-respect of the woman was in no way wounded by the master's\nrecoil. For the rest, we know so little of the new conditions of his\nbodily nature, that nothing is ours beyond conjecture. It may be, for\nanything I know, that there were even physical reasons why she should\nnot yet touch him; but my impression is that, after the hard work\naccomplished, and the form in which he had wrought and suffered resumed,\nhe must have the Father's embrace first, as after a long absence any man\nwould seek first the arms of his dearest friend. It may well be objected\nto this notion, that he had never been absent from God--that in his\nheart he was at home with him continually. And yet the body with all its\nlimitations, with all its partition-walls of separation, is God's,\nand there must be some way in which even _it_ can come into a willed\nrelation with him to whom it is nearer even than to ourselves, for it is\nthe offspring of his will, or as the prophets of old would say--the work\nof his hands. That which God has invented and made, which has its very\norigin in the depth of his thought, _can_ surely come nigh to God.\nTherefore I think that in some way which we cannot understand, Jesus\nwould now seek the presence of the Father; would, having done the work\nwhich he had given him to do, desire first of all to return in the body\nto him who had _sent_ him by giving him a body. Hence although he might\ndelay his return at the sound of the woman's grief, he would rather\n_she_ did not touch him first. If any one thinks this founded on too\nhuman a notion of the Saviour, I would only reply that I suspect a great\npart of our irreligion springs from our disbelief in the humanity of\nGod. There lie endless undiscovered treasures of grace. After he had\nonce ascended to the Father, he not only appeared to his disciples again\nand again, but their hands handled the word of life, and he ate in their\npresence. He had been to his Father, and had returned that they might\nknow him lifted above the grave and all that region in which death has\npower; that as the elder brother, free of the oppressions of humanity,\nbut fulfilled of its tenderness, he might show himself captain of their\nsalvation. Upon the body he inhabited, death could no longer lay his\nhands, and from the vantage-ground he thus held, he could stretch down\nthe arm of salvation to each and all.\n\nFor in regard of this glorified body of Jesus, we must note that it\nappeared and disappeared at the will of its owner; and it would seem\nalso that other matter yielded and gave it way; yes, even that space\nitself was in some degree subjected to it. Upon the first of these, the\nrecord is clear. If any man say he cannot believe it, my only answer is\nthat I can. If he ask how it _could_ be, the nearest I can approach to\nan answer is to indicate the region in which it may be possible: the\nborder-land where thought and matter meet is the region where all\nmarvels and miracles are generated. The wisdom of this world can believe\nthat matter generates mind: what seems to me the wisdom from above can\nbelieve that mind generates matter--that matter is but the manifest\nmind. On this supposition matter may well be subject to mind; much more,\nif Jesus be the Son of God, his own body must be subject to his will. I\ndoubt, indeed, if the condition of any man is perfect before the body he\ninhabits is altogether obedient to his will--before, through his own\nabsolute obedience to the Father, the realm of his own rule is put under\nhim perfectly.\n\nIt may be objected that although this might be credible of the glorified\nbody of even the human resurrection, it is hard to believe that the body\nwhich suffered and died on the cross could become thus plastic to the\nwill of the indwelling spirit. But I do not see why that which was born\nof the spirit of the Father, should not be so inter-penetrated and\npossessed by the spirit of the Son, that, without the loss of one of\nits former faculties, it should be endowed with many added gifts of\nobedience; amongst the rest such as are indicated in the narrative\nbefore us.\n\nWhy was this miracle needful?\n\nPerhaps, for one thing, that men should not limit him, or themselves in\nhim, to the known forms of humanity; and for another, that the best hope\nmight be given them of a life beyond the grave; that their instinctive\ndesires in that direction might thus be infinitely developed and\nassured. I suspect, however, that it followed just as the natural\nconsequence of all that preceded.\n\nIf Christ be risen, then is the grave of humanity itself empty. We have\nrisen with him, and death has henceforth no dominion over us. Of every\ndead man and woman it may be said: He--she--is not here, but is risen\nand gone before us. Ever since the Lord lay down in the tomb, and behold\nit was but a couch whence he arose refreshed, we may say of every\nbrother: He is not dead but sleepeth. He too is alive and shall arise\nfrom his sleep.\n\nThe way to the tomb may be hard, as it was for him; but we who look on,\nsee the hardness and not the help; we see the suffering but not the\nsustaining: that is known only to the dying and God. They can tell us\nlittle of this, and nothing of the glad safety beyond.\n\nWith any theory of the conditions of our resurrection, I have scarcely\nhere to do. It is to me a matter of positively no interest whether or\nnot, in any sense, the matter of our bodies shall be raised from the\nearth. It is enough that we shall possess forms capable of revealing\nourselves and of bringing us into contact with God's other works; forms\nin which the idea, so blurred and broken in these, shall be carried\nout--remaining so like, that friends shall doubt not a moment of the\nidentity, becoming so unlike, that the tears of recognition shall be all\nfor the joy of the gain and the gratitude of the loss. Not to believe in\nmutual recognition beyond, seems to me a far more reprehensible unbelief\nthan that in the resurrection itself. I can well understand how a man\nshould not believe in any life after death. I will confess that although\nprobabilities are for it, _appearances_ are against it. But that a man,\nstill more a woman, should believe in the resurrection of the very same\nbody of Jesus, who took pains that his friends should recognize him\ntherein; that they should regard his resurrection as their one ground\nfor the hope of their own uprising, and yet not believe that friend\nshall embrace friend in the mansions prepared for them, is to me\nastounding. Such a shadowy resumption of life I should count unworthy of\nthe name of resurrection. Then indeed would the grave be victorious,\nnot alone over the body, not alone over all which made the life of this\nworld precious and by which we arose towards the divine--but so far\nvictorious over the soul that henceforth it should be blind and deaf to\nwhat in virtue of loveliest memories would have added a new song to the\npraises of the Father, a new glow to the love that had wanted but that\nto make it perfect. In truth I am ashamed of even combating such an\nessential falsehood. Were it not that here and there a weak soul is\nparalysed by the presence of the monstrous lie, and we dare not allow\nsympathy to be swallowed up of even righteous disdain, a contemptuous\ndenial would be enough.\n\nWhat seemed to the disciples the final acme of disappointment and grief,\nthe vanishing of his body itself, was in reality the first sign of the\ndawn of an illimitable joy. He was not there because he had risen.\n\n\n\n\nXII. THE TRANSFIGURATION.\n\n\nI have judged it fitting to close this series of meditations with some\nthoughts on the Transfiguration, believing the story to be as it were a\nwindow through which we gain a momentary glimpse of the region whence\nall miracles appear--a glimpse vague and dark for all the transfiguring\nlight, for God himself is \"by abundant clarity invisible.\" In the story\nwe find a marvellous change, a lovely miracle, pass upon the form itself\nwhence the miracles flowed, as if the pent-up grace wrought mightily\nupon the earthen vessel which contained it.\n\nOur Lord would seem to have repeatedly sought some hill at eventide for\nthe solitude such a place alone could afford him. It must often have\nbeen impossible for him to find any other chamber in which to hold\ncommunion with his Father undisturbed. This, I think, was one of such\noccasions. He took with him the favoured three, whom also he took apart\nfrom the rest in the garden of Gethsemane, to retire even from them a\nlittle, that he might be alone with the Father, yet know that his\nbrothers were near him--the ocean of human need thus drawn upwards\nin an apex of perfect prayer towards the throne of the Father.\n\nI think this, his one only material show, if we except the entry into\nJerusalem upon the ass, took place in the night. Then the son of Joseph\nthe carpenter was crowned, not his head only with a crown placed thereon\nfrom without, but his whole person with a crown of light born in him and\npassing out from him. According to St Luke he went up the mountain to\npray, \"but Peter and they that were with him were _heavy with sleep_.\"\nSt Luke also says that \"on the next day, when they were come down from\nthe mountain,\" that miracle was performed which St Matthew and St Mark\nrepresent as done _immediately_ on the descent. From this it appears\nmore than likely that the night was spent upon the mountain.\n\nSt Luke says that \"the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his\nraiment was white and glistering.\" St Matthew says, \"His face did shine\nas the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.\" St Mark says, \"His\nraiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on\nearth can white them.\" St Luke is alone in telling us that it was while\nhe prayed that this change passed upon him. He became outwardly glorious\nfrom inward communion with his Father. But we shall not attain to the\nmight of the meaning, if we do not see what was the more immediate\nsubject of his prayer. It is, I think, indicated in the fact, also\nrecorded by St Luke, that the talk of his heavenly visitors was \"of his\ndecease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.\" Associate with this\nthe fact that his talk with his disciples, as they came down the\nmountain, pointed in the same direction, and that all open report of the\nvision was to be withheld until he should have risen from the dead, and\nit will appear most likely that the master, oppressed with the thought\nof that which now drew very nigh, sought the comfort and sympathy of his\nFather, praying in the prospect of his decease. Let us observe then how,\nin heaving off the weight of this awful shadow by prayer, he did not\ngrow calm and resigned alone, if he were ever other than such, but his\nfaith broke forth so triumphant over the fear, that it shone from him\nin physical light. Every cloud of sorrow or dread, touched with such a\npower of illumination, is itself changed into a glory. The radiance goes\nhand in hand with the coming decay and the three days' victory of death.\nIt is as a foretaste of his resurrection, a putting on of his new\nglorified body for a moment while he was yet in the old body and the\nawful shadow yet between. It may be to something like this as taking\nplace in other men that the apostle refers when he says: \"We shall not\nall sleep, but we shall all be changed.\" That coming death was to be but\nas the overshadowing cloud, from which the glory should break anew and\nfor ever. The transfiguration then was the divine defiance of the coming\ndarkness.\n\nLet us now speculate for a moment upon the relation of the spiritual and\nphysical manifested in it. He became, I repeat, outwardly glorious from\ninward communion with his Father. In like circumstance, the face of\nMoses shone marvellously. And what wonder? What should make a man's face\nshine, if not the presence of the Holy? if not communion with the Father\nof his spirit? In the transfiguration of Jesus we have, I think, just\nthe perfect outcome of those natural results of which we have the first\nsigns in Moses--the full daylight, of which his shining face was as\nthe dawn. Thus, like the other miracles, I regard it as simply a rare\nmanifestation of the perfect working of nature. Who knows not that in\nmoments of lofty emotion, in which self is for the time forgotten, the\neyes shine, and the face is so transfigured that we are doubtful whether\nit be not in a degree absolutely luminous! I say once more, in the Lord\nwe find the perfecting of all the dull hunts of precious things which\ncommon humanity affords us. If so, what a glory must await every\nlowliest believer, since the communion of our elder brother with his\nFather and our Father, a communion for whose perfecting in us he came,\ncaused not only his face to shine, but the dull garments he wore to\nbecome white as snow through the potency of the permeating light issuing\nfrom his whole person! The outer man shone with the delight of the inner\nman--for his Father was with him--so that even his garments shared in\nthe glory. Such is what the presence of the Father will do for every\nman. May I not add that the shining of the garments is a type of the\nglorification of everything human when brought into its true relations\nby and with the present God?\n\nKeeping the same point of view, I turn now to the resurrection with\nwhich the whole fact is so closely associated:--I think the virtue of\ndivine presence which thus broke in light from the body of Jesus, is the\nsame by which his risen body, half molten in power, was rendered plastic\nto the will of the indwelling spirit. What if this light were the\nhealing agent of the bodies of men, as the deeper other light from which\nit sprung is the healing agent of themselves? Are not the most powerful\nof the rays of light invisible to our vision?\n\nSome will object that this is a too material view of life and its facts.\nI answer that the question is whether I use the material to interpret\nthe spiritual, as I think I do, or to account for it, as I know I do\nnot. In my theory, the spiritual _both_ explains and accounts for the\nmaterial.\n\nIf the notions we have of what we may call _material light_ render it\nthe only fitting image to express the invisible Truth, the being of God,\nthere must be some closest tie between them--not of connection only,\nbut of unity. Such a fitness could not exist without such connection;\nexcept, indeed, there were one god of the Natural and another of the\nSupernatural, who yet were brothers, and thought in similar modes, and\nthe one had to supplement the work of the other. The essential truth\nof God it must be that creates its own visual image in the sun that\nenlightens the world: when man who is the image of God is filled with\nthe presence of the eternal, he too, in virtue of his divine nature thus\nfor the moment ripened to glory, radiates light from his very person.\nWhere, when, or how the inner spiritual light passes into or generates\noutward physical light, who can tell? This border-land, this touching\nof what we call mind and matter, is the region of miracles--of material\ncreation, I might have said, which is _the_ great--suspect, the _only_\nmiracle. But if matter be the outcome of spirit, and body and soul be\none man, then, if the soul be radiant of truth, what can the body do but\nshine?\n\nI conjecture then, that truth, which is light in the soul, might not\nonly cast out disease, which is darkness in the body, but change that\nbody even, without the intervention of death, into the likeness of the\nbody of Jesus, capable of all that could be demanded of it. Except\nby violence I do not think the body of Jesus could have died. No\nphysiologist can tell why man should die. I think a perfect soul would\nbe capable of keeping its body alive. An imperfect one cannot fill it\nwith light in every part--cannot thoroughly inform the brute matter with\nlife. The transfiguration of Jesus was but the visible outbreak of a\nlife so strong as to be life-giving, life-restoring. The flesh it could\nmelt away and evermore renew. Such a body might well walk upon the\nstormiest waters. A body thus responsive to and interpenetrative of\nlight, which is the visible life, could have no sentence of death in it.\nIt would never have died.\n\nBut I find myself in regions where I dare tread no further for the\ndarkness of ignorance. I see many glimmers: they are too formless and\nuncertain.\n\nWhen or how the light died away, we are not told. My own fancy is that\nit went on shining but paling all the night upon the lonely mount, to\nvanish in the dawn of the new day. When he came down from the mountain\nthe virtue that dwelt in him went forth no more in light to the eyes,\nbut in healing to the poor torn frame of the epileptic boy. So he\nvanished at last from the eyes of his friends, only to draw nearer--with\na more intense and healing presence--to their hearts and minds.\n\nEven so come, Lord Jesus.","title":"Miracles of Our Lord","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":53871}