initial commit of ebook 37120HEADmain

1 files changed, 13663 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/37120.txt b/37120.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9a5b97e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/37120.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,13663 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gospel According to St. Mark by G. A.
+Chadwick
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Gospel According to St. Mark
+
+Author: G. A. Chadwick
+
+Release Date: August 18, 2011 [Ebook #37120]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK***
+
+
+
+
+
+                          The Expositor's Bible
+
+                     The Gospel According to St. Mark
+
+                                  By The
+
+                      Very Rev. G. A. Chadwick, D.D.
+
+                              Dean of Armagh
+
+                            Hodder & Stoughton
+
+                                 New York
+
+                         George H. Doran Company
+
+                                   1900
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Chapter I.
+Chapter II.
+Chapter III.
+Chapter IV.
+Chapter V.
+Chapter VI.
+Chapter VII.
+Chapter VIII.
+Chapter IX.
+Chapter X.
+Chapter XI.
+Chapter XII.
+Chapter XIII.
+Chapter XIV.
+Chapter XV.
+Chapter XVI.
+Footnotes
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+
+
+The Beginning Of The Gospel.
+
+
+    "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Even
+    as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send My
+    messenger before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way; The voice of
+    one crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord,
+    Make His paths straight; John came, who baptized in the wilderness
+    and preached the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins. And
+    there went out unto him all the country of Judaea, and all they of
+    Jerusalem; and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan,
+    confessing their sins. And John was clothed with camel's hair, and
+    had a leathern girdle about his loins, and did eat locusts and
+    wild honey."--MARK, i. 1-6 (R.V.).
+
+
+The opening of St. Mark's Gospel is energetic and full of character. St.
+Matthew traces for Jews the pedigree of their Messiah; St. Luke's
+worldwide sympathies linger with the maiden who bore Jesus, and the
+village of His boyhood; and St. John's theology proclaims the Divine
+origin of the Eternal Lord. But St. Mark trusts the public acts of the
+Mighty Worker to do for the reader what they did for those who first
+"beheld His glory." How He came to earth can safely be left untold: what
+He was will appear by what He wrought. It is enough to record, with
+matchless vividness, the toils, the energy, the love and wrath, the defeat
+and triumph of the brief career which changed the world. It will prove
+itself to be the career of "the Son of God."
+
+In so deciding, he followed the example of the Apostolic teaching. The
+first vacant place among the Twelve was filled by an eye-witness,
+competent to tell what Jesus did "from the baptism of John to the day when
+He was received up," the very space covered by this Gospel. That "Gospel
+of peace," which Cornelius heard from St. Peter (and hearing, received the
+Holy Ghost) was the same story of Jesus "after the baptism which John
+preached." And this is throughout the substance of the primitive teaching.
+The Apostles act as men who believe that everything necessary to salvation
+is (implicit or explicit) in the history of those few crowded years.
+Therefore this is "the gospel."
+
+Men there are who judge otherwise, and whose gospel is not the story of
+salvation wrought, but the plan of salvation applied, how the Atonement
+avails for us, how men are converted, and what privileges they then
+receive. But in truth men are not converted by preaching conversion, any
+more than citizens are made loyal by demanding loyalty. Show men their
+prince, and convince them that he is gracious and truly royal, and they
+will die for him. Show them the Prince of Life, and He, being lifted up,
+will draw all men unto Him; and thus the truest gospel is that which
+declares Christ and Him crucified. As all science springs from the
+phenomena of the external world, so do theology and religion spring from
+the life of Him who was too adorable to be mortal, and too loving to be
+disobeyed.
+
+Therefore St. Paul declares that the gospel which he preached to the
+Corinthians and by which they were saved, was, that Christ died for our
+sins and was buried and rose again, and was seen of sufficient witnesses
+(1 Cor. xv. 1-8).
+
+And therefore St. Mark is contented with a very brief record of those
+wondrous years; a few facts, chosen with a keen sense of the intense
+energy and burning force which they reveal, are what he is inspired to
+call the gospel.
+
+He presently uses the word in a somewhat larger sense, telling how Jesus
+Himself, before the story of His life could possibly be unfolded, preached
+as "the gospel of God" that "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God
+is at hand," and added (what St. Mark only has preserved for us), "Repent,
+and believe in the gospel" (i. 14-15). So too it is part of St. Paul's
+"gospel" that "God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ" (Rom.
+ii. 16). For this also is good news of God, "the gospel of the kingdom."
+And like "the gospel of Jesus Christ," it treats of His attitude toward
+us, more than ours toward Him, which latter is the result rather than the
+substance of it. That He rules, and not the devil; that we shall answer at
+last to Him and to none lower; that Satan lied when he claimed to possess
+all the kingdoms of the earth, and to dispose of them; that Christ has now
+received from far different hands "all power on earth"; this is a gospel
+which the world has not yet learned to welcome, nor the Church fully to
+proclaim.
+
+Now the scriptural use of this term is quite as important to religious
+emotion as to accuracy of thought. All true emotions hide their fountain
+too deep for self-consciousness to find. We feel best when our feeling is
+forgotten. Not while we think about finding peace, but while we approach
+God as a Father, and are anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer
+and supplication with thanksgiving make known our requests, is it promised
+that the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall guard our
+hearts and our thoughts (Phil. iv. 7). And many a soul of the righteous,
+whom faith in the true gospel fills with trembling adoration, is made sad
+by the inflexible demand for certain realised personal experiences as the
+title to recognition as a Christian. That great title belonged at the
+first to all who would learn of Jesus: the disciples were called
+Christians. To acquaint ourselves with Him, that is to be at peace.
+
+Meantime, we observe that the new movement which now begins is not, like
+Judaism, a law which brings death; nor like Buddhism, a path in which one
+must walk as best he may: it differs from all other systems in being
+essentially the announcement of good tidings from above.
+
+Yet "the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ" is a profound agitation
+and widespread alarm. Lest the soothing words of Jesus should blend like
+music with the slumber of sinners at ease in Zion, John came preaching
+repentance, and what is more, a baptism of repentance; not such a
+lustration as was most familiar to the Mosaic law, administered by the
+worshipper to himself, but an ablution at other hands, a confession that
+one is not only soiled, but soiled beyond all cleansing of his own. Formal
+Judaism was one long struggle for self-purification. The dawn of a new
+system is visible in the movement of all Judaea towards one who bids them
+throw every such hope away, and come to him for the baptism of repentance,
+and expect A Greater One, who shall baptize them with the Holy Ghost and
+with fire. And the true function of the predicted herald, the best
+levelling of the rugged ways of humanity for the Promised One to traverse,
+was in this universal diffusion of the sense of sin. For Christ was not
+come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
+
+In truth, the movement of the Baptist, with its double aspect, gathers up
+all the teaching of the past. He produced conviction, and he promised
+help. One lesson of all sacred history is universal failure. The innocence
+of Eden cannot last. The law with its promise of life to the man who doeth
+these things, issued practically in the knowledge of sin; it entered that
+sin might abound; it made a formal confession of universal sin, year by
+year, continually. And therefore its fitting close was a baptism of
+repentance universally accepted. Alas, not universally. For while we read
+of all the nation swayed by one impulse, and rushing to the stern teacher
+who had no share in its pleasures or its luxuries, whose life was
+separated from its concerns, and whose food was the simplest that could
+sustain existence, yet we know that when they heard how deep his censures
+pierced, and how unsparingly he scourged their best loved sins, the
+loudest professors of religion rejected the counsel of God against
+themselves, being not baptized of Him. Nevertheless, by coming to Him,
+they also had pleaded guilty. Something they needed; they were sore at
+heart, and would have welcomed any soothing balm, although they refused
+the surgeon's knife.
+
+The law did more than convict men; it inspired hope. The promise of a
+Redeemer shone like a rainbow across the dark story of the past. He was
+the end of all the types, at once the Victim and the Priest. To Him gave
+all the prophets witness, and the Baptist brought all past attainment to
+its full height, and was "more than a prophet" when he announced the
+actual presence of the Christ, when he pointed out to the first two
+Apostles, the Lamb of God.
+
+
+
+
+At The Jordan.
+
+
+    "And he preached, saying, There cometh after me He that is
+    mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to
+    stoop down and unloose. I baptized you with water; but He shall
+    baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in those
+    days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized
+    of John in the Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water,
+    He saw the heavens rent asunder, and the Spirit as a dove
+    descending upon Him: and a voice came out of the heavens, Thou art
+    My Beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased."--MARK i. 7-11 (R.V.).
+
+
+It was when all men mused in their hearts whether John was the Christ or
+no, that he announced the coming of a Stronger One. By thus promptly
+silencing a whisper, so honourable to himself, he showed how strong he
+really was, and how unselfish "a friend of the Bridegroom." Nor was this
+the vague humility of phrase which is content to be lowly in general, so
+long as no specified individual stands higher. His word is definite, and
+accepts much for himself. "The Stronger One than I cometh," and it is in
+presence of the might of Jesus (whom yet this fiery reformer called a
+Lamb), that he feels himself unworthy to bend to the dust and unbind the
+latchets or laces of his shoe.
+
+So then, though asceticism be sometimes good, it is consciously not the
+highest nor the most effective goodness. Perhaps it is the most
+impressive. Without a miracle, the preaching of John shook the nation as
+widely as that of Jesus melted it, and prepared men's hearts for His. A
+king consulted and feared him. And when the Pharisees were at open feud
+with Jesus, they feared to be stoned if they should pronounce John's
+baptism to be of men.
+
+Yet is there weakness lurking even in the very quality which gives
+asceticism its power. That stern seclusion from an evil world, that
+peremptory denial of its charms, why are they so impressive? Because they
+set an example to those who are hard beset, of the one way of escape, the
+cutting off of the hand and foot, the plucking out of the eye. And our
+Lord enjoins such mutilation of the life upon those whom its gifts betray.
+Yet is it as the halt and maimed that such men enter into life. The
+ascetic is a man who needs to sternly repress and deny his impulses, who
+is conscious of traitors within his breast that may revolt if the enemy be
+suffered to approach too near.
+
+It is harder to be a holy friend of publicans and sinners, a witness for
+God while eating and drinking with these, than to remain in the desert
+undefiled. It is greater to convert a sinful woman in familiar converse by
+the well, than to shake trembling multitudes by threats of the fire for
+the chaff and the axe for the barren tree. And John confessed this. In the
+supreme moment of his life, he added his own confession to that of all his
+nation. This rugged ascetic had need to be baptized of Him who came eating
+and drinking.
+
+Nay, he taught that all his work was but superficial, a baptism with water
+to reach the surface of men's life, to check, at the most, exaction and
+violence and neglect of the wants of others, while the Greater One should
+baptize with the Holy Ghost, should pierce the depths of human nature, and
+thoroughly purge His floor.
+
+Nothing could refute more clearly than our three simple narratives, the
+sceptical notion that Jesus yielded for awhile to the dominating influence
+of the Baptist. Only from the Gospels can we at all connect the two. And
+what we read here is, that before Jesus came, John expected his Superior;
+that when they met, John declared his own need to be baptized of Him, that
+he, nevertheless, submitted to the will of Jesus, and thereupon heard a
+voice from the heavens which must for ever have destroyed all notion of
+equality; that afterwards he only saw Jesus at a distance, and made a
+confession which transferred two of his disciples to our Lord.
+
+The criticism which transforms our Lord's part in these events to that of
+a pupil is far more wilful than would be tolerated in dealing with any
+other record. And it too palpably springs from the need to find some human
+inspiration for the Word of God, some candle from which the Sun of
+Righteousness took fire, if one would escape the confession that He is not
+of this world.
+
+But here we meet a deeper question: Not why Jesus accepted baptism from an
+inferior, but why, being sinless, He sought for a baptism of repentance.
+How is this act consistent with absolute and stainless purity?
+
+Now it sometimes lightens a difficulty to find that it is not occasional
+nor accidental, but wrought deep into the plan of a consistent work. And
+the Gospels are consistent in representing the innocence of Jesus as
+refusing immunity from the consequences of guilt. He was circumcised, and
+His mother then paid the offering commanded by the law, although both
+these actions spoke of defilement. In submitting to the likeness of sinful
+flesh He submitted to its conditions. He was present at feasts in which
+national confessions led up to sacrifice, and the sacrificial blood was
+sprinkled to make atonement for the children of Israel, because of all
+their sins. When He tasted death itself, which passed upon all men, for
+that all have sinned, He carried out to the utmost the same stern rule to
+which at His baptism He consciously submitted. Nor will any theory of His
+atonement suffice, which is content with believing that His humiliations
+and sufferings, though inevitable, were only collateral results of contact
+with our fallen race. Baptism was avoidable, and that without any
+compromise of His influence, since the Pharisees refused it with impunity,
+and John would fain have exempted Him. Here at least He was not "entangled
+in the machinery," but deliberately turned the wheels upon Himself. And
+this is the more impressive because, in another aspect of affairs, He
+claimed to be out of the reach of ceremonial defilement, and touched
+without reluctance disease, leprosy and the dead.
+
+Humiliating and penal consequences of sin, to these He bowed His head. Yet
+to a confession of personal taint, never. And all the accounts agree that
+He never was less conscience-stricken than when He shared the baptism of
+repentance. St. Matthew implies, what St. Luke plainly declares, that He
+did not come to baptism along with the crowds of penitents, but
+separately. And at the point where all others made confession, in the hour
+when even the Baptist, although filled with the Holy Ghost from his
+mother's womb, had need to be baptized, He only felt the propriety, the
+fitness of fulfilling all righteousness. That mighty task was not even a
+yoke to Him, it was an instinct like that of beauty to an artist, it was
+what became Him.
+
+St. Mark omits even this evidence of sinlessness. His energetic method is
+like that of a great commander, who seizes at all costs the vital point
+upon the battle field. He constantly omits what is subordinate (although
+very conscious of the power of graphic details), when by so doing he can
+force the central thought upon the mind. Here he concentrates our
+attention upon the witness from above, upon the rending asunder of the
+heavens which unfold all their heights over a bended head, upon the
+visible descent of the Holy Spirit in His fulness, upon the voice from the
+heavens which pealed through the souls of these two peerless worshippers,
+and proclaimed that He who had gone down to the baptismal flood was no
+sinner to be forgiven, but the beloved Son of God, in whom He is well
+pleased.
+
+That is our Evangelist's answer to all misunderstanding of the rite, and
+it is enough.
+
+How do men think of heaven? Perhaps only as a remote point in space, where
+flames a material and solid structure into which it is the highest bliss
+to enter. A place there must be to which the Body of our Lord ascended and
+whither He shall yet lead home His followers in spiritual bodies to be
+with Him where He is. If, however, only this be heaven, we should hold
+that in the revolutions of the solar system it hung just then vertically
+above the Jordan, a few fathoms or miles aloft. But we also believe in a
+spiritual city, in which the pillars are living saints, an all-embracing
+blessedness and rapture and depth of revelation, whereinto holy mortals in
+their highest moments have been "caught up," a heaven whose angels ascend
+and descend upon the Son of man. In this hour of highest consecration,
+these heavens were thrown open--rent asunder--for the gaze of our Lord and
+of the Baptist. They were opened again when the first martyr died. And we
+read that what eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor heart conceived of the
+preparation of God for them that love Him, He hath already revealed to
+them by His Spirit. To others there is only cloud or "the infinite azure,"
+as to the the crowd by the Jordan and the murderers of Stephen.
+
+Now it is to be observed that we never read of Jesus being caught up into
+heaven for a space, like St. Paul or St. John. What we read is, that while
+on earth the Son of man is in Heaven (John iii. 13),(1) for heaven is the
+manifestation of God, whose truest glory was revealed in the grace and
+truth of Jesus.
+
+Along with this revelation, the Holy Spirit was manifested wondrously. His
+appearance, indeed, is quite unlike what it was to others. At Pentecost He
+became visible, but since each disciple received only a portion,
+"according to his several ability," his fitting symbol was "tongues
+parting asunder like as of fire." He came as an element powerful and
+pervasive, not as a Personality bestowed in all His vital force on any
+one.
+
+So, too, the phrase which John used, when predicting that Jesus should
+baptize with the Holy Ghost, slightly though it differs from what is here,
+implies(2) that only a portion is to be given, not the fulness. And the
+angel who foretold to Zacharias that John himself should be filled with
+the Holy Ghost, conveyed the same limitation in his words. John received
+all that he was able to receive: he was filled. But how should mortal
+capacity exhaust the fulness of Deity? And Who is this, upon Whom, while
+John is but an awe-stricken beholder, the Spirit of God descends in all
+completeness, a living organic unity, like a dove? Only the Infinite is
+capable of receiving such a gift, and this is He in Whom dwelleth all the
+fulness of the Godhead bodily. No wonder then that "in bodily form" as a
+dove, the Spirit of God descended upon Him alone. Henceforward He became
+the great Dispenser, and "the Spirit emanated from Him as perfume from the
+rose when it has opened."
+
+At the same time was heard a Voice from heaven. And the bearing of this
+passage upon the Trinity becomes clear, when we combine the manifestation
+of the Spirit in living Personality, and the Divine Voice, not from the
+Dove but from the heavens, with the announcement that Jesus is not merely
+beloved and well-pleasing, but a Son, and in this high sense the only Son,
+since the words are literally "Thou art the Son of Me, the beloved." And
+yet He is to bring many sons unto glory.
+
+Is it consistent with due reverence to believe that this voice conveyed a
+message to our Lord Himself? Even so liberal a critic as Neander has
+denied this. But if we grasp the meaning of what we believe, that He upon
+taking flesh "emptied Himself," that He increased in wisdom during His
+youth, and that there was a day and hour which to the end of life He knew
+not, we need not suppose that His infancy was so unchildlike as the
+realisation of His mysterious and awful Personality would make it. There
+must then have been a period when His perfect human development rose up
+into what Renan calls (more accurately than he knows) identification of
+Himself with the object of His devotion, carried to the utmost limit. Nor
+is this period quite undiscoverable, for when it arrived it would seem
+highly unnatural to postpone His public ministry further. Now this
+reasonable inference is entirely supported by the narrative. St. Matthew
+indeed regards the event from the Baptist's point of vision. But St. Mark
+and St. Luke are agreed that to Jesus Himself it was also said, "_Thou_
+art My beloved Son." Now this is not the way to teach us that the
+testimony came only to John. And how solemn a thought is this, that the
+full certitude of His destiny expanded before the eyes of Jesus, just when
+He lifted them from those baptismal waters in which He stooped so low.
+
+
+
+
+The Temptation.
+
+
+    "And straightway the Spirit driveth Him forth into the wilderness.
+    And He was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; and He
+    was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto
+    Him."--MARK i. 12, 13 (R.V.).
+
+
+St. Mark has not recorded the details of our Lord's temptations, and lays
+more stress upon the duration of the struggle, than the nature of the last
+and crowning assaults. But he is careful, like the others, to connect it
+closely with the baptism of Jesus, and the miraculous testimony then borne
+to Him.
+
+It is indeed instructive that He should have suffered this affront,
+immediately upon being recognised as the Messiah. But the explanation will
+not be found in the notion, which Milton has popularised, that only now
+Satan was assured of the urgent necessity for attacking Him:
+
+
+    "That heard the adversary ... and with the voice Divine
+    Nigh thunderstruck, the exalted Man, to whom
+    Such high attest was given, awhile surveyed
+    With wonder."
+
+
+As if Satan forgot the marvels of the sacred infancy. As if the spirits
+who attack all could have failed to identify, after thirty years of
+defeat, the Greater One whom the Baptist had everywhere proclaimed. No.
+But Satan admirably chose the time for a supreme effort. High places are
+dizzy, and especially when one has just attained them; and therefore it
+was when the voice of the herald and the Voice from the heavens were
+blended in acclaim, that the Evil One tried all his arts. He had formerly
+plunged Elijah into despair and a desire to die, immediately after fire
+from heaven responded to the prophet's prayer. Soon after this, he would
+degrade Peter to be his mouthpiece, just when his noblest testimony was
+borne, and the highest approval of his Lord was won. In the flush of their
+triumphs he found his best opportunity; but Jesus remained unflushed, and
+met the first recorded temptation, in the full consciousness of
+Messiahship, by quoting the words which spoke to every man alike, and as
+man.
+
+It is a lesson which the weakest needs to learn, for little victories can
+intoxicate little men.
+
+It is easy then to see why the recorded temptations insist upon the
+exceptional dignity of Christ, and urge Him to seize its advantages, while
+He insists on bearing the common burden, and proves Himself greatest by
+becoming least of all. The sharp contrast between His circumstances and
+His rank drove the temptations deep into His consciousness, and wounded
+His sensibilities, though they failed to shake His will.
+
+How unnatural that the Son of God should lack and suffer hunger, how right
+that He should challenge recognition, how needful (though now His sacred
+Personality is cunningly allowed to fall somewhat into the background)
+that He should obtain armies and splendour.
+
+This explains the possibility of temptation in a sinless nature, which
+indeed can only be denied by assuming that sin is part of the original
+creation. Not because we are sinful, but because we are flesh and blood
+(of which He became partaker), when we feel the pains of hunger we are
+attracted by food, at whatever price it is offered. In truth, no man is
+allured by sin, but only by the bait and bribe of sin, except perhaps in
+the last stages of spiritual decomposition.
+
+Now, just as the bait allures, and not the jaws of the trap, so the power
+of a temptation is not its wickedness, not the guilty service, but the
+proffered recompense; and this appeals to the most upright man, equally
+with the most corrupt. Thus the stress of a temptation is to be measured
+by our gravitation, not towards the sin, but towards the pleasure or
+advantage which is entangled with that. And this may be realised even more
+powerfully by a man of keen feeling and vivid imagination who does not
+falter, than by a grosser nature which succumbs.
+
+Now Jesus was a perfect man. To His exquisite sensibilities, which had
+neither inherited nor contracted any blemish, the pain of hunger at the
+opening of His ministry, and the horror of the cross at its close, were
+not less intense, but sharper than to ours. And this pain and horror
+measured the temptation to evade them. The issue never hung in the scales;
+even to hesitate would have been to forfeit the delicate bloom of absolute
+sinlessness; but, none the less, the decision was costly, the temptation
+poignant.
+
+St. Mark has given us no details; but there is immense and compressed
+power in the assertion, only his, that the temptation lasted all through
+the forty days. We know the power of an unremitting pressure, an incessant
+importunity, a haunting thought. A very trifling annoyance, long
+protracted, drives men to strange remedies. And the remorseless urgency of
+Satan may be measured by what St. Matthew tells us, that only after the
+forty days Jesus became aware of the pains of hunger. Perhaps the
+assertion that He was with the wild beasts may throw some ray of light
+upon the nature of the temptation. There is no intimation of bodily peril.
+On the other hand it seems incredible that what is hinted is His own
+consciousness of the supernatural dignity from which
+
+
+    "The fiery serpent fled, and noxious worm;
+    The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof."
+
+
+Such a consciousness would have relieved the strain of which their
+presence is evidently a part. Nay, but the oppressive solitude, the waste
+region so unlike His blooming Nazareth, and the ferocity of the brute
+creation, all would conspire to suggest those dread misgivings and
+questionings which are provoked by "the something that infects the world."
+
+Surely we may believe that He Who was tempted at all points like as we
+are, felt now the deadly chill which falls upon the soul from the shadow
+of our ruined earth. In our nature He bore the assault and overcame. And
+then His human nature condescended to accept help, such as ours receives,
+from the ministering spirits which are sent forth to minister to them that
+shall be heirs of salvation. So perfectly was He made like unto His
+brethren.
+
+
+
+
+The Early Preaching And The First Disciples.
+
+
+    "Now after that John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee
+    preaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled,
+    and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe in the
+    gospel. And passing along by the sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and
+    Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they
+    were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after Me, and I
+    will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they left
+    the nets, and followed Him. And going on a little further, He saw
+    James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in
+    the boat mending the nets. And straightway He called them: and
+    they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired
+    servants, and went after Him."--MARK i. 14-20 (R.V.).
+
+
+St. Mark has shown us the Baptist proclaiming Christ. He now tells us that
+when John was imprisoned, Jesus, turning from that Judean ministry which
+stirred the jealousy of John's disciples (John iii. 26), "came into
+Galilee, preaching." And one looks twice before observing that His
+teaching is a distinct advance upon the herald's. Men are still to repent;
+for however slightly modern preachers may heal the hurt of souls, real
+contrition is here taken over into the gospel scheme. But the time which
+was hitherto said to be at hand is now fulfilled. And they are not only to
+believe the gospel, but to "believe in it." Reliance, the effort of the
+soul by which it ceases equally to be self-confident and to despair,
+confiding itself to some word which is a gospel, or some being who has
+salvation to bestow, that is belief in its object. And it is highly
+important to observe that faith is thus made prominent so early in our
+Lord's teaching. The vitalizing power of faith was no discovery of St.
+Paul; it was not evolved by devout meditation after Jesus had passed from
+view, nor introduced into His system when opposition forced Him to bind
+men to Him in a stronger allegiance. The power of faith is implied in His
+earliest preaching, and it is connected with His earliest miracles. But no
+such phrase as the power of faith is ever used. Faith is precious only as
+it leans on what is trustworthy. And it is produced, not by thinking of
+faith itself, but of its proper object. Therefore Christ did not come
+preaching faith, but preaching the gospel of God, and bidding men believe
+in that.
+
+Shall we not follow His example? It is morally certain that Abraham never
+heard of salvation by faith, yet he was justified by faith when he
+believed in Him Who justifieth the ungodly. To preach Him, and His gospel,
+is the way to lead men to be saved by faith.
+
+Few things are more instructive to consider than the slow, deliberate, yet
+firm steps by which Christ advanced to the revelation of God in flesh.
+Thirty years of silence, forty days of seclusion after heaven had
+proclaimed Him, leisurely intercourse with Andrew and John, Peter and
+Nathanael, and then a brief ministry in a subject nation, and chiefly in a
+despised province. It is not the action of a fanatic. It exactly fulfils
+His own description of the kingdom which He proclaimed, which was to
+exhibit first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. And
+it is a lesson to all time, that the boldest expectations possible to
+faith do not justify feverish haste and excited longings for immediate
+prominence or immediate success. The husbandman who has long patience with
+the seed is not therefore hopeless of the harvest
+
+Passing by the sea of Galilee, Jesus finds two fishermen at their toil,
+and bids them follow Him. Both are men of decided and earnest character;
+one is to become the spokesman and leader of the Apostolic band, and the
+little which is recorded of the other indicates the same temperament,
+somewhat less developed. Our Lord now calls upon them to take a decided
+step. But here again we find traces of the same deliberate progression,
+the same absence of haste, as in His early preaching. He does not, as
+unthinking readers fancy, come upon two utter strangers, fascinate and
+arrest them in a moment, and sweep their lives into the vortex of His own.
+Andrew had already heard the Baptist proclaim the Lamb of God, had
+followed Jesus home, and had introduced his brother, to whom Jesus then
+gave the new name Cephas. Their faith had since been confirmed by
+miracles. The demands of our Lord may be trying, but they are never
+unreasonable, and the faith He claims is not a blind credulity.
+
+Nor does He, even now, finally and entirely call them away from their
+occupation. Some time is still to elapse, and a sign, especially
+impressive to fishermen, the miraculous draught of fishes, is to burn into
+their minds a profound sense of their unworthiness, before the vocation
+now promised shall arrive. Then He will say, From henceforth ye shall
+catch men: now He says, I will prepare you for that future, I will make
+you to become fishers of men. So ungrounded is the suspicion of any
+confusion between the stories of the three steps by which they rose to
+their Apostleship.
+
+A little further on, He finds the two sons of Zebedee, and calls them
+also. John had almost certainly been the companion of Andrew when he
+followed Jesus home, and his brother had become the sharer of his hopes.
+And if there were any hesitation, the example of their comrades helped
+them to decide--so soon, so inevitably does each disciple begin to be a
+fisher of other men--and leaving their father, as we are gracefully told,
+not desolate, but with servants, they also follow Jesus.
+
+Thus He asks, from each group, the sacrifice involved in following Him at
+an inconvenient time. The first are casting their nets and eager in their
+quest. The others are mending their nets, perhaps after some large draught
+had broken them. So Levi was sitting at the receipt of toll. Not one of
+the Twelve was chosen to that high rank when idle.
+
+Very charming, very powerful still is the spell by which Christ drew His
+first apostles to His side. Not yet are they told anything of thrones on
+which they are to sit and judge the tribes of Israel, or that their names
+shall be engraven on the foundations of the heavenly city besides being
+great on earth while the world stands. For them, the capture of men was
+less lucrative than that of fish, and less honourable, for they suffered
+the loss of all things and were made as the filth of the earth. To learn
+Christ's art, to be made helpful in drawing souls to Him, following Jesus
+and catching men, this was enough to attract His first ministers; God
+grant that a time may never come when ministers for whom this is enough,
+shall fail. Where the spirit of self devotion is absent how can the Spirit
+of Christ exist?
+
+
+
+
+Teaching With Authority.
+
+
+    "And they go into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day He
+    entered into the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at
+    His teaching: for He taught them as having authority, and not as
+    the scribes."--MARK i. 21, 22 (R.V.).
+
+
+The worship of the synagogues, not having been instituted by Moses, but
+gradually developed by the public need, was comparatively free and
+unconventional. Sometimes it happened that remarkable and serious-looking
+strangers were invited, if they had any word of exhortation, to say on
+(Acts xiii. 15). Sometimes one presented himself, as the custom of our
+Lord was (Luke iv. 16). Amid the dull mechanical tendencies which were
+then turning the heart of Judaism to stone, the synagogue may have been
+often a centre of life and rallying-place of freedom. In Galilee, where
+such worship predominated over that of the remote Temple and its
+hierarchy, Jesus found His trusted followers and the nucleus of the
+Church. In foreign lands, St. Paul bore first to his brethren in their
+synagogues the strange tidings that their Messiah had expired upon a
+cross. And before His rupture with the chiefs of Judaism, the synagogues
+were fitting places for our Lord's early teaching. He made use of the
+existing system, and applied it, just as we have seen Him use the teaching
+of the Baptist as a starting-point for His own. And this ought to be
+observed, that Jesus revolutionized the world by methods the furthest from
+being revolutionary. The institutions of His age and land were corrupt
+well-nigh to the core, but He did not therefore make a clean sweep, and
+begin again. He did not turn His back on the Temple and synagogues, nor
+outrage sabbaths, nor come to destroy the law and the prophets. He bade
+His followers reverence the seat where the scribes and Pharisees sat, and
+drew the line at their false lives and perilous examples. Amid that evil
+generation He found soil wherein His seed might germinate, and was content
+to hide His leaven in the lump where it should gradually work out its
+destiny. In so doing He was at one with Providence, which had slowly
+evolved the convictions of the Old Testament, spending centuries upon the
+process. Now the power which belongs to such moderation has scarcely been
+recognised until these latter days. The political sagacity of Somers and
+Burke, and the ecclesiastical wisdom of our own reformers, had their
+occult and unsuspected fountains in the method by which Jesus planted the
+kingdom which came not with observation. But who taught the Carpenter? It
+is therefore significant that all the Gospels of the Galilean ministry
+connect our Lord's early teaching with the synagogue.
+
+St. Mark is by no means the evangelist of the discourses. And this adds to
+the interest with which we find him indicate, with precise exactitude, the
+first great difference that would strike the hearers of Christ between His
+teaching and that of others. He taught with authority, and not as the
+scribes. Their doctrine was built with dreary and irrational ingenuity,
+upon perverted views of the old law. The shape of a Hebrew letter, words
+whereof the initials would spell some important name, wire-drawn
+inferences, astounding allusions, ingenuity such as men waste now upon the
+number of the beast and the measurement of a pyramid, these were the
+doctrine of the scribes.
+
+And an acute observer would remark that the authority of Christ's teaching
+was peculiar in a farther-reaching sense. If, as seems clear, Jesus said,
+"Ye have heard that it hath been said" (not "by," but) "to them of old
+time, but I say unto you," He then claimed the place, not of Moses who
+heard the Divine Voice, but of Him Who spoke. Even if this could be
+doubted, the same spirit is elsewhere unmistakable. The tables which Moses
+brought were inscribed by the finger of Another: none could make him the
+Supreme arbitrator while overhead the trumpet waxed louder and louder,
+while the fiery pillar marshalled their journeying, while the mysterious
+Presence consecrated the mysterious shrine. Prophet after prophet opened
+and closed his message with the words, "Thus saith the Lord." ... "For the
+mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Jesus was content with the attestation,
+"Verily, I say unto you." Blessed as a wise builder was the hearer and
+doer of "these words of Mine." Everywhere in His teaching the centre of
+authority is personal. He distinctly recognises the fact that He is adding
+to the range of the ancient law of respect for human life, and for purity,
+veracity and kindness. But He assigns no authority for these additions,
+beyond His own. Persecution by all men is a blessed thing to endure, if it
+be for His sake and the gospel's. Now this is unique. Moses or Isaiah
+never dreamed that devotion to himself took rank with devotion to his
+message. Nor did St. Paul. But Christ opens His ministry with the same
+pretensions as at the close, when others may not be called Rabbi, nor
+Master, because these titles belong to Him.
+
+And the lapse of ages renders this "authority" of Christ more wonderful
+than at first. The world bows down before something other than His
+clearness of logic or subtlety of inference. He still announces where
+others argue, He reveals, imposes on us His supremacy, bids us take His
+yoke and learn. And we still discover in His teaching a freshness and
+profundity, a universal reach of application and yet an unearthliness of
+aspect, which suit so unparalleled a claim. Others have constructed
+cisterns in which to store truth, or aqueducts to convey it from higher
+levels. Christ is Himself a fountain; and not only so, but the water which
+He gives, when received aright, becomes in the faithful heart a well of
+water springing up in new, inexhaustible developments.
+
+
+
+
+Miracles.
+
+
+    "And straightway there was in their synagogue a man with an
+    unclean spirit."--MARK i. 23 (R.V.).
+
+
+We have just read that Christ's teaching astonished the hearers. He was
+about to astonish them yet more, for we have now reached the first miracle
+which St. Mark records. With what sentiments should such a narrative be
+approached? The evangelist connects it emphatically with Christ's
+assertion of authority. Immediately upon the impression which His manner
+of teaching produced, straightway, there was in the synagogue a man with
+an unclean spirit. And upon its expulsion, what most impressed the people
+was, that as He taught with authority, so "with authority He commandeth
+even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him."
+
+Let us try whether this may not be a providential clue, to guide us amid
+the embarrassments which beset, in our day, the whole subject of miracles.
+
+A miracle, we are told, is an interference with the laws of nature; and it
+is impossible, because they are fixed and their operation is uniform. But
+these bold words need not disconcert any one who has learned to ask, In
+what sense are the operations of nature uniform? Is the operation of the
+laws which govern the wind uniform, whether my helm is to port or
+starboard? Can I not modify the operation of sanitary laws by
+deodorization, by drainage, by a thousand resources of civilization? The
+truth is, that while natural laws remain fixed, human intelligence
+profoundly modifies their operation. How then will the objector prove that
+no higher Being can as naturally do the same? He answers, Because the sum
+total of the forces of nature is a fixed quantity: nothing can be added to
+that sum, nothing taken from it: the energy of all our machinery existed
+ages ago in the heat of tropical suns, then in vegetation, and ever since,
+though latent, in our coal beds; and the claim to add anything to that
+total is subversive of modern science. But again we ask, If the physician
+adds nothing to the sum of forces when he banishes one disease by
+inoculation, and another by draining a marsh, why must Jesus have added to
+the sum of forces in order to expel a demon or to cool a fever? It will
+not suffice to answer, because His methods are contrary to experience.
+Beyond experience they are. But so were the marvels of electricity to our
+parents and of steam to theirs. The chemistry which analyses the stars is
+not incredible, although thirty years ago its methods were "contrary" to
+the universal experience of humanity. Man is now doing what he never did
+before, because he is a more skilful and better informed agent than he
+ever was. Perhaps at this moment, in the laboratory of some unknown
+student, some new force is preparing to amaze the world. But the sum of
+the forces of nature will remain unchanged. Why is it assumed that a
+miracle must change them? Simply because men have already denied God, or
+at least denied that He is present within His world, as truly as the
+chemist is within it. If we think of Him as interrupting its processes
+from without, laying upon the vast machine so powerful a grasp as to
+arrest its working, then indeed the sum of forces is disturbed, and the
+complaints of science are justified. This may, or it may not, have been
+the case in creative epochs, of which science knows no more than of the
+beginning of life and of consciousness. But it has nothing to say against
+the doctrine of the miracles of Jesus. For this doctrine assumes that God
+is ever present in His universe; that by Him all things consist; that He
+is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our
+being, although men may be as unconscious of Him as of gravitation and
+electricity. When these became known to man, the stability of law was
+unaffected. And it is a wild assumption that if a supreme and vital force
+exist, a living God, He cannot make His energies visible without affecting
+the stability of law.
+
+Now Christ Himself appeals expressly and repeatedly to this immanent
+presence of God as the explanation of His "works."
+
+"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." "The Father loveth the Son, and
+showeth Him all things that Himself doeth." "I, by the finger of God, cast
+out devils."
+
+Thus a miracle, even in the Old Testament, is not an interruption of law
+by God, but a manifestation of God who is within nature always; to common
+events it is as the lightning to the cloud, a revelation of the
+electricity which was already there. God was made known, when invoked by
+His agents, in signs from heaven, in fire and tempest, in drought and
+pestilence, a God who judgeth. These are the miracles of God interposing
+for His people against their foes. But the miracles of Christ are those of
+God carrying forward to the uttermost His presence in the world, God
+manifest in the flesh. They are the works of Him in Whom dwelleth all the
+fulness of the Godhead bodily.
+
+And this explains what would otherwise be so perplexing, the essentially
+different nature of His miracles from those of the Old Testament.
+Infidelity pretends that those are the models on which myth or legend
+formed the miracles of Jesus, but the plain answer is that they are built
+on no model of the kind. The difference is so great as to be startling.
+
+Tremendous convulsions and visitations of wrath are now unknown, because
+God is now reconciling the world unto Himself, and exhibiting in miracles
+the presence of Him Who is not far from every one of us, His presence in
+love to redeem the common life of man, and to bless, by sharing it.
+Therefore His gifts are homely, they deal with average life and its
+necessities, bread and wine and fish are more to the purpose than that man
+should eat angels' food, the rescue of storm-tossed fishermen than the
+engulfment of pursuing armies, the healing of prevalent disease than the
+plaguing of Egypt or the destruction of Sennacherib.
+
+Such a Presence thus manifested is the consistent doctrine of the Church.
+It is a theory which men may reject at their own peril if they please. But
+they must not pretend to refute it by any appeal to either the uniformity
+of law or the stability of force.
+
+Men tell us that the divinity of Jesus was an afterthought; what shall we
+say then to this fact, that men observed from the very first a difference
+between the manner of His miracles and all that was recorded in their
+Scriptures, or that they could have deemed fit? It is exactly the same
+peculiarity, carried to the highest pitch; as they already felt in His
+discourses. They are wrought without any reference whatever to a superior
+will. Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do? Elijah said,
+Hear me O Lord, hear me. But Jesus said, I will ... I charge thee come out
+... I am able to do this. And so marked is the change, that even His
+followers cast out devils in His name, and say not, Where is the Lord God
+of Israel? but, In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. His power is
+inherent, it is self-possessed, and His acts in the synoptics are only
+explained by His words in St. John, "What things soever the Father doeth,
+these the Son also doeth in like manner." No wonder that St. Mark adds to
+His very first record of a miracle, that the people were amazed, and
+asked, What is this? a new teaching! with authority He commandeth even the
+unclean spirits and they do obey Him! It was divinity which, without
+recognising, they felt, implicit in His bearing. No wonder also that His
+enemies strove hard to make Him say, Who gave Thee this authority? Nor
+could they succeed in drawing from Him any sign from heaven. The centre
+and source of the supernatural, for human apprehension, has shifted
+itself, and the vision of Jesus is the vision of the Father also.
+
+
+
+
+The Demoniac.
+
+
+    "And straightway there was in their synagogue a man with an
+    unclean spirit; and he cried out, saying, What have we to do with
+    Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? art Thou come to destroy us? I know
+    Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him,
+    saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And the unclean
+    spirit, tearing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
+    And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among
+    themselves, saying, What is this? a new teaching! with authority
+    He commandeth even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him. And the
+    report of Him went out straightway everywhere into all the region
+    of Galilee round about."--MARK i. 23-28 (R.V.).
+
+
+We have seen that belief in the stability of natural law does not forbid
+us to believe in miracles.
+
+Special objections are urged, however, against the belief in demoniacal
+possession. The very existence of demons is declared to be inconsistent
+with the omnipotence of God, or else with His goodness.
+
+And it may be granted that abstract reasoning in an ideal world, thought
+moving in a vacuum, would scarcely evolve a state of things so far removed
+from the ideal. This, however, is an argument against the existence, not
+of demons, but of evil in any shape. It is the familiar insoluble problem
+of all religions, How can evil exist in the universe of God? And it is
+balanced by the insoluble problem of all irreligious systems: In a
+universe without God, how can either good or evil exist, as distinguished
+from the advantageous and the unprofitable? Whence comes the
+unquestionable difference between a lie and a bad bargain?
+
+But the argument against evil spirits professes to be something more than
+a disguised reproduction of this abstract problem. What more is it? What
+is gained by denying the fiends, as long as we cannot deny the fiends
+incarnate--the men who take pleasure in unrighteousness, in the seduction
+and ruin of their fellows, in the infliction of torture and outrage, in
+the ravage and desolation of nations? Such freedom has been granted to the
+human will, for even these ghastly issues have not been judged so deadly
+as coercion and moral fatalism. What presumption can possibly remain
+against the existence of other beings than men, who have fallen yet
+farther? If, indeed, it be certainly so much farther. For we know that men
+have lived, not outcasts from society, but boastful sons of Abraham, who
+willed to perform the lusts ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}) of their father the devil. Now
+since we are not told that the wickedness of demons is infinite,(3) but
+only that it is abysmal, and since we know that abysses of wickedness do
+actually exist, what sort of vindication of Deity is this which will
+believe that such gulfs are yawning only in the bosom of man?
+
+It alarms and shocks us to think that evil spirits have power over the
+human mind, and still more that such power should extend, as in cases of
+possession, even to the body. Evil men, however, manifestly wield such
+power. "They got rid of the wicked one," said Goethe, "but they could not
+get rid of the wicked ones." Social and intellectual charm, high rank, the
+mysterious attraction of a strong individuality, all are employed at times
+to mislead and debase the shuddering, reluctant, mesmerised wills of
+weaker men and women. And then the mind acts upon the body, as perhaps it
+always does. Drunkenness and debauchery shake the nerves. Paralysis and
+lunacy tread hard on the footsteps of excess. Experience knows no reason
+for denying that when wickedness conquers the soul it will also deal
+hardly with the body.
+
+But we must not stop here. For the Gospels do not countenance the popular
+notion that special wickedness was the cause of the fearful wretchedness
+of the possessed. Young children suffered. Jesus often cautioned a
+sufferer to sin no more lest worse results should follow than those He had
+removed; but He is never known to have addressed this warning to
+demoniacs. They suffered from the tyranny of Satan, rather than from his
+seduction; and the analogies which make credible so frightful an outrage
+upon human nature, are the wrongs done by despots and mobs, by invading
+armies and persecuting religionists. Yet people who cannot believe that a
+demon could throw a child upon the fire, are not incredulous of Attila,
+Napoleon, and the Inquisition.
+
+Thus it appears that such a narrative need startle no believer in God, and
+in moral good and evil, who considers the unquestionable facts of life.
+And how often will the observant Christian be startled at the wild
+insurrection and surging up of evil thought and dark suggestions, which he
+cannot believe to be his own, which will not be gainsaid nor repulsed. How
+easily do such experiences fall in with the plain words of Scripture, by
+which the veil is drawn aside, and the mystery of the spiritual world laid
+bare. Then we learn that man is not only fallen but assaulted, not only
+feeble but enslaved, not only a wandering sheep but led captive by the
+devil at his will.
+
+We turn to the narrative before us. They are still wondering at our Lord's
+authoritative manner, when "straightway," for opportunities were countless
+until unbelief arose, a man with an unclean spirit attracts attention. We
+can only conjecture the special meaning of this description. A recent
+commentator assumes that "like the rest, he had his dwelling among the
+tombs: an overpowering influence had driven him away from the haunts of
+men." (Canon Luckock, _in loco_). To others this feature in the
+wretchedness of the Gadarene may perhaps seem rather to be exceptional,
+the last touch in the appalling picture of his misery. It may be that
+nothing more outrageous than morbid gloom or sullen mutterings had
+hitherto made it necessary to exclude this sufferer from the synagogue. Or
+the language may suggest that he rushed abruptly in, driven by the frantic
+hostility of the fiend, or impelled by some mysterious and lingering hope,
+as the demoniac of Gadara ran to Christ.
+
+What we know is that the sacred Presence provoked a crisis. There is an
+unbelief which never can be silent, never wearies railing at the faith,
+and there is a corruption which resents goodness and hates it as a
+personal wrong. So the demons who possessed men were never able to
+confront Jesus calmly. They resent His interference; they cry out; they
+disclaim having anything to do with Him; they seem indignant that He
+should come to destroy them who have destroyed so many. There is something
+weird and unearthly in the complaint. But men also are wont to forget
+their wrong doing when they come to suffer, and it is recorded that even
+Nero had abundance of compassion for himself. Weird also and terrible is
+it, that this unclean spirit should choose for his confession that pure
+and exquisite epithet, the Holy One of God. The phrase only recurs in the
+words of St. Peter, "We have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One
+of God" (John vi. 69, R.V.). Was it not a mournful association of ideas
+which then led Jesus to reply, "Have I not chosen you the Twelve, and one
+of you is a devil?(4)" But although the phrase is beautiful, and possibly
+"wild with all regret," there is no relenting, no better desire than to be
+"let alone." And so Jesus, so gentle with sinful men, yet sometime to be
+their judge also, is stern and cold. "Hold thy peace--be muzzled," He
+answers, as to a wild beast, "and come out of him." Whereupon the evil
+spirit exhibits at once his ferocity and his defeat. Tearing and
+screaming, he came out, but we read in St. Luke that he did the man no
+harm.
+
+And the spectators drew the proper inference. A new power implied a new
+revelation. Something far-reaching and profound might be expected from Him
+who commanded even the unclean spirits with authority, and was obeyed.
+
+It is the custom of unbelievers to speak as if the air of Palestine were
+then surcharged with belief in the supernatural. Miracles were everywhere.
+Thus they would explain away the significance of the popular belief that
+our Lord wrought signs and wonders. But in so doing they set themselves a
+worse problem than they evade. If miracles were so very common, it would
+be as easy to believe that Jesus wrought them as that He worked at His
+father's bench. But also it would be as inconclusive. And how then are we
+to explain the astonishment which all the evangelists so constantly
+record? On any conceivable theory, these writers shared the beliefs of
+that age. And so did the readers who accepted their assurance that all
+were amazed, and that His report "went out straightway everywhere into all
+the region of Galilee." These are emphatic words, and both the author and
+his readers must have considered a miracle to be more surprising than
+modern critics believe they did.
+
+Yet we do not read that any one was converted by this miracle. All were
+amazed, but wonder is not self-surrender. They were content to let their
+excitement die out, as every violent emotion must, without any change of
+life, any permanent devotion to the new Teacher and His doctrine.
+
+
+
+
+A Group Of Miracles.
+
+
+    "And straightway, when they were come out of the synagogue, they
+    came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now
+    Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever; and straightway they
+    tell Him of her: and He came and took her by the hand, and raised
+    her up; and the fever left her, and she ministered unto them. And
+    at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him all that were
+    sick, and them that were possessed with devils. And all the city
+    was gathered together at the door. And He healed many that were
+    sick with divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and He
+    suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew Him."--MARK i.
+    29-34 (R.V.).
+
+
+St. Matthew tells us that on leaving the synagogue they entered into
+Peter's house. St. Mark, with his peculiar sources of information, is
+aware that Andrew shared the house with his brother.
+
+Especial interest attaches to the mention of the mother-in-law of Peter,
+as proving that Jesus chose a married man to be an apostle, the very
+apostle from whom the celibate ministry of Rome professes to have received
+the keys. The evidence does not stand alone. When St. Paul's apostolic
+authority was impugned, he insisted that he had the same right to bring
+with him in his travels a believing wife, which Peter exercised. And
+Clement of Alexandria tells us that Peter's wife acted as his coadjutor,
+ministering to women in their own homes, by which means the gospel of
+Christ penetrated without scandal the privacy of women's apartments. Thus
+the notion of a Zenana mission is by no means modern.
+
+The mother of such a wife is afflicted by fever of a kind which still
+haunts that district. "And they tell Him of her." Doubtless there was
+solicitude and hope in their voices, even if desire did not take the shape
+of formal prayer. We are just emerging from that early period when belief
+in His power to heal might still be united with some doubt whether free
+application might be made to Him. His disciples might still be as unwise
+as those modern theologians who are so busy studying the miracles as a
+sign that they forget to think of them as works of love. Any such
+hesitation was now to be dispelled for ever.
+
+It is possible that such is the meaning of the expression, and if so, it
+has a useful lesson. Sometimes there are temporal gifts which we scarce
+know whether we should pray for, so complex are our feelings, so entangled
+our interests with those of others, so obscure and dubious the springs
+which move our desire. Is it presumptuous to ask? Yet can it be right to
+keep anything back, in our communion with our Father?
+
+Now there is a curious similarity between the expression "they tell Jesus
+of her" and that phrase which is only applied to prayer when St. Paul bids
+us pray for all that is in our hearts. "In nothing be anxious, but in
+everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests
+be made known unto God." So shall the great benediction be fulfilled: "The
+peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and
+your thoughts" (Phil. iv. 6, 7). All that is unholy shall be purified, all
+that is unwise subdued, all that is expedient granted.
+
+If this be indeed the force of St. Mark's phrase, Jesus felt their modest
+reticence to be a strong appeal, for St. Luke says "they besought Him,"
+while St. Matthew merely writes that He saw her lying. The "Interpreter of
+St. Peter" is most likely to have caught the exact shade of anxiety and
+appeal by which her friends drew His attention, and which was indeed a
+prayer.
+
+The gentle courtesy of our Lord's healings cannot be too much studied by
+those who would know His mind and love Him. Never does He fling a careless
+blessing as coarse benefactors fling their alms; we shall hereafter see
+how far He was from leaving fallen bread to be snatched as by a dog, even
+by one who would have welcomed a boon thus contemptuously given to her;
+and in the hour of His arrest, when He would heal the ear of a persecutor,
+His courtesy appeals to those who had laid hold on Him, "Suffer ye thus
+far." Thus He went to this woman and took her by the hand and raised her
+up, laying a cool touch upon her fevered palm, bestowing His strength upon
+her weakness, healing her as He would fain heal humanity. For at His touch
+the disease was banished; with His impulse her strength returned.
+
+We do not read that she felt bound thereupon to become an obtrusive public
+witness to His powers: that was not her function; but in her quiet home
+she failed not to minister unto Him who had restored her powers. Would
+that all whose physical powers Jesus renews from sickness, might devote
+their energies to Him. Would that all for whom He has calmed the fever of
+earthly passion, might arise and be energetic in His cause.
+
+Think of the wonder, the gladness and gratitude of their humble feast. But
+if we felt aright the sickness of our souls, and the grace which heals
+them, equal gratitude would fill our lives as He sups with us and we with
+Him.
+
+Tidings of the two miracles have quickly gone abroad, and as the sun sets,
+and the restraint of the sabbath is removed, all the city gathers all the
+sick around His door.
+
+Now here is a curious example of the peril of pressing too eagerly our
+inferences from the expressions of an evangelist. St. Mark tells us that
+they brought "all their sick and them that were possessed with devils. And
+He healed" (not all, but) "many that were sick, and cast out many devils."
+How easily we might distinguish between the "all" who came, and the "many"
+who were healed. Want of faith would explain the difference, and spiritual
+analogies would be found for those who remained unhealed at the feet of
+the good Physician. These lessons might be very edifying, but they would
+be out of place, for St. Matthew tells us that He healed them all.
+
+But who can fail to contrast this universal movement, the urgent quest of
+bodily health, and the willingness of friends and neighbours to convey
+their sick to Jesus, with our indifference to the health of the soul, and
+our neglect to lead others to the Saviour. Disease being the cold shadow
+of sin, its removal was a kind of sacrament, an outward and visible sign
+that the Healer of souls was nigh. But the chillness of the shadow
+afflicts us more than the pollution of the substance, and few professing
+Christians lament a hot temper as sincerely as a fever.
+
+As Jesus drove out the demons, He suffered them not to speak because they
+knew Him. We cannot believe that His rejection of their impure testimony
+was prudential only, whatever possibility there may have been of that
+charge of complicity which was afterwards actually brought. Any help which
+might have come to Him from the lips of hell was shocking and revolting to
+our Lord. And this is a lesson for all religious and political partisans
+who stop short of doing evil themselves, but reject no advantage which the
+evil deeds of others may bestow. Not so cold and negative is the morality
+of Jesus. He regards as contamination whatever help fraud, suppressions of
+truth, injustice, by whomsoever wrought, can yield. He rejects them by an
+instinct of abhorrence, and not only because shame and dishonour have
+always befallen the purest cause which stooped to unholy alliances.
+
+Jesus that day showed Himself powerful alike in the congregation, in the
+home, and in the streets, and over evil spirits and physical disease
+alike.
+
+
+
+
+Jesus In Solitude.
+
+
+    "And in the morning, a great while before day, He rose up and went
+    out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed. And Simon
+    and they that were with him followed after Him; and they found
+    Him, and say unto Him, All are seeking Thee. And He saith unto
+    them, Let us go elsewhere into the next towns, that I may preach
+    there also; for to this end came I forth. And He went into their
+    synagogues throughout all Galilee, and preaching casting out
+    devils."--MARK i. 35-39 (R.V.).
+
+
+St. Mark is pre-eminently the historian of Christ's activities. From him
+chiefly we learn to add to our thought of perfect love and gentleness that
+of One whom the zeal of God's house ate up. But this evangelist does not
+omit to tell us by what secret fountains this river of life was fed; how
+the active labours of Jesus were inspired in secret prayers. Too often we
+allow to one side of religion a development which is not excessive, but
+disproportionate, and we are punished when contemplation becomes
+nerveless, or energy burns itself away.
+
+After feeding the five thousand, St. Mark tells us that Jesus, while the
+storm gathered over His disciples on the lake, went up into a mountain to
+pray. And St. Luke tells of a whole night of prayer before choosing His
+disciples, and how it was to pray that He climbed the mountain of
+transfiguration.
+
+And we read of Him going into a desert place with His disciples, and to
+Olivet, and oft-times resorting to the garden where Judas found Him,
+where, in the dead of night, the traitor naturally sought Him.
+
+Prayer was the spring of all His energies, and His own saying indicated
+the habit of His mortal life as truly as the law of His mysterious
+generation: "I live by the Father."
+
+His prayers impress nothing on us more powerfully than the reality of His
+manhood. He, Who possesses all things, bends His knees to crave, and His
+prayers are definite, no empty form, no homage without sense of need, no
+firing of blank cartridge without an aim. He asks that His disciples may
+be with Him where He is, that Simon's strength may fail not, that He may
+Himself be saved from a dreadful hour. "Such touches" said Godet "do not
+look like an artificial apotheosis of Jesus, and they constitute a
+striking difference between the gospel portrait and the legendary
+caricature."
+
+The entire evening had been passed in healing the diseases of the whole
+town; not the light and careless bestowal of a boon which cost nothing,
+but wrought with so much sympathy, such draining of His own vital forces,
+that St. Matthew found in it a fulfilment of the prophecy that He should
+Himself bear our sicknesses. And thus exhausted, the frame might have been
+forgiven for demanding some indulgence, some prolongation of repose.
+
+But the course of our Lord's ministry was now opening up before Him, and
+the hindrances becoming visible. How much was to be hoped from the great
+impression already made; how much to be feared from the weakness of His
+followers, the incipient envy of priest and Pharisee, and the volatile
+excitability of the crowd. At such a time, to relieve His burdened heart
+with Divine communion was more to Jesus than repose, as, at another time,
+to serve Him was meat to eat. And therefore, in the still fresh morning,
+long before the dawn, while every earthly sight was dim but the abysses of
+heaven were vivid, declaring without voice, amid the silence of earth's
+discord, the glory and the handiwork of His Father, Jesus went into a
+solitary place and prayed.
+
+What is it that makes solitude and darkness dreadful to some, and
+oppressive to very many?
+
+Partly the sense of physical danger, born of helplessness and uncertainty.
+This He never felt, who knew that He must walk to-day and to-morrow, and
+on the third day be perfected. And partly it is the weight of unwelcome
+reflection, the searching and rebukes of memory, fears that come of guilt,
+and inward distractions of a nature estranged from the true nature of the
+universe. Jesus was agitated by no inward discords, upbraided by no
+remorse. And He had probably no reveries; He is never recorded to
+soliloquise; solitude to Him was but another name for communion with God
+His Father; He was never alone, for God was with Him.
+
+This retirement enabled Him to remain undisturbed until His disciples
+found Him, long after the crowds had besieged their dwelling. They had not
+yet learned how all true external life must rest upon the hidden life of
+devotion, and there is an accent of regret in the words, "All are seeking
+Thee," as if Jesus could neglect in self-culture any true opportunity for
+service.
+
+The answer, noteworthy in itself, demands especial attention in these
+times of missions, demonstrations, Salvation Armies, and other wise and
+unwise attempts to gather excited crowds around the cross.
+
+Mere sensation actually repelled Jesus. Again and again He charged men not
+to make Him known, in places where He would stay; while in Gadara, which
+He had to leave, His command to the demoniac was the reverse. Deep and
+real convictions are not of kin with sight-seeing and the pursuit of
+wonders. Capernaum has now heard His message, has received its full share
+of physical blessing, is exalted unto heaven. Those who were looking for
+redemption knew the gospel, and Jesus must preach it in other towns also.
+Therefore, and not to be the centre of admiring multitudes, came He forth
+from His quiet home.
+
+Such is the sane and tranquil action of Jesus, in face of the excitement
+caused by His many miracles. Now the miracles themselves, and all that
+depends on them, are declared to be the creation of the wildest
+fanaticism, either during His lifetime or developing His legend
+afterwards. And if so, we have here, in the action of human mind, the
+marvel of modern physicists, ice from a red-hot retort, absolute
+moderation from a dream of frenzy. And this paradox is created in the act
+of "explaining" the miracles. The explanation, even were it sustained by
+any evidence, would be as difficult as any miracle to believe.
+
+
+
+
+The Leper.
+
+
+    "And there cometh to Him a leper, beseeching Him, and kneeling
+    down to Him, and saying unto Him, If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me
+    clean. And being moved with compassion, He stretched forth His
+    hand, and touched him, and saith unto him I will; be thou made
+    clean. And straightway the leprosy departed from him, and he was
+    made clean. And He strictly charged him, and straightway sent him
+    out, and saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go
+    thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing
+    the things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But
+    he went out, and began to publish it much, and to spread abroad
+    the matter insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a
+    city, but was without in desert places: and they came to Him from
+    every quarter."--MARK i. 40-45 (R.V.).
+
+
+The disease of leprosy was peculiarly fearful to a Jew. In its stealthy
+beginning, its irresistible advance, the utter ruin which it wrought from
+the blood outward until the flesh was corroded and fell away, it was a fit
+type of sin, at first so trivial in its indications, but gradually
+usurping all the nature and corrupting it. And the terrible fact, that the
+children of its victims were also doomed, reminded the Israelite of the
+transmission of the taint of Adam.
+
+The story of Naaman and that of Gehazi make it almost certain that the
+leprosy of Scripture was not contagious, for they were intimate with
+kings. But apparently to complete the type, the law gave to it the
+artificial contagion of ceremonial uncleanness, and banished the unhappy
+sufferer from the dwellings of men. Thus he came to be regarded as under
+an especial ban, and the prophecy which announced that the illustrious Man
+of Sorrows would be esteemed "stricken of God," was taken to mean that He
+should be a leper. This banishment of the leper was indeed a remarkable
+exception to the humanity of the ancient law, but when his distress began
+to be extreme, and "the plague was turned into white," he was released
+from his uncleanness (Lev. xiii. 17). And this may teach us that sin is to
+be dreaded most while it is yet insidious; when developed it gives a
+sufficient warning against itself. And now such a sufferer appeals to
+Jesus. The incident is one of the most pathetic in the Gospel; and its
+graphic details, and the shining character which it reveals, make it very
+perplexing to moderate and thoughtful sceptics.
+
+Those who believe that the charm of His presence was "worth all the
+resources of medicine," agree that Christ may have cured even leprosy, and
+insist that this story, as told by St. Mark, "must be genuine." Others
+suppose that the leper was already cured, and Jesus only urged him to
+fulfil the requirements of the law. And why not deny the story boldly? Why
+linger so longingly over the details, when credence is refused to what is
+plainly the mainspring of the whole, the miraculous power of Jesus? The
+answer is plain. Honest minds feel the touch of a great nature; the misery
+of the suppliant and the compassion of his Restorer are so vivid as to
+prove themselves; no dreamer of a myth, no process of legend-building,
+ever wrought after this fashion. But then, the misery and compassion being
+granted, the whole story is practically conceded. It only remains to ask,
+whether the "presence of the Saintly Man" could work a chemical change in
+tainted blood. For it must be insisted that the man was "full of leprosy,"
+and not, as one suggests, already far advanced towards cure. The contrast
+between his running and kneeling at the very feet of Jesus, and the
+conduct of the ten lepers, not yet released from their exclusion, who
+stood afar off while they cried out (Luke xvii. 12), is sufficient
+evidence of this, even if the express statement of St. Luke were not
+decisive.
+
+Repulsive, and until now despairing, only tolerated among men through the
+completeness of his plague, this man pushes through the crowd which
+shrinks from him, kneels in an agony of supplication, and says "If Thou
+wilt, Thou canst make me clean." If Thou wilt! The cruelty of man has
+taught him to doubt the heart, even though satisfied of the power of
+Jesus. In a few years, men came to assume the love, and exult in the
+reflection that He was "able to keep what 'was' committed to Him," "able
+to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." It did not
+occur to St. Paul that any mention of His will was needed.
+
+Nor did Jesus Himself ask a later suppliant, "Believest thou that I am
+willing," but "Believest thou that I am able to do this?"
+
+But the charm of this delightful incident is the manner in which our Lord
+grants the impassioned prayer. We might have expected a shudder, a natural
+recoil from the loathsome spectacle, and then a wonder-working word. But
+misery which He could relieve did not repel Jesus; it attracted Him. His
+impulse was to approach. He not only answered "I will,"--and deep is the
+will to remove all anguish in the wonderful heart of Jesus,--but He
+stretched forth an unshrinking hand, and touched that death in life. It is
+a parable of all His course, this laying of a clean hand on the sin of the
+world to cleanse it. At His touch, how was the morbid frame thrilled with
+delightful pulses of suddenly renovated health. And how was the
+despairing, joyless heart, incredulous of any real will to help him,
+soothed and healed by the pure delight of being loved.
+
+This is the true lesson of the narrative. St. Mark treats the miraculous
+cure much more lightly than the tender compassion and the swift movement
+to relieve suffering. And He is right. The warm and generous nature
+revealed by this fine narrative is what, as we have seen, most impresses
+the doubter, and ought most to comfort the Church. For He is the same
+yesterday and to-day. And perhaps, if the divinity of love impressed men
+as much as that of power, there would be less denial of the true Godhead
+of our Lord.
+
+The touch of a leper made a Jew unclean. And there is a surprising theory,
+that when Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, it was because the
+leper had disobediently published what implied His ceremonial defilement.
+As if our Lord were one to violate the law by stealth.
+
+But is it very remarkable that Christ, Who was born under the law, never
+betrayed any anxiety about cleanness. The law of impurity was in fact an
+expression of human frailty. Sin spreads corruption far more easily than
+virtue diffuses purity. The touch of goodness fails to reproduce goodness.
+And the prophet Haggai has laid stress upon this contrast, that bread or
+pottage or wine or oil or any meat will not become holy at the touch of
+one who bears holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, but if one that is
+unclean by a dead body touch any of these, it shall be unclean (ii. 12,
+13). Our hearts know full well how true to nature is the ordinance.
+
+But Christ brought among us a virtue more contagious than our vices are,
+being not only a living soul, but a life-imparting Spirit. And thus He
+lays His hand upon this leper, upon the bier at Nain, upon the corpse of
+the daughter of Jairus, and as fire is kindled at the touch of fire, so
+instead of pollution to Him, the pureness of healthful life is imparted to
+the defiling and defiled.
+
+And His followers also are to possess a religion that is vitalizing, to be
+the light of the world, and the salt of the earth.
+
+If we are thus to further His cause, we must not only be zealous but
+obedient, Jesus strictly charged the leper not to fan the flame of an
+excitement which already impeded His work. But there was an invaluable
+service which he might render: the formal registration of his cure, the
+securing its official recognition by the priests, and their consent to
+offer the commanded sacrifices. In many a subsequent controversy, that
+"testimony unto them" might have been embarrassing indeed. But the leper
+lost his opportunity, and put them upon their guard. And as through his
+impulsive clamour Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but even
+in desert places was beset by excited crowds, so is He deprived today of
+many a tranquil ministration and lowly service, by the zeal which despises
+order and quiet methods, by the undisciplined and ill-judged
+demonstrations of men and women whom He has blessed.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+
+
+The Sick Of The Palsy.
+
+
+    "And when He entered again into Capernaum after some days, it was
+    noised that He was in the house."--MARK ii. 1 (R.V.).
+
+
+Jesus returns to Capernaum, and an eager crowd blocks even the approaches
+to the house where He is known to be. St. Mark, as we should expect,
+relates the course of events, the multitudes, the ingenious device by
+which a miracle is obtained, the claim which Jesus advances to yet greater
+authority than heretofore, and the impression produced. But St. Luke
+explains that there were "sitting by," having obtained the foremost places
+which they loved, Pharisees and doctors of the law from every village of
+Galilee and Judaea, and from Jerusalem itself. And this concourse,
+evidently preconcerted and unfriendly, explains the first murmurs of
+opposition recorded by St. Mark. It was the jealousy of rival teachers
+which so readily pronounced Him a blasphemer.
+
+The crowds besieged the very passages, there was no room, no, not around
+the door, and even if one might struggle forward, four men bearing a
+litter might well despair. But with palsied paralysis at stake, they would
+not be repulsed. They gained the roof by an outer staircase, such as the
+fugitives from Jerusalem should hereafter use, not going through the
+house. Then they uncovered and broke up the roof, by which strong phrases
+St. Mark means that they first lifted the tiles which lay in a bed of
+mortar or mud, broke through this, and then tore up the poles and light
+rafters by which all this covering was supported. Then they lowered the
+sick man upon his pallet, in front of the Master as He taught.
+
+It was an unceremonious act. However carefully performed, the audience
+below must have been not only disturbed but inconvenienced, and doubtless
+among the precise and unmerciful personages in the chief seats there was
+many an angry glance, many a murmur, many a conjecture of rebukes
+presently to be inflicted on the intruders.
+
+But Jesus never in any circumstances rebuked for intrusion any suppliant.
+And now He discerned the central spiritual impulse of these men, which was
+not obtrusiveness nor disrespect. They believed that neither din while He
+preached, nor rubbish falling among His audience, nor the strange
+interruption of a patient and a litter intruded upon His discourse, could
+weigh as much with Jesus as the appeal on a sick man's face. And this was
+faith. These peasants may have been far enough from intellectual
+discernment of Christ's Personality and the scheme of salvation. They had
+however a strong and practical conviction that He would make whole their
+palsied friend.
+
+Now the preaching of faith is suspected of endangering good works. But was
+this persuasion likely to make these men torpid? Is it not plain that all
+spiritual apathy comes not from over-trust but from unbelief, either
+doubting that sin is present death, or else that holiness is life, and
+that Jesus has a gift to bestow, not in heaven, but promptly, which is
+better to gain than all the world? Therefore salvation is linked with
+faith, which earns nothing but elicits all, like the touch that evokes
+electricity, but which no man supposes to have made it.
+
+Because they knew the curse of palsy, and believed in a present remedy,
+these men broke up the roof to come where Jesus was. They won their
+blessing, but not the less it was His free gift.
+
+Jesus saw and rewarded the faith of all the group. The principle of mutual
+support and co-operation is the basis alike of the family, the nation, and
+the Church. Thus the great Apostle desired obscure and long-forgotten men
+and women to help together with him in their prayers. And He who visits
+the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
+generation, shows mercy unto many more, unto thousands, in them that love
+Him. What a rebuke is all this to men who think it enough that they should
+do no harm, and live inoffensive lives. Jesus now bestowed such a blessing
+as awoke strange misgivings among the bystanders. He divined the true
+burden of that afflicted heart, the dreary memories and worse fears which
+haunted that sick bed,--and how many are even now preparing such remorse
+and gloom for a bed of pain hereafter!--and perhaps He discerned the
+consciousness of some guilty origin of the disease. Certainly He saw there
+one whose thoughts went beyond his malady, a yearning soul, with hope
+glowing like red sparks amid the ashes of his self-reproach, that a
+teacher so gracious as men reported Jesus, might bring with Him a gospel
+indeed. We know that he felt thus, for Jesus made him of good cheer by
+pardon rather than by healing, and spoke of the cure itself as wrought
+less for his sake than as evidence.
+
+Surely that was a great moment when the wistful gaze of eyes which disease
+had dimmed, met the eyes which were as a flame of fire, and knew that all
+its sullied past was at once comprehended and forgiven.
+
+Jesus said to him, "Son, thy sins are forgiven thee." The term of
+endearment was new to his lips, and very emphatic; the same which Mary
+used when she found Him in the temple, the same as when He argued that
+even evil men give good gifts unto their children. Such a relation towards
+Himself He recognised in this afflicted penitent. On the other hand, the
+dry argumentative temper of the critics is well expressed by the short
+crackling unemotional utterances of their orthodoxy: "Why doth this man
+thus speak? He blasphemeth. Who can forgive sins but one, God." There is
+no zeal in it, no passion for God's honour, no spiritual insight, it is as
+heartless as a syllogism. And in what follows a fine contrast is implied
+between their perplexed orthodoxy, and Christ's profound discernment. For
+as He had just read the sick man's heart, so He "perceived in His spirit
+that they so reasoned within themselves." And He asks them the searching
+question, "Whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say,
+Arise and walk?" Now which is really easier? It is not enough to lay all
+the emphasis upon "to say," as if with Jesus the ease of an utterance
+depended on the difficulty of testing it. There is indeed a certain irony
+in the question. They doubtless imagined that Jesus was evading their
+scrutiny by only bestowing what they could not test. To them forgiveness
+seemed more easily offered than a cure. To the Christian, it is less to
+heal disease, which is a mere consequence, than sin, which is the source
+of all our woes. To the power of Jesus they were alike, and connected with
+each other as the symptom and the true disease. In truth, all the
+compassion which blesses our daily life is a pledge of grace; and He Who
+healeth all our diseases forgiveth also all our iniquities. But since
+healing was the severer test in their reckoning, Jesus does not evade it.
+He restores the palsied man to health, that they might know that the Son
+of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins. So then, pardon does not
+lie concealed and doubtful in the councils of an unknown world, it is
+pronounced on earth. The Son of man, wearing our nature and touched with
+our infirmities, bestows it still, in the Scriptures, in the Sacraments,
+in the ministrations of His servants. Wherever He discerns faith, He
+responds with assurance of the absolution and remission of sins.
+
+He claims to do this, as men had so lately observed that He both taught
+and worked miracles, "with authority." We then saw that this word
+expressed the direct and personal mastery with which He wrought, and which
+the apostles never claimed for themselves.
+
+Therefore this text cannot be quoted in defence of priestly absolutions,
+as long as these are hypothetical, and depend on the recipient's
+earnestness, or on any supposition, any uncertainty whatever. Christ did
+not utter a hypothesis.
+
+Fortunately, too, the argument that men, priestly men, must have authority
+on earth to forgive sins, because the Son of man has such authority, can
+be brought to an easy test. There is a passage elsewhere, which asserts
+His authority, and upon which the claim to share it can be tried. The
+words are, "The Father gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He
+is the Son of man," and they are immediately followed by an announcement
+of the resurrection to judgment (John v. 27, 29). Is any one prepared to
+contend that such authority as that is vested in other sons of men? And if
+not that, why this?
+
+But if priestly absolutions are not here, there remains the certainty that
+Jesus brought to earth, to man, the gift of prompt effective pardon, to be
+realized by faith.
+
+The sick man is ordered to depart at once. Further discourse might perhaps
+be reserved for others, but he may not linger, having received his own
+bodily and spiritual medicine. The teaching of Christ is not for
+curiosity. It is good for the greatly blessed to be alone. And it is
+sometimes dangerous for obscure people to be thrust into the centre of
+attention.
+
+Hereupon, another touch of nature discovers itself in the narrative, for
+it is now easy to pass through the crowd. Men who would not in their
+selfishness give place for palsied misery, readily make room for the
+distinguished person who has received a miraculous blessing.
+
+
+
+
+The Son Of Man.
+
+
+    "The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins."--MARK ii. 10.
+
+
+When asserting His power to forgive sins, Jesus, for the first time in our
+Gospel, called Himself the Son of man.
+
+It is a remarkable phrase. The profound reverence which He from the first
+inspired, restrained all other lips from using it, save only when the
+first martyr felt such a rush of sympathy from above poured into his soul,
+that the thought of Christ's humanity was more moving than that of His
+deity. So too it is then alone that He is said to be not enthroned in
+heaven, but standing, "the Son of man, standing on the right hand of God"
+(Acts vii. 56).(5)
+
+What then does this title imply? Beyond doubt it is derived from Daniel's
+vision: "Behold there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a Son
+of man, and He came even to the Ancient of Days" (vii. 13). And it was by
+the bold and unequivocal appropriation of this verse that Jesus brought
+upon Himself the judgment of the council (Matt. xxvi. 64; Mark xiv. 62).
+
+Now the first impression which the phrase in Daniel produces is that of
+strong and designed contrast between the Son of man and the Eternal God.
+We wonder at seeing man "brought nigh" to Deity. Nor may we suppose that
+to be "like unto a Son of man," implies only an appearance of manhood. In
+Daniel the Messiah can be cut off. When Jesus uses the epithet, and even
+when He quotes the prophecy, He not only resembles a Son of man, He is
+truly such; He is most frequently "_the_ Son of man," the pre-eminent,
+perhaps the only one.(6)
+
+But while the expression intimates a share in the lowliness of human
+nature, it does not imply a lowly rank among men.
+
+Our Lord often suggested by its use the difference between His
+circumstances and His dignity. "The Son of man hath not where to lay His
+head:" "Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss," in each of these we
+feel that the title asserts a claim to different treatment. And in the
+great verse, God "hath given Him authority to execute judgment, because He
+is the Son of man," we discern that although human hands are chosen as
+fittest to do judgment upon humanity, yet His extraordinary dignity is
+also taken into account. The title belongs to our Lord's humiliation, but
+is far from an additional abasement; it asserts His supremacy over those
+whom He is not ashamed to call brethren.
+
+We all are sons of men; and Jesus used the phrase when He promised that
+all manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven to us. But there is a
+higher sense in which, among thousands of the ignoble, we single out one
+"real man;" and in this sense, as fulfilling the idea, Jesus was the
+Second Man. What a difference exists between the loftiest sons of vulgar
+men, and the Son of our complete humanity, of the race, "of Man." The
+pre-eminence even of our best and greatest is fragmentary and incomplete.
+In their veins runs but a portion of the rich life-blood of the race: but
+a share of its energy throbs in the greatest bosom. We seldom find the
+typical thinker in the typical man of action. Originality of purpose and
+of means are not commonly united. To know all that holiness embraces, we
+must combine the energies of one saint with the gentler graces of a second
+and the spiritual insight of a third. There is no man of genius who fails
+to make himself the child of his nation and his age, so that Shakespeare
+would be impossible in France, Hugo in Germany, Goethe in England. Two
+great nations slay their kings and surrender their liberties to military
+dictators, but Napoleon would have been unendurable to us, and Cromwell
+ridiculous across the channel.
+
+Large allowances are to be made for the Greek in Plato, the Roman in
+Epictetus, before we can learn of them. Each and all are the sons of their
+tribe and century, not of all mankind and all time. But who will point out
+the Jewish warp in any word or institution of Jesus? In the new man which
+is after His image there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and
+uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, but Christ is all
+and in all, something of Him represented by each, all of them concentrated
+in Him. He alone speaks to all men without any foreign accent, and He
+alone is recognised and understood as widely as the voices of nature, as
+the sigh of waves and breezes, and the still endurance of the stars.
+Reading the Gospels, we become aware that four writers of widely different
+bias and temperament have all found an equally congenial subject, so that
+each has given a portrait harmonious with the others, and yet unique. It
+is because the sum total of humanity is in Christ, that no single writer
+could have told His story.
+
+But now consider what this implies. It demands an example from which
+lonely women and heroic leaders of action should alike take fire. It
+demands that He should furnish meditation for sages in the closet, and
+should found a kingdom more brilliant than those of conquerors. It demands
+that He should strike out new paths towards new objects, and be supremely
+original without deviating from what is truly sane and human, for any
+selfish or cruel or unwholesome joy. It demands the gentleness of a sheep
+before her shearers, and such burning wrath as seven times over denounced
+against the hypocrites of Jerusalem woe and the damnation of hell. It
+demands the sensibilities which made Gethsemane dreadful, and the strength
+which made Calvary sublime. It demands that when we approach Him we should
+learn to feel the awe of other worlds, the nearness of God, the sinfulness
+of sin, the folly of laying up much goods for many years; that life should
+be made solemn and profound, but yet that it should not be darkened nor
+depressed unduly; that nature and man should be made dear to us, little
+children, and sinners who are scorned yet who love much, and lepers who
+stand afar off--yes, and even the lilies of the field, and the fowls of the
+air; that He should not be unaware of the silent processes of nature which
+bears fruit of itself, of sunshine and rain, and the fury of storms and
+torrents, and the leap of the lightning across all the sky. Thus we can
+bring to Jesus every anxiety and every hope, for He, and only He, was
+tempted in all points like unto us. Universality of power, of sympathy,
+and of influence, is the import of this title which Jesus claims. And that
+demand Jesus only has satisfied, Who is the Master of Sages, the Friend of
+sinners, the Man of Sorrows, and the King of kings, the one perfect
+blossom on the tree of our humanity, the ideal of our nature incarnate,
+the Second Adam in Whom the fulness of the race is visible. The Second Man
+is the Lord from Heaven. And this strange and solitary grandeur He
+foretold, when He took to Himself this title, itself equally strange and
+solitary, the Son of man.
+
+
+
+
+The Call And Feast Of Levi.
+
+
+    "And He went forth again by the sea side; and all the multitude
+    resorted unto Him, and He taught them. And as He passed by, He saw
+    Levi the _son_ of Alphaeus sitting at the place of toll, and He
+    saith unto him, Follow Me. And he arose and followed Him. And it
+    came to pass, that He was sitting at meat in his house, and many
+    publicans and sinners sat down with Jesus and His disciples: for
+    there were many, and they followed Him. And the scribes of the
+    Pharisees, when they saw that He was eating with the sinners and
+    publicans, said unto His disciples, He eateth and drinketh with
+    publicans and sinners. And when Jesus heard it, He saith unto
+    them, They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they
+    that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but
+    sinners."--MARK ii. 13-17 (R.V.).
+
+
+Jesus loved the open air. His custom when teaching was to point to the
+sower, the lily, and the bird. He is no pale recluse emerging from a
+library to instruct, in the dim religious light of cloisters, a world
+unknown except by books. Accordingly we find Him "again by the sea-side."
+And however the scribes and Pharisees may have continued to murmur, the
+multitudes resorted to Him, confiding in the evidence of their experience,
+which never saw it on this fashion.
+
+That argument was perfectly logical; it was an induction, yet it led them
+to a result curiously the reverse of theirs who reject miracles for being
+contrary to experience. "Yes," they said, "we appeal to experience, but
+the conclusion is that good deeds which it cannot parallel must come
+directly from the Giver of all good."
+
+Such good deeds continue. The creed of Christ has re-formed Europe, it is
+awakening Asia, it has transformed morality, and imposed new virtues on
+the conscience. It is the one religion for the masses, the lapsed, and
+indeed for the sick in body as truly as in soul; for while science
+discourses with enthusiasm upon progress by the rejection of the less fit,
+our faith cherishes these in hospitals, asylums, and retreats, and
+prospers by lavishing care upon the outcast and rejected of the world. Now
+this transcends experience: we never saw it on this fashion; it is
+supernatural. Or else let scientific atheism produce its reformed
+magdalens, and its homes for the hopelessly diseased and imbecile, and all
+"the weakest" who go, as she tenderly assures us, "to the wall."
+
+Jesus now gave a signal proof of His independence of human judgment, His
+care for the despised and rejected. For such a one He completed the
+rupture between Himself and the rulers of the people.
+
+Sitting at the receipt of toll, in the act of levying from his own nation
+the dues of the conqueror, Levi the publican received the call to become
+an Apostle and Evangelist. It was a resolute defiance of the pharisaic
+judgment. It was a memorable rebuke for those timid slaves of expediency
+who nurse their influence, refuse to give offence, fear to "mar their
+usefulness" by "compromising themselves," and so make their whole life one
+abject compromise, and let all emphatic usefulness go by.
+
+Here is one upon whom the bigot scowls more darkly still than upon Jesus
+Himself, by whom the Roman yoke is pressed upon Hebrew necks, an apostate
+in men's judgment from the national faith and hope. And such judgments
+sadly verify themselves; a despised man easily becomes despicable.
+
+But however Levi came by so strange and hateful an office, Jesus saw in
+him no slavish earner of vile bread by doing the foreigner's hateful work.
+He was more willing than they who scorned him to follow the true King of
+Israel. It is even possible that the national humiliations to which his
+very office testified led him to other aspirations, longings after a
+spiritual kingdom beyond reach of the sword or the exactions of Rome. For
+his Gospel is full of the true kingdom of heaven, the spiritual
+fulfilments of prophecy, and the relations between the Old Testament and
+the Messiah.
+
+Here then is an opportunity to show the sneering scribe and carping
+Pharisee how little their cynical criticism weighs with Jesus. He calls
+the despised agent of the heathen to His side, and is obeyed. And now the
+name of the publican is engraven upon one of the foundations of the city
+of God.
+
+Nor did Jesus refuse to carry such condescension to its utmost limit,
+eating and drinking in Levi's house with many publicans and sinners, who
+were already attracted by His teaching, and now rejoiced in His
+familiarity. Just in proportion as He offended the pharisaic scribes, so
+did He inspire with new hope the unhappy classes who were taught to
+consider themselves castaway. His very presence was medicinal, a rebuke to
+foul words and thoughts, an outward and visible sign of grace. It brought
+pure air and sunshine into a fever-stricken chamber.
+
+And this was His justification when assailed. He had borne healing to the
+sick. He had called sinners to repentance. And therefore His example has a
+double message. It rebukes those who look curiously on the intercourse of
+religious people with the world, who are plainly of opinion that the
+leaven should be hid anywhere but in the meal, who can never fairly
+understand St. Paul's permission to go to an idolater's feast. But it
+gives no licence to go where we cannot be a healing influence, where the
+light must be kept in a dark lantern if not under a bushel, where, instead
+of drawing men upward, we shall only confirm their indolent
+self-satisfaction.
+
+Christ's reason for seeking out the sick, the lost, is ominous indeed for
+the self-satisfied. The whole have no need of a physician; He came not to
+call the righteous. Such persons, whatever else they be, are not
+Christians until they come to a different mind.
+
+In calling Himself the Physician of sick souls, Jesus made a startling
+claim, which becomes more emphatic when we observe that He also quoted the
+words of Hosea, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice" (Matt. ix. 13; Hos.
+vi. 6). For this expression occurs in that chapter which tells how the
+Lord Himself hath smitten and will bind us up. And the complaint is just
+before it that when Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, then
+went Ephraim to Assyria and sent to king Jareb, but he is not able to heal
+you, neither shall he cure you of your wound (Hos. v. 13-vi. 1). As the
+Lord Himself hath torn, so He must heal.
+
+Now Jesus comes to that part of Israel which the Pharisees despise for
+being wounded and diseased, and justifies Himself by words which must,
+from their context, have reminded every Jew of the declaration that God is
+the physician, and it is vain to seek healing elsewhere. And immediately
+afterwards, He claims to be the Bridegroom, whom also Hosea spoke of as
+divine. Yet men profess that only in St. John does He advance such claims
+that we should ask, Whom makest Thou Thyself? Let them try the experiment,
+then, of putting such words into the lips of any mortal.
+
+The choice of the apostles, and most of all that of Levi, illustrates the
+power of the cross to elevate obscure and commonplace lives. He was born,
+to all appearance, to an uneventful, unobserved existence. We read no
+remarkable action of the Apostle Matthew; as an Evangelist he is simple,
+orderly and accurate, as becomes a man of business, but the graphic energy
+of St. Mark, the pathos of St. Luke, the profundity of St. John are
+absent. Yet his greatness will outlive the world.
+
+Now as Christ provided nobility and a career for this man of the people,
+so He does for all. "Are all apostles?" Nay, but all may become pillars in
+the temple of eternity. The gospel finds men plunged in monotony, in the
+routine of callings which machinery and the subdivision of labour make
+ever more colourless, spiritless, and dull. It is a small thing that it
+introduces them to a literature more sublime than Milton, more sincere and
+direct than Shakespere. It brings their little lives into relationship
+with eternity. It braces them for a vast struggle, watched by a great
+cloud of witnesses. It gives meaning and beauty to the sordid present, and
+to the future a hope full of immortality. It brings the Christ of God
+nearer to the humblest than when of old He ate and drank with publicans
+and sinners.
+
+
+
+
+The Controversy Concerning Fasting.
+
+
+    "And John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting: and they
+    come and say unto Him, Why do John's disciples and the disciples
+    of the Pharisees fast, but Thy disciples fast not?"--MARK ii. 18
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+The Pharisees had just complained to the disciples that Jesus ate and
+drank in questionable company. Now they join with the followers of the
+ascetic Baptist in complaining to Jesus that His disciples eat and drink
+at improper seasons, when others fast. And as Jesus had then replied, that
+being a Physician, He was naturally found among the sick, so He now
+answered, that being the Bridegroom, fasting in His presence is
+impossible: "Can the sons of the bridechamber fast while the Bridegroom is
+with them?" A new spirit is working in Christianity, far too mightily to
+be restrained by ancient usages; if the new wine be put into such
+wineskins it will spoil them, and itself be lost.
+
+Hereupon three remarkable subjects call for attention: the immense
+personal claim advanced; the view which Christ takes of fasting; and,
+arising out of this, the principle which He applies to all external rites
+and ceremonies.
+
+I. Jesus does not inquire whether the fasts of other men were unreasonable
+or not. In any case, He declares that His mere presence put everything on
+a new footing for His followers who could not fast simply because He was
+by. Thus He assumes a function high above that of any prophet or teacher:
+He not only reveals duty, as a lamp casts light upon the compass by which
+men steer; but He modifies duty itself, as iron deflects the needle.
+
+This is because He is the Bridegroom.
+
+The disciples of John would hereupon recall his words of self-effacement;
+that He was only the friend of the Bridegroom, whose fullest joy was to
+hear the Bridegroom's exultant voice.
+
+But no Jew could forget the Old Testament use of the phrase. It is clear
+from St. Matthew that this controversy followed immediately upon the last,
+when Jesus assumed a function ascribed to God Himself by the very passage
+from Hosea which He then quoted. Then He was the Physician for the soul's
+diseases; now He is the Bridegroom, in Whom centre its hopes, its joys,
+its affections, its new life. That position in the spiritual existence
+cannot be given away from God without idolatry. The same Hosea who makes
+God the Healer, gives to Him also, in the most explicit words, what Jesus
+now claims for Himself. "I will betroth thee unto Me for ever.... I will
+even betroth thee unto Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord"
+(ii. 19, 20). Isaiah too declares "thy Maker is thy husband," and "as the
+bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee"
+(liv. 5; lxii. 5). And in Jeremiah, God remembers the love of Israel's
+espousals, who went after Him in the wilderness, in a land that was not
+sown (ii. 2). Now all this is transferred throughout the New Testament to
+Jesus. The Baptist is not alone in this respect. St. John regards the
+Bride as the wife of the Lamb (Rev. xxi. 9). St. Paul would fain present
+his Corinthian Church as a pure virgin to Christ, as to one husband (2
+Cor. xi. 2). For him, the absolute oneness of marriage is a mystery of the
+union betwixt Christ and His Church (Eph. v. 32). If Jesus be not God,
+then a relation hitherto exclusively belonging to Jehovah, to rob Him of
+which is the adultery of the soul, has been systematically transferred by
+the New Testament to a creature. His glory has been given to another.
+
+This remarkable change is clearly the work of Jesus Himself. The marriage
+supper of which He spoke is for the King's son. At His return the cry will
+be heard, Behold the Bridegroom cometh. In this earliest passage His
+presence causes the joy of the Bride, who said to the Lord in the Old
+Testament, Thou art my Husband (Hosea ii. 16).
+
+There is not to be found in the Gospel of St. John a passage more
+certainly calculated to inspire, when Christ's dignity was assured by His
+resurrection and ascension, the adoration which His Church has always paid
+to the Lamb in the midst of the throne.
+
+II. The presence of the Bridegroom dispenses with the obligation to fast.
+Yet it is beyond denial that fasting as a religious exercise comes within
+the circle of New Testament sanctions. Jesus Himself, when taking our
+burdens upon Him, as He had stooped to the baptism of repentance,
+condescended also to fast. He taught His disciples when they fasted to
+anoint their head and wash their face. The mention of fasting is indeed a
+later addition to the words "this kind (of demon) goeth not out but by
+prayer" (Mark ix. 29), but we know that the prophets and teachers of
+Antioch were fasting when bidden to consecrate Barnabas and Saul, and they
+fasted again and prayed before they laid their hands upon them (Acts xiii.
+2, 3).
+
+Thus it is right to fast, at times and from one point of view; but at
+other times, and from Jewish and formal motives, it is unnatural and
+mischievous. It is right when the Bridegroom is taken away, a phrase which
+certainly does not cover all this space between the Ascension and the
+Second Advent, since Jesus still reveals Himself to His own though not
+unto the world, and is with His Church all the days. Scripture has no
+countenance for the notion that we lost by the Ascension in privilege or
+joy. But when the body would fain rise up against the spirit, it must be
+kept under and brought into subjection (1 Cor. ix. 27). When the closest
+domestic joys would interrupt the seclusion of the soul with God, they may
+be suspended, though but for a time (1 Cor. vii. 5). And when the supreme
+blessing of intercourse with God, the presence of the Bridegroom, is
+obscured or forfeited through sin, it will then be as inevitable that the
+loyal heart should turn away from worldly pleasures, as that the first
+disciples should reject these in the dread hours of their bereavement.
+
+Thus Jesus abolished the superstition that grace may be had by a
+mechanical observance of a prescribed regimen at an appointed time. He did
+not deny, but rather implied the truth, that body and soul act and
+counteract so that spiritual impressions may be weakened and forfeited by
+untimely indulgence of the flesh.
+
+By such teaching, Jesus carried forward the doctrine already known to the
+Old Testament. There it was distinctly announced that the return from
+exile abrogated those fasts which commemorated national calamities, so
+that "the fast of the fourth month, and of the fifth, and of the seventh
+and of the tenth shall be to the house of Israel joy and gladness,
+cheerful feasts" (Zech. vii. 3, viii. 19). Even while these fasts had
+lasted they had been futile, because they were only formal. "When ye
+fasted and mourned, did ye at all fast unto me? And when ye eat, and when
+ye drink, do ye not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?" (Zech.
+vii. 5, 6). And Isaiah had plainly laid down the great rule, that a fast
+and an acceptable day unto the Lord was not a day to afflict the soul and
+bow the head, but to deny and discipline our selfishness for some good
+end, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and
+to let the oppressed go free, to deal bread to the hungry, and to bring
+home the poor that is cast out (Isa. lviii. 5-7).
+
+The true spirit of fasting breathes an ampler breath in any of the
+thousand forms of Christian self-denial, than in those petty abstinences,
+those microscopic observances, which move our wonder less by the
+superstition which expects them to bring grace than by the childishness
+which expects them to have any effect whatever.
+
+III. Jesus now applies a great principle to all external rites and
+ceremonies. They have their value. As the wineskin retains the wine, so
+are feelings and aspirations aided, and even preserved, by suitable
+external forms. Without these, emotion would lose itself for want of
+restraint, wasted, like spilt wine, by diffuseness. And if the forms are
+unsuitable and outworn, the same calamity happens, the strong new feelings
+break through them, "and the wine perisheth, and the skins." In this
+respect, how many a sad experience of the Church attests the wisdom of her
+Lord; what losses have been suffered in the struggle between forms that
+had stiffened into archaic ceremonialism and new zeal demanding scope for
+its energy, between the antiquated phrases of a bygone age and the new
+experience, knowledge and requirements of the next, between the frosty
+precisions of unsympathetic age and the innocent warmth and freshness of
+the young, too often, alas, lost to their Master in passionate revolt
+against restraints which He neither imposed nor smiled upon.
+
+Therefore the coming of a new revelation meant the repeal of old
+observances, and Christ refused to sew His new faith like a patchwork upon
+ancient institutions, of which it would only complete the ruin. Thus He
+anticipated the decision of His apostles releasing the Gentiles from the
+law of Moses. And He bestowed on His Church an adaptiveness to various
+times and places, not always remembered by missionaries among the heathen,
+by fastidious critics of new movements at home, nor by men who would
+reduce the lawfulness of modern agencies to a question of precedent and
+archaeology.
+
+
+
+
+The Sabbath.
+
+
+    "And it came to pass, that He was going on the sabbath day through
+    the cornfields; and His disciples began, as they went, to pluck
+    the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto Him, Behold, why do
+    they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? And He said unto
+    them, Did ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was
+    an hungred, he, and they that were with him? How he entered into
+    the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and did eat the
+    shewbread, which it is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and
+    gave also to them that were with him? And He said unto them, The
+    sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: so that the
+    Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath."--MARK ii. 23-28 (R.V.).
+
+
+Twice in succession Christ had now asserted the freedom of the soul
+against His Jewish antagonists. He was free to eat with sinners, for their
+good, and His followers were free to disregard fasts, because the
+Bridegroom was with them. A third attack in the same series is prepared.
+The Pharisees now take stronger ground, since the law itself enforced the
+obligation of the Sabbath. Even Isaiah, the most free-spirited of all the
+prophets, in the same passage where he denounced the fasts of the
+self-righteous, bade men to keep their foot from the Sabbath (Isa. lviii.
+13, 14). Here they felt sure of their position; and when they found the
+disciples, in a cornfield where the long stems had closed over the path,
+"making a way," which was surely forbidden labour, and this by "plucking
+the ears," which was reaping, and then rubbing these in their hands to
+reject the chaff, which was winnowing, they cried out in affected horror,
+Behold, why do they that which is not lawful? To them it mattered nothing
+that the disciples really hungered, and that abstinence, rather than the
+slight exertion which they condemned, would cause real inconvenience and
+unrest.
+
+Perhaps the answer of our Lord has been as much misunderstood as any other
+words He ever spoke. It has been assumed that He spoke across the boundary
+between the new dispensation and the old, as One from whose movements the
+restraints of Judaism had entirely fallen away, to those who were still
+entangled. And it has been inferred that the Fourth Commandment was no
+more than such a restraint, now thrown off among the rest. But this is
+quite a misapprehension both of His position and theirs. On earth He was a
+minister of the circumcision. He bade His disciples to observe and do all
+that was commanded from the seat of Moses. And it is by Old Testament
+precedent, and from Old Testament principles, that He now refutes the
+objection of the Pharisees. This is what gives the passage half its charm,
+this discovery of freedom like our own in the heart of the stern old
+Hebrew discipline, as a fountain and flowers on the face of a granite
+crag, this demonstration that all we now enjoy is developed from what
+already lay in germ enfolded in the law.
+
+David and his followers, when at extremity, had eaten the shewbread which
+it was not lawful for them to eat. It is a striking assertion. We should
+probably have sought a softer phrase. We should have said that in other
+circumstances it would have been unlawful, that only necessity made it
+lawful; we should have refused to look straight in the face the naked ugly
+fact that David broke the law. But Jesus was not afraid of any fact. He
+saw and declared that the priests in the Temple itself profaned the
+Sabbath when they baked the shewbread and when they circumcised children.
+They were blameless, not because the Fourth Commandment remained
+inviolate, but because circumstances made it right for them to profane the
+Sabbath. And His disciples were blameless also, upon the same principle,
+that the larger obligation overruled the lesser, that all ceremonial
+observance gave way to human need, that mercy is a better thing than
+sacrifice.
+
+And thus it appeared that the objectors were themselves the transgressors;
+they had condemned the guiltless.
+
+A little reflection will show that our Lord's bold method, His startling
+admission that David and the priests alike did that which was not lawful,
+is much more truly reverential than our soft modern compromises, our
+shifty devices for persuading ourselves that in various permissible and
+even necessary deviations from prescribed observances, there is no real
+infraction of any law whatever.
+
+To do this, we reduce to a minimum the demands of the precept. We train
+ourselves to think, not of its full extension, but of what we can compress
+it into. Therefore, in future, even when no urgency exists, the precept
+has lost all beyond this minimum; its sharp edges are filed away. Jesus
+leaves it to resume all its energy, when mercy no longer forbids the
+sacrifice.
+
+The text, then, says nothing about the abolition of a Day of Rest. On the
+contrary, it declares that this day is not a Jewish but a universal
+ordinance, it is made for man. At the same time, it refuses to place the
+Sabbath among the essential and inflexible laws of right and wrong. It is
+made for man, for his physical repose and spiritual culture; man was not
+made for it, as he is for purity, truth, and godliness. Better for him to
+die than outrage these; they are the laws of his very being; he is royal
+by serving them; in obeying them he obeys his God. It is not thus with
+anything external, ceremonial, any ritual, any rule of conduct, however
+universal be its range, however permanent its sanctions. The Sabbath is
+such a rule, permanent, far-reaching as humanity, made "for man." But this
+very fact, Jesus tells us, is the reason why He Who represented the race
+and its interests, was "Lord even of the Sabbath."
+
+Let those who deny the Divine authority of this great institution ponder
+well the phrase which asserts its universal range, and which finds it a
+large assertion of the mastery of Christ that He is Lord "even of the
+Sabbath." But those who have scruples about the change of day by which
+honour is paid to Christ's resurrection, and those who would make
+burdensome and dreary, a horror to the young and a torpor to the old, what
+should be called a delight and honourable, these should remember that the
+ordinance is blighted, root and branch, when it is forbidden to minister
+to the physical or spiritual welfare of the human race.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+
+
+The Withered Hand.
+
+
+    "And He entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man
+    there which had his hand withered. And they watched Him, whether
+    He would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse Him.
+    And He saith unto the man that had his hand withered, Stand forth.
+    And He saith unto them, Is it lawful on the sabbath day to do good
+    or to do harm? to save a life, or to kill? But they held their
+    peace. And when He had looked round about on them with anger,
+    being grieved at the hardening of their heart, He saith unto the
+    man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched it forth: and his
+    hand was restored. And the Pharisees went out, and straightway
+    with the Herodians took counsel against Him, how they might
+    destroy Him."--MARK iii. 1-6 (R.V.).
+
+
+In the controversies just recorded, we have recognised the ideal Teacher,
+clear to discern and quick to exhibit the decisive point at issue,
+careless of small pedantries, armed with principles and precedents which
+go to the heart of the dispute.
+
+But the perfect man must be competent in more than theory; and we have now
+a marvellous example of tact, decision and self-control in action. When
+Sabbath observance is again discussed, his enemies have resolved to push
+matters to extremity. They watch, no longer to cavil, but that they may
+accuse Him. It is in the synagogue; and their expectations are sharpened
+by the presence of a pitiable object, a man whose hand is not only
+paralyzed in the sinews, but withered up and hopeless. St. Luke tells us
+that it was the right hand, which deepened his misery. And St. Matthew
+records that they asked Christ, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?
+thus urging Him by a challenge to the deed which they condemned. What a
+miserable state of mind! They believe that Jesus can work the cure, since
+this is the very basis of their plot; and yet their hostility is not
+shaken, for belief in a miracle is not conversion; to acknowledge a
+prodigy is one thing, and to surrender the will is quite another. Or how
+should we see around us so many Christians in theory, reprobates in life?
+They long to see the man healed, yet there is no compassion in this
+desire, hatred urges them to wish what mercy impels Christ to grant. But
+while He relieves the sufferer, He will also expose their malice.
+Therefore He makes His intention public, and whets their expectation, by
+calling the man forth into the midst. And then He meets their question
+with another: Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day or evil, to save
+life or to kill? And when they preserved their calculated silence, we know
+how He pressed the question home, reminding them that not one of them
+would fail to draw His own sheep out of a pit upon the Sabbath day.
+Selfishness made the difference, for a man was better than a sheep, but
+did not, like the sheep, belong to them. They do not answer: instead of
+warning Him away from guilt, they eagerly await the incriminating act: we
+can almost see the spiteful subtle smile playing about their bloodless
+lips; and Jesus marks them well. He looked round about them in anger, but
+not in bitter personal resentment, for He was grieved at the hardness of
+their hearts, and pitied them also, even while enduring such contradiction
+of sinners against Himself. This is the first mention by St. Mark of that
+impressive gaze, afterwards so frequent in every Gospel, which searched
+the scribe who answered well, and melted the heart of Peter.
+
+And now, by one brief utterance, their prey breaks through their meshes.
+Any touch would have been a work, a formal infraction of the law.
+Therefore there is no touch, neither is the helpless man bidden to take up
+any burden, or instigated to the slightest ritual irregularity. Jesus only
+bids him do what was forbidden to none, but what had been impossible for
+him to perform; and the man succeeds, he does stretch forth his hand: he
+is healed: the work is done. Yet nothing has been done; as a work of
+healing not even a word has been said. For He who would so often defy
+their malice has chosen to show once how easily He can evade it, and not
+one of them is more free from any blame, however technical, than He. The
+Pharisees are so utterly baffled, so helpless in His hands, so "filled
+with madness" that they invoke against this new foe the help of their
+natural enemies, the Herodians. These appear on the stage because the
+immense spread of the Messianic movement endangers the Idumaean dynasty.
+When first the wise men sought an infant King of the Jews, the Herod of
+that day was troubled. That instinct which struck at His cradle is now
+reawakened, and will not slumber again until the fatal day when the new
+Herod shall set Him at nought and mock Him. In the meanwhile these strange
+allies perplex themselves with the hard question, How is it possible to
+destroy so acute a foe.
+
+While observing their malice, and the exquisite skill which baffles it, we
+must not lose sight of other lessons. It is to be observed that no offence
+to hypocrites, no danger to Himself, prevented Jesus from removing human
+suffering. And also that He expects from the man a certain co-operation
+involving faith: he must stand forth in the midst; every one must see his
+unhappiness; he is to assume a position which will become ridiculous
+unless a miracle is wrought. Then he must make an effort. In the act of
+stretching forth his hand the strength to stretch it forth is given; but
+he would not have tried the experiment unless he trusted before he
+discovered the power. Such is the faith demanded of our sin-stricken and
+helpless souls; a faith which confesses its wretchedness, believes in the
+good will of God and the promises of Christ, and receives the experience
+of blessing through having acted on the belief that already the blessing
+is a fact in the Divine volition.
+
+Nor may we overlook the mysterious impalpable spiritual power which
+effects its purposes without a touch, or even an explicit word of healing
+import. What is it but the power of Him Who spake and it was done, Who
+commanded and it stood fast?
+
+And all this vividness of look and bearing, this innocent subtlety of
+device combined with a boldness which stung His foes to madness, all this
+richness and verisimilitude of detail, this truth to the character of
+Jesus, this spiritual freedom from the trammels of a system petrified and
+grown rigid, this observance in a secular act of the requirements of the
+spiritual kingdom, all this wealth of internal evidence goes to attest one
+of the minor miracles which sceptics declare to be incredible.
+
+
+
+
+The Choice Of The Twelve.
+
+
+    "And Jesus with His disciples withdrew to the sea: and a great
+    multitude from Galilee followed: and from Judaea, and from
+    Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and beyond Jordan, and about Tyre and
+    Sidon, a great multitude, hearing what great things He did, came
+    unto Him. And He spake to His disciples, that a little boat should
+    wait on Him because of the crowd, lest they should throng Him: for
+    He had healed many; insomuch that as many as had plagues pressed
+    upon Him that they might touch Him. And the unclean spirits,
+    whensoever they beheld Him, fell down before Him, and cried,
+    saying, Thou art the Son of God. And He charged them much that
+    they should not make Him known. And He goeth up into the mountain,
+    and calleth unto Him whom He Himself would: and they went unto
+    Him. And He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and
+    that He might send them forth to preach, and to have authority to
+    cast out devils: and Simon he surnamed Peter; and James the _son_
+    of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and them He surnamed
+    Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder: and Andrew, and Philip, and
+    Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the _son_ of
+    Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot,
+    which also betrayed Him."--MARK iii. 7-19 (R.V.).
+
+
+We have reached a crisis in the labours of the Lord, when hatred which has
+become deadly is preparing a blow. The Pharisees are aware, by a series of
+experiences, that His method is destructive to their system, that He is
+too fearless to make terms with them, that He will strip the mask off
+their faces. Their rage was presently intensified by an immense extension
+of His fame. And therefore He withdrew from the plots which ripen most
+easily in cities, the hotbeds of intrigue, to the open coast. It is His
+first retreat before opposition, and careful readers of the Gospels must
+observe that whenever the pressure of His enemies became extreme, He
+turned for safety to the simple fishermen, among whom they had no party,
+since they had preached no gospel to the poor, and that He was frequently
+conveyed by water from point to point, easily reached by followers, who
+sometimes indeed outran Him upon foot, but where treason had to begin its
+wiles afresh. Hither, perhaps camping along the beach, came a great
+multitude not only from Galilee but also from Judaea, and even from the
+capital, the headquarters of the priesthood, and by a journey of several
+days from Idumaea, and from Tyre and Sidon, so that afterwards, even there,
+He could not be hid. Many came to see what great things He did, but others
+bore with them some afflicted friend, or were themselves sore stricken by
+disease. And Jesus gave like a God, opening His hand and satisfying their
+desires, "for power went out of Him, and healed them all." Not yet had the
+unbelief of man restrained the compassion of His heart, and forced Him to
+exhibit another phase of the mind of God, by refusing to give that which
+is holy to the dogs. As yet, therefore, He healeth all their diseases.
+Then arose an unbecoming and irreverent rush of as many as had plagues to
+touch Him. A more subtle danger mingled itself with this peril from undue
+eagerness. For unclean spirits, who knew His mysterious personality,
+observed that this was still a secret, and was no part of His teaching,
+since His disciples could not bear it yet. Many months afterwards, flesh
+and blood had not revealed it even to Peter. And therefore the demons made
+malicious haste to proclaim Him the Son of God, and Jesus was obliged to
+charge them much that they should not make Him known. This action of His
+may teach His followers to be discreet. Falsehood indeed is always evil,
+but at times reticence is a duty, because certain truths are a medicine
+too powerful for some stages of spiritual disease. The strong sun which
+ripens the grain in autumn, would burn up the tender germs of spring.
+
+But it was necessary to teach as well as to heal. And Jesus showed his
+ready practical ingenuity, by arranging that a little boat should wait on
+Him, and furnish at once a pulpit and a retreat.
+
+And now Jesus took action distinctly Messianic. The harvest of souls was
+plenteous, but the appointed labourers were unfaithful, and a new
+organisation was to take their place. The sacraments and the apostolate
+are indeed the only two institutions bestowed upon His Church by Christ
+Himself; but the latter is enough to show that, so early in His course, He
+saw His way to a revolution. He appointed twelve apostles, in clear
+allusion to the tribes of a new Israel, a spiritual circumcision, another
+peculiar people. A new Jerusalem should arise, with their names engraven
+upon its twelve foundation stones. But since all great changes arrive, not
+by manufacture but by growth, and in co-operation with existing
+circumstances, since nations and constitutions are not made but evolved,
+so was it also with the Church of Christ. The first distinct and format
+announcement of a new sheepfold, entered by a new and living Way, only
+came when evoked by the action of His enemies in casting out the man who
+was born blind. By that time, the apostles were almost ready to take their
+place in it. They had learned much. They had watched the marvellous career
+to which their testimony should be rendered. By exercise they had learned
+the reality, and by failure the condition of the miraculous powers which
+they should transmit. But long before, at the period we have now reached,
+the apostles had been chosen under pressure of the necessity to meet the
+hostility of the Pharisees with a counter-agency, and to spread the
+knowledge of His power and doctrine farther than One Teacher, however
+endowed, could reach. They were to be workers together with Him.
+
+St. Mark tells us that He went up into the mountain, the well known hill
+of the neighbourhood, as St. Luke also implies, and there called unto Him
+whom He Himself would. The emphasis refutes a curious conjecture, that
+Judas may have been urged upon Him with such importunity by the rest that
+to reject became a worse evil than to receive him.(7) The choice was all
+His own, and in their early enthusiasm not one whom He summoned refused
+the call. Out of these He chose the Twelve, elect of the election.
+
+We learn from St. Luke (v. 12) that His choice, fraught with such
+momentous issues, was made after a whole night of prayer, and from St.
+Matthew that He also commanded the whole body of His disciples to pray the
+Lord of the Harvest, not that they themselves should be chosen, but that
+He would send forth labourers into His harvest.
+
+Now who were these by whose agency the downward course of humanity was
+reversed, and the traditions of a Divine faith were poured into a new
+mould?
+
+It must not be forgotten that their ranks were afterwards recruited from
+the purest Hebrew blood and ripest culture of the time. The addition of
+Saul of Tarsus proved that knowledge and position were no more proscribed
+than indispensable. Yet is it in the last degree suggestive, that Jesus
+drew His personal followers from classes, not indeed oppressed by want,
+but lowly, unwarped by the prejudices of the time, living in close contact
+with nature and with unsophisticated men, speaking and thinking the words
+and thoughts of the race and not of its coteries, and face to face with
+the great primitive wants and sorrows over which artificial refinement
+spreads a thin, but often a baffling veil.
+
+With one exception the Nazarene called Galileans to His ministry; and the
+Carpenter was followed by a group of fishermen, by a despised publican, by
+a zealot whose love of Israel had betrayed him into wild and lawless
+theories at least, perhaps into evil deeds, and by several whose previous
+life and subsequent labours are unknown to earthly fame. Such are the
+Judges enthroned over the twelve tribes of Israel.
+
+A mere comparison of the lists refutes the notion that any one Evangelist
+has worked up the materials of another, so diverse are they, and yet so
+easily reconciled. Matthew in one is Levi in another. Thaddaeus, Jude, and
+Lebbaeus, are interchangeable. The order of the Twelve differs in all the
+four lists, and yet there are such agreements, even in this respect, as to
+prove that all the Evangelists were writing about what they understood.
+Divide the Twelve into three ranks of four, and in none of the four
+catalogues will any name, or its equivalent, be found to have wandered out
+of its subdivision, out of the first, second, or third rank, in which
+doubtless that apostle habitually followed Jesus. Within each rank there
+is the utmost diversity of place, except that the foremost name in each is
+never varied; Peter, Philip, and the Lesser James, hold the first, fifth,
+and ninth place in every catalogue. And the traitor is always last. These
+are coincidences too slight for design and too striking for accident, they
+are the natural signs of truth. For they indicate, without obtruding or
+explaining, some arrangement of the ranks, and some leadership of an
+individual in each.
+
+Moreover, the group of the apostles presents a wonderfully lifelike
+aspect. Fear, ambition, rivalry, perplexity, silence when speech is called
+for, and speech when silence is befitting, vows, failures, and yet real
+loyalty, alas! we know them all. The incidents which are recorded of the
+chosen of Christ no inventor of the second century would have dared to
+devise; and as we study them, we feel the touch of genuine life; not of
+colossal statues such as repose beneath the dome of St. Peter's, but of
+men, genuine, simple and even somewhat childlike, yet full of strong,
+fresh, unsophisticated feeling, fit therefore to become a great power, and
+especially so in the capacity of witnesses for an ennobling yet
+controverted fact.
+
+
+
+
+Characteristics Of The Twelve.
+
+
+    "And He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and that He
+    might send them forth to preach, and to have authority to cast out
+    devils: and Simon He surnamed Peter; and James the _son_ of
+    Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and them He surnamed
+    Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder: and Andrew, and Philip, and
+    Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the _son_ of
+    Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot,
+    which also betrayed Him."--MARK iii. 14-19 (R.V.).
+
+
+The pictures of the Twelve, then, are drawn from a living group. And when
+they are examined in detail, this appearance of vitality is strengthened,
+by the richest and most vivid indications of individual character, such
+indeed as in several cases to throw light upon the choice of Jesus. To
+invent such touches is the last attainment of dramatic genius, and the
+artist rarely succeeds except by deliberate and palpable
+character-painting. The whole story of Hamlet and of Lear is constructed
+with this end in view, but no one has ever conjectured that the Gospels
+were psychological studies. If, then, we can discover several well-defined
+characters, harmoniously drawn by various writers, as natural as the
+central figure is supernatural, and to be recognised equally in the common
+and the miraculous narratives, this will be an evidence of the utmost
+value.
+
+We are all familiar with the impetuous vigour of St. Peter, a quality
+which betrayed him into grave and well-nigh fatal errors, but when
+chastened by suffering made him a noble and formidable leader of the
+Twelve. We recognise it when He says, "Thou shalt never wash my feet,"
+"Though all men should deny Thee, yet will I never deny Thee," "Lord, to
+whom should we go? Thou hast the words of everlasting life," "Thou art the
+Christ, the Son of the living God," and in his rebuke of Jesus for
+self-sacrifice, and in his rash blow in the garden. Does this, the best
+established mental quality of any apostle, fail or grow faint in the
+miraculous stories which are condemned as the accretions of a later time?
+In such stories he is related to have cried out, "Depart from me, for I am
+a sinful man, O Lord," he would walk upon the sea to Jesus, he proposed to
+shelter Moses and Elijah from the night air in booths (a notion so natural
+to a bewildered man, so exquisite in its officious well-meaning absurdity
+as to prove itself, for who could have invented it?), he ventured into the
+empty sepulchre while John stood awe-stricken at the portal, he plunged
+into the lake to seek his risen Master on the shore, and he was presently
+the first to draw the net to land. Observe the restless curiosity which
+beckoned to John to ask who was the traitor, and compare it with his
+question, "Lord, and what shall this man do?" But the second of these was
+after the resurrection, and in answer to a prophecy. Everywhere we find a
+real person and the same, and the vehemence is everywhere that of a warm
+heart, which could fail signally but could weep bitterly as well, which
+could learn not to claim, though twice invited, greater love than that of
+others, but when asked "Lovest thou Me" at all, broke out into the
+passionate appeal, "Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I
+love Thee." Dull is the ear of the critic which fails to recognise here
+the voice of Simon. Yet the story implies the resurrection.
+
+The mind of Jesus was too lofty and grave for epigram; but He put the
+wilful self-reliance which Peter had to subdue even to crucifixion, into
+one delicate and subtle phrase: "When thou wast young, thou girdedst
+thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest." That self-willed stride,
+with the loins girded, is the natural gait of Peter, when he was young.
+
+St. James, the first apostolic martyr, seems to have over-topped for a
+while his greater brother St. John, before whom he is usually named, and
+who is once distinguished as "the brother of James." He shares with him
+the title of a Son of Thunder (Mark iii. 17). They were together in
+desiring to rival the fiery and avenging miracle of Elijah, and to partake
+of the profound baptism and bitter cup of Christ. It is an undesigned
+coincidence in character, that while the latter of these events is
+recorded by St. Matthew and St. Mark, the former, which, it will be
+observed implies perfect confidence in the supernatural power of Christ,
+is found in St. Luke alone, who has not mentioned the title it justifies
+so curiously (Matt. xx. 20; Mark x. 35; Luke ix. 54). It is more
+remarkable that he whom Christ bade to share his distinctive title with
+another, should not once be named as having acted or spoken by himself.
+With a fire like that of Peter, but no such power of initiative and of
+chieftainship, how natural it is that his appointed task was martyrdom. Is
+it objected that his brother also, the great apostle St. John, received
+only a share in that divided title? But the family trait is quite as
+palpable in him. The deeds of John were seldom wrought upon his own
+responsibility, never if we except the bringing of Peter into the palace
+of the high priest. He is a keen observer and a deep thinker. But he
+cannot, like his Master, combine the quality of leader with those of
+student and sage. In company with Andrew he found the Messiah. We have
+seen James leading him for a time. It was in obedience to a sign from
+Peter that He asked who was the traitor. With Peter, when Jesus was
+arrested, he followed afar off. It is very characteristic that he shrank
+from entering the sepulchre until Peter, coming up behind, went in first,
+although it was John who thereupon "saw and believed."(8)
+
+With like discernment, he was the first to recognise Jesus beside the
+lake, but then it was equally natural that he should tell Peter, and
+follow in the ship, dragging the net to land, as that Peter should gird
+himself and plunge into the lake. Peter, when Jesus drew him aside, turned
+and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, with the same silent,
+gentle, and sociable affection, which had so recently joined him with the
+saddest and tenderest of all companions underneath the cross. At this
+point there is a delicate and suggestive turn of phrase. By what incident
+would any pen except his own have chosen to describe the beloved disciple
+as Peter then beheld him? Assuredly we should have written, The disciple
+whom Jesus loved, who also followed Him to Calvary, and to whom He
+confided His mother. But from St. John himself there would have been a
+trace of boastfulness in such a phrase. Now the author of the Fourth
+Gospel, choosing rather to speak of privilege than service, wrote "The
+disciple whom Jesus loved, which also leaned back on His breast at the
+supper, and said, Lord, who is he that betrayeth Thee?"
+
+St. John was again with St. Peter at the Beautiful Gate, and although it
+was not he who healed the cripple, yet his co-operation is implied in the
+words, "Peter, fastening his eyes on him, _with John_." And when the
+Council would fain have silenced them, the boldness which spoke in Peter's
+reply was "the boldness of Peter and John."
+
+Could any series of events justify more perfectly a title which implied
+much zeal, yet zeal that did not demand a specific unshared epithet? But
+these events are interwoven with the miraculous narratives.
+
+Add to this the keenness and deliberation which so much of his story
+exhibits, which at the beginning tendered no hasty homage, but followed
+Jesus to examine and to learn, which saw the meaning of the orderly
+arrangment of the graveclothes in the empty tomb, which was first to
+recognise the Lord upon the beach, which before this had felt something in
+Christ's regard for the least and weakest, inconsistent with the
+forbidding of any one to cast out devils, and we have the very qualities
+required to supplement those of Peter, without being discordant or
+uncongenial. And therefore it is with Peter, even more than with his
+brother, that we have seen John associated. In fact Christ, who sent out
+His apostles by two and two, joins these in such small matters as the
+tracking a man with a pitcher into the house where He would keep the
+Passover. And so, when Mary of Magdala would announce the resurrection,
+she found the penitent Simon in company with this loving John, comforted,
+and ready to seek the tomb where he met the Lord of all Pardons.
+
+All this is not only coherent, and full of vital force, but it also
+strengthens powerfully the evidence for his authorship of the Gospel,
+written the last, looking deepest into sacred mysteries, and comparatively
+unconcerned for the mere flow of narrative, but tender with private and
+loving discourse, with thoughts of the protecting Shepherd, the sustaining
+Vine, the Friend Who wept by a grave, Who loved John, Who provided amid
+tortures for His mother, Who knew that Peter loved Him, and bade him feed
+the lambs--and yet thunderous as becomes a Boanerges, with indignation half
+suppressed against "the Jews" (so called as if he had renounced his
+murderous nation), against the selfish high-priest of "that same year,"
+and against the son of perdition, for whom certain astute worldlings have
+surmised that his wrath was such as they best understand, personal, and
+perhaps a little spiteful. The temperament of John, revealed throughout,
+was that of August, brooding and warm and hushed and fruitful, with low
+rumblings of tempest in the night.
+
+It is remarkable that such another family resemblance as between James and
+John exists between Peter and Andrew. The directness and self-reliance of
+his greater brother may be discovered in the few incidents recorded of
+Andrew also. At the beginning, and after one interview with Jesus, when he
+finds his brother, and becomes the first of the Twelve to spread the
+gospel, he utters the short unhesitating announcement, "We have found the
+Messiah." When Philip is uncertain about introducing the Greeks who would
+see Jesus, he consults Andrew, and there is no more hesitation, Andrew and
+Philip tell Jesus. And in just the same way, when Philip argues that two
+hundred pennyworth of bread are not enough for the multitude, Andrew
+intervenes with practical information about the five barley loaves and the
+two small fishes, insufficient although they seem. A man prompt and ready,
+and not blind to the resources that exist because they appear scanty.
+
+Twice we have found Philip mentioned in conjunction with him. It was
+Philip, apparently accosted by the Greeks because of his Gentile name, who
+could not take upon himself the responsibility of telling Jesus of their
+wish. And it was he, when consulted about the feeding of the five
+thousand, who went off into a calculation of the price of the food
+required--two hundred pennyworth, he says, would not suffice. Is it not
+highly consistent with this slow deliberation, that he should have
+accosted Nathanael with a statement so measured and explicit: "We have
+found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of
+Nazareth, the Son of Joseph." What a contrast to Andrew's terse
+announcement, "We have found the Messiah." And how natural that Philip
+should answer the objection, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
+with the passionless reasonable invitation, "Come and see." It was in the
+same unimaginative prosaic way that he said long after, "Lord, show us the
+Father, and it sufficeth us." To this comparatively sluggish temperament,
+therefore, Jesus Himself had to address the first demand He made on any.
+"Follow me," He said, and was obeyed. It would not be easy to compress
+into such brief and incidental notices a more graphic indication of
+character.
+
+Of the others we know little except the names. The choice of Matthew, the
+man of business, is chiefly explained by the nature of his Gospel, so
+explicit, orderly, and methodical, and until it approaches the
+crucifixion, so devoid of fire.
+
+But when we come to Thomas, we are once more aware of a defined and vivid
+personality, somewhat perplexed and melancholy, of little hope but settled
+loyalty.
+
+All the three sayings reported of him belong to a dejected temperament:
+"Let us also go, that we may die with Him"--as if there could be no
+brighter meaning than death in Christ's proposal to interrupt a dead man's
+sleep. "Lord, we know not whither Thou goest, and how can we know the
+way?"--these words express exactly the same despondent failure to
+apprehend. And so it comes to pass that nothing short of tangible
+experience will convince him of the resurrection. And yet there is a warm
+and devoted heart to be recognised in the proposal to share Christ's
+death, in the yearning to know whither He went, and even in that agony of
+unbelief, which dwelt upon the cruel details of suffering, until it gave
+way to one glad cry of recognition and of worship; therefore his demand
+was granted, although a richer blessing was reserved for those who, not
+having seen, believed.
+
+
+
+
+The Apostle Judas.
+
+
+    "And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed Him."--MARK iii. 19.
+
+
+The evidential value of what has been written about the apostles will, to
+some minds, seem to be overborne by the difficulties which start up at the
+name of Judas. And yet the fact that Jesus chose him--that awful fact which
+has offended many--is in harmony with all that we see around us, with the
+prodigious powers bestowed upon Napoleon and Voltaire, bestowed in full
+knowledge of the dark results, yet given because the issues of human
+freewill never cancel the trusts imposed on human responsibility.
+Therefore the issues of the freewill of Judas did not cancel the trust
+imposed upon his responsibility; and Jesus acted not on His foreknowledge
+of the future, but on the mighty possibilities, for good as for evil,
+which heaved in the bosom of the fated man as he stood upon the mountain
+sward.
+
+In the story of Judas, the principles which rule the world are made
+visible. From Adam to this day men have been trusted who failed and fell,
+and out of their very downfall, but not by precipitating it, the plans of
+God have evolved themselves.
+
+It is not possible to make such a study of the character of Judas as of
+some others of the Twelve. A traitor is naturally taciturn. No word of his
+draws our attention to the fact that he had gained possession of the bag,
+even though one who had sat at the receipt of custom might more naturally
+have become the treasurer. We do not hear his voice above the rest, until
+St. John explains the source of the general discontent, which remonstrated
+against the waste of ointment. He is silent even at the feast, in despite
+of the words which revealed his guilty secret, until a slow and tardy
+question is wrung from him, not "Is it I, Lord?" but "Rabbi, is it I?" His
+influence is like that of a subtle poison, not discerned until its effects
+betray it.
+
+But many words of Jesus acquire new force and energy when we observe that,
+whatever their drift beside, they were plainly calculated to influence and
+warn Iscariot. Such are the repeated and urgent warnings against
+covetousness, from the first parable, spoken so shortly after his
+vocation, which reckons the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other
+things among the tares that choke the seed, down to the declaration that
+they who trust in riches shall hardly enter the kingdom. Such are the
+denunciations against hypocrisy, spoken openly, as in the Sermon on the
+Mount, or to His own apart, as when He warned them of the leaven of the
+Pharisees which is hypocrisy, that secret vice which was eating out the
+soul of one among them. Such were the opportunities given to retreat
+without utter dishonour, as when He said, "Do ye also will to go away? ...
+Did I not choose you the Twelve, and one of you is a devil?" (John vi. 67,
+70). And such also were the awful warnings given of the solemn
+responsibilities of special privileges. The exalted city which is brought
+down to hell, the salt which is trodden under foot, the men whose sin
+remained because they can claim to see, and still more plainly, the first
+that shall be last, and the man for whom it were good that he had not been
+born. In many besides the last of these, Judas must have felt himself
+sternly because faithfully dealt with. And the exasperation which always
+results from rejected warnings, the sense of a presence utterly repugnant
+to his nature, may have largely contributed to his final and disastrous
+collapse.
+
+In the life of Judas there was a mysterious impersonation of all the
+tendencies of godless Judaism, and his dreadful personality seems to
+express the whole movement of the nation which rejected Christ. We see
+this in the powerful attraction felt toward Messiah before His aims were
+understood, in the deadly estrangement and hostility which were kindled by
+the gentle and self-effacing ways of Jesus, in the treachery of Judas in
+the garden and the unscrupulous wiliness of the priests accusing Christ
+before the governor, in the fierce intensity of rage which turned his
+hands against himself and which destroyed the nation under Titus. Nay the
+very sordidness which made a bargain for thirty pieces of silver has ever
+since been a part of the popular conception of the race. We are apt to
+think of a gross love of money as inconsistent with intense passion, but
+in Shylock, the compatriot of Judas, Shakespeare combines the two.
+
+Contemplating this blighted and sinister career, the lesson is burnt in
+upon the conscience, that since Judas by transgression fell, no place in
+the Church of Christ can render any man secure. And since, falling, he was
+openly exposed, none may flatter himself that the cause of Christ is bound
+up with his reputation, that the mischief must needs be averted which his
+downfall would entail, that Providence must needs avert from him the
+natural penalties of evil-doing. Though one was as the signet upon the
+Lord's hand, yet was he plucked thence. There is no security for any soul
+anywhere except where love and trust repose, upon the bosom of Christ.
+
+Now if this be true, and if sin and scandal may conceivably penetrate even
+the inmost circle of the chosen, how great an error is it to break,
+because of these offences, the unity of the Church, and institute some new
+communion, purer far than the Churches of Corinth and Galatia, which were
+not abandoned but reformed, and more impenetrable to corruption than the
+little group of those who ate and drank with Jesus.
+
+
+
+
+Christ And Beelzebub.
+
+
+    "And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not
+    so much as eat bread. And when his friends heard it, they went out
+    to lay hold on Him: for they said, He is beside Himself. And the
+    scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub,
+    and, By the prince of the devils casteth He out the devils. And He
+    called them unto Him, and said unto them in parables, How can
+    Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself,
+    that kingdom cannot stand. And if an house be divided against
+    itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan hath
+    risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but
+    hath an end. But no one can enter into the house of the strong
+    _man_, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong _man_;
+    and then he will spoil his house."--MARK iii. 20-27 (R.V.).
+
+
+While Christ was upon the mountain with His more immediate followers, the
+excitement in the plain did not exhaust itself; for even when He entered
+into a house, the crowds prevented Him and His followers from taking
+necessary food. And when His friends heard of this, they judged Him as men
+who profess to have learned the lesson of His life still judge, too often,
+all whose devotion carries them beyond the boundaries of convention and of
+convenience. For there is a curious betrayal of the popular estimate of
+this world and the world to come, in the honour paid to those who cast
+away life in battle, or sap it slowly in pursuit of wealth or honours, and
+the contempt expressed for those who compromise it on behalf of souls, for
+which Christ died. Whenever by exertion in any unselfish cause health is
+broken, or fortune impaired, or influential friends estranged, the
+follower of Christ is called an enthusiast, a fanatic, or even more
+plainly a man of unsettled mind. He may be comforted by remembering that
+Jesus was said to be beside Himself when teaching and healing left Him not
+leisure even to eat.
+
+To this incessant and exhausting strain upon His energies and sympathies,
+St. Matthew applies the prophetic words, "Himself took our infirmities and
+bare our diseases" (viii. 17). And it is worth while to compare with that
+passage and the one before us, Renan's assertion, that He traversed
+Galilee "in the midst of a perpetual fete," and that "joyous Galilee
+celebrated in fetes the approach of the well-beloved." (_Vie de J._, pp.
+197, 202). The contrast gives a fine illustration of the inaccurate
+shallowness of the Frenchman's whole conception of the sacred life.
+
+But it is remarkable that while His friends could not yet believe His
+claims, and even strove to lay hold on Him, no worse suspicion ever
+darkened the mind of those who knew Him best than that His reason had been
+disturbed. Not these called Him gluttonous and a winebibber. Not these
+blasphemed His motives. But the envoys of the priestly faction, partisans
+from Jerusalem, were ready with an atrocious suggestion. He was Himself
+possessed with a worse devil, before whom the lesser ones retired. By the
+prince of the devils He cast out the devils. To this desperate evasion,
+St. Matthew tells us, they were driven by a remarkable miracle, the
+expulsion of a blind and dumb spirit, and the perfect healing of his
+victim. Now the literature of the world cannot produce invective more
+terrible than Jesus had at His command for these very scribes and
+Pharisees, hypocrites. This is what gives majesty to His endurance. No
+personal insult, no resentment at His own wrong, could ruffle the sublime
+composure which, upon occasion, gave way to a moral indignation equally
+sublime. Calmly He calls His traducers to look Him in the face, and
+appeals to their own reason against their blasphemy. Neither kingdom nor
+house divided against itself can stand. And if Satan be divided against
+himself and his evil works, undoing the miseries and opening the eyes of
+men, his kingdom has an end. All the experience of the world since the
+beginning was proof enough that such a suicide of evil was beyond hope.
+The best refutation of the notion that Satan had risen up against himself
+and was divided was its clear expression. But what was the alternative? If
+Satan were not committing suicide, he was overpowered. There is indeed a
+fitful temporary reformation, followed by a deeper fall, which St. Matthew
+tells us that Christ compared to the cleansing of a house from whence the
+evil tenant has capriciously wandered forth, confident that it is still
+his own, and prepared to return to it with seven other and worse fiends. A
+little observation would detect such illusory improvement. But the case
+before them was that of an external summons reluctantly obeyed. It
+required the interference of a stronger power, which could only be the
+power of God. None could enter into the strong man's house, and spoil his
+goods, unless the strong man were first bound, "and then he will spoil his
+house." No more distinct assertion of the personality of evil spirits than
+this could be devised. Jesus and the Pharisees are not at all at issue
+upon this point. He does not scout as a baseless superstition their belief
+that evil spirits are at work in the world. But He declares that His own
+work is the reversal of theirs. He is spoiling the strong man, whose
+terrible ascendancy over the possessed resembles the dominion of a man in
+his own house, among chattels without a will.
+
+That dominion Christ declares that only a stronger can overcome, and His
+argument assumes that the stronger must needs be the finger of God, the
+power of God, come unto them. The supernatural exists only above us and
+below.
+
+Ages have passed away since then. Innumerable schemes have been devised
+for the expulsion of the evils under which the world is groaning, and if
+they are evils of merely human origin, human power should suffice for
+their removal. The march of civilisation is sometimes appealed to. But
+what blessings has civilisation without Christ ever borne to savage men?
+The answer is painful: rum, gunpowder, slavery, massacre, small-pox,
+pulmonary consumption, and the extinction of their races, these are all it
+has been able to bestow. Education is sometimes spoken of, as if it would
+gradually heal our passions and expel vice and misery from the world, as
+if the worst crimes and most flagrant vices of our time were peculiar to
+the ignorant and the untaught, as if no forger had ever learned to write.
+And sometimes great things are promised from the advance of science, as if
+all the works of dynamite and nitro-glycerine, were, like those of the
+Creator, very good.
+
+No man can be deceived by such flattering hopes, who rightly considers the
+volcanic energies, the frantic rage, the unreasoning all-sacrificing
+recklessness of human passions and desires. Surely they are set on fire of
+hell, and only heaven can quench the conflagration. Jesus has undertaken
+to do this. His religion has been a spell of power among the degraded and
+the lost; and when we come to consider mankind in bulk, it is plain enough
+that no other power has had a really reclaiming, elevating effect upon
+tribes and races. In our own land, what great or lasting work of
+reformation, or even of temporal benevolence, has ever gone forward
+without the blessing of religion to sustain it? Nowhere is Satan cast out
+but by the Stronger than he, binding him, overmastering the evil principle
+which tramples human nature down, as the very first step towards spoiling
+his goods. The spiritual victory must precede the removal of misery,
+convulsion and disease. There is no golden age for the world, except the
+reign of Christ.
+
+
+
+
+"Eternal Sin."
+
+
+    "Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the
+    sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall
+    blaspheme: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit
+    hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin."--MARK
+    iii. 28, 29 (R.V.).
+
+
+Having first shown that His works cannot be ascribed to Satan, Jesus
+proceeds to utter the most terrible of warnings, because they said, He
+hath an unclean spirit.
+
+"All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their
+blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme, but whosoever shall
+blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness; but is guilty of
+an eternal sin."
+
+What is the nature of this terrible offence? It is plain that their
+slanderous attack lay in the direction of it, since they needed warning;
+and probable that they had not yet fallen into the abyss, because they
+could still be warned against it. At least, if the guilt of some had
+reached that depth, there must have been others involved in their offence
+who were still within reach of Christ's solemn admonition. It would seem
+therefore that in saying, "He casteth out devils by Beelzebub.... He hath
+an unclean spirit," they approached the confines and doubtful boundaries
+between that blasphemy against the Son of man which shall be forgiven, and
+the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which hath never forgiveness.
+
+It is evident also that any crime declared by Scripture elsewhere to be
+incurable, must be identical with this, however different its guise, since
+Jesus plainly and indisputably announces that all other sins but this
+shall be forgiven.
+
+Now there are several other passages of the kind. St. John bade his
+disciples to pray, when any saw a brother sinning a sin not unto death,
+"and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a
+sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request"
+(1 John v. 16). It is idle to suppose that, in the case of this sin unto
+death, the Apostle only meant to leave his disciples free to pray or not
+to pray. If death were not certain, it would be their duty, in common
+charity, to pray. But the sin is so vaguely and even mysteriously referred
+to, that we learn little more from that passage than that it was an overt
+public act, of which other men could so distinctly judge the flagrancy
+that from it they should withhold their prayers. It has nothing in common
+with those unhappy wanderings of thought or affection which morbid
+introspection broods upon, until it pleads guilty to the unpardonable sin,
+for lapses of which no other could take cognizance. And in Christ's words,
+the very epithet, blasphemy, involves the same public, open revolt against
+good.(9) And let it be remembered that every other sin shall be forgiven.
+
+There are also two solemn passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews (vi. 4-6;
+x. 26-31). The first of these declares that it is impossible for men who
+once experienced all the enlightening and sweet influences of God, "and
+then fell away," to be renewed again unto repentance. But falling upon the
+road is very different from thus falling away, or how could Peter have
+been recovered? Their fall is total apostasy, "they crucify to themselves
+the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." They are not
+fruitful land in which tares are mingled; they bear only thorns and
+thistles, and are utterly rejected. And so in the tenth chapter, they who
+sin wilfully are men who tread under foot the Son of God, and count the
+blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and do despite (insult) unto the
+Spirit of grace.
+
+Again we read that in the last time there will arise an enemy of God so
+unparalleled that his movement will outstrip all others, and be "_the_
+falling away," and he himself will be "the man of sin" and "the son of
+perdition," which latter title he only shares with Iscariot. Now the
+essence of his portentous guilt is that "he opposeth and exalteth himself
+against all that is called God or that is worshipped": it is a monstrous
+egotism, "setting himself forth as God," and such a hatred of restraint as
+makes him "the lawless one" (2 Thess. ii. 3-10).
+
+So far as these passages are at all definite in their descriptions, they
+are entirely harmonious. They describe no sin of the flesh, of impulse,
+frailty or passion, nor yet a spiritual lapse of an unguarded hour, of
+rash speculation, of erring or misled opinion. They speak not of sincere
+failure to accept Christ's doctrine or to recognise His commission, even
+though it breathe out threats and slaughters. They do not even apply to
+the dreadful sin of denying Christ in terror, though one should curse and
+swear, saying, I know not the man. They speak of a deliberate and
+conscious rejection of good and choice of evil, of the wilful aversion of
+the soul from sacred influences, the public denial and trampling under
+foot of Christ, the opposing of all that is called God.
+
+And a comparison of these passages enables us to understand why this sin
+never can be pardoned. It is because good itself has become the food and
+fuel of its wickedness, stirring up its opposition, calling out its rage,
+that the apostate cannot be renewed again unto repentance. The sin is
+rather indomitable than unpardonable: it has become part of the sinner's
+personality; it is incurable, an eternal sin.
+
+Here is nothing to alarm any mourner whose contrition proves that it has
+actually been possible to renew him unto repentance. No penitent has ever
+yet been rejected for this guilt, for no penitent has ever been thus
+guilty.
+
+And this being so, here is the strongest possible encouragement for all
+who desire mercy. Every other sin, every other blasphemy shall be
+forgiven. Heaven does not reject the vilest whom the world hisses at, the
+most desperate and bloodstained whose life the world exacts in vengeance
+for his outrages. None is lost but the hard and impenitent heart which
+treasures up for itself wrath against the day of wrath.
+
+
+
+
+The Friends Of Jesus.
+
+
+    "And there come His mother and His brethren; and, standing
+    without, they sent unto Him, calling Him. And a multitude was
+    sitting about Him; and they say unto Him, Behold, Thy mother and
+    Thy brethren without seek for Thee. And He answereth them, and
+    saith, Who is My mother and My brethren? And looking round on them
+    which sat round about Him He saith, Behold My mother and My
+    brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My
+    brother, and sister, and mother."--MARK iii. 31-35 (R.V.).
+
+
+We have lately read that the relatives of Jesus, hearing of His
+self-sacrificing devotion, sought to lay hold on Him, because they said,
+He is beside Himself. Their concern would not be lightened upon hearing of
+His rupture with the chiefs of their religion and their nation. And so it
+was, that while a multitude hung upon His lips, some unsympathizing
+critic, or perhaps some hostile scribe, interrupted Him with their
+message. They desired to speak with Him, possibly with rude intentions,
+while in any case, to grant their wish might easily have led to a painful
+altercation, offending weak disciples, and furnishing a scandal to His
+eager foes.
+
+Their interference must have caused the Lord a bitter pang. It was sad
+that they were not among His hearers, but worse that they should seek to
+mar His work. To Jesus, endowed with every innocent human instinct, worn
+with labour and aware of gathering perils, they were an offence of the
+same kind as Peter made himself when he became the mouthpiece of the
+tempter. For their own sakes, whose faith He was yet to win, it was
+needful to be very firm. Moreover, He was soon to make it a law of the
+kingdom that men should be ready for His sake to leave brethren, or
+sisters, or mother, and in so doing should receive back all these a
+hundredfold in the present time (x. 29, 30). To this law it was now His
+own duty to conform. Yet it was impossible for Jesus to be harsh and stern
+to a group of relatives with His mother in the midst of them; and it would
+be a hard problem for the finest dramatic genius to reconcile the
+conflicting claims of the emergency, fidelity to God and the cause, a
+striking rebuke to the officious interference of His kinsfolk, and a full
+and affectionate recognition of the relationship which could not make Him
+swerve. How shall He "leave" His mother and His brethren, and yet not deny
+His heart? How shall He be strong without being harsh?
+
+Jesus reconciles all the conditions of the problem, as pointing to His
+attentive hearers, He pronounces these to be His true relatives, but yet
+finds no warmer term to express what He feels for them than the dear names
+of mother, sisters, brethren.
+
+Observers whose souls were not warmed as He spoke, may have supposed that
+it was cold indifference to the calls of nature which allowed His mother
+and brethren to stand without. In truth, it was not that He denied the
+claims of the flesh, but that He was sensitive to other, subtler,
+profounder claims of the spirit and spiritual kinship. He would not
+carelessly wound a mother's or a brother's heart, but the life Divine had
+also its fellowships and its affinities, and still less could He throw
+these aside. No cold sense of duty detains Him with His congregation while
+affection seeks Him in the vestibule; no, it is a burning love, the love
+of a brother or even of a son, which binds Him to His people.
+
+Happy are they who are in such a case. And Jesus gives us a ready means of
+knowing whether we are among those whom He so wonderfully condescends to
+love. "Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven."
+Feelings may ebb, and self-confidence may be shaken, but obedience depends
+not upon excitement, and may be rendered by a breaking heart.
+
+It is important to observe that this saying declares that obedience does
+not earn kinship; but only proves it, as the fruit proves the tree.
+Kinship must go before acceptable service; none can do the will of the
+Father who is not already the kinsman of Jesus, for He says, Whosoever
+shall (_hereafter_) do the will of My Father, the same is (_already_) My
+brother and sister and mother. There are men who would fain reverse the
+process, and do God's will in order to merit the brotherhood of Jesus.
+They would drill themselves and win battles for Him, in order to be
+enrolled among His soldiers. They would accept the gospel invitation as
+soon as they refute the gospel warnings that without Him they can do
+nothing, and that they need the creation of a new heart and the renewal of
+a right spirit within them. But when homage was offered to Jesus as a
+Divine teacher and no more, He rejoined, Teaching is not what is required:
+holiness does not result from mere enlightenment: Verily, verily, I say
+unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
+Because the new birth is the condition of all spiritual power and energy,
+it follows that if any man shall henceforth do God's will, he must already
+be of the family of Christ.
+
+Men may avoid evil through self-respect, from early training and
+restraints of conscience, from temporal prudence or dread of the future.
+And this is virtuous only as the paying of a fire-insurance is so. But
+secondary motives will never lift any man so high as to satisfy this
+sublime standard, the doing of the will of the Father. That can only be
+attained, like all true and glorious service in every cause, by the heart,
+by enthusiasm, by love. And Jesus was bound to all who loved His Father by
+as strong a cord as united His perfect heart with brother and sister and
+mother.
+
+But as there is no true obedience without relationship, so is there no
+true relationship unfollowed by obedience. Christ was not content to say,
+Whoso doeth God's will is My kinsman: He asked, Who is My kinsman? and
+gave this as an exhaustive reply. He has none other. Every sheep in His
+fold hears His voice and follows Him. We may feel keen emotions as we
+listen to passionate declamations, or kneel in an excited prayer-meeting,
+or bear our part in an imposing ritual; we may be moved to tears by
+thinking of the dupes of whatever heterodoxy we most condemn; tender and
+soft emotions may be stirred in our bosom by the story of the perfect life
+and Divine death of Jesus; and yet we may be as far from a renewed heart
+as was that ancient tyrant from genuine compassion, who wept over the
+brevity of the lives of the soldiers whom he sent into a wanton war.
+
+Mere feeling is not life. It moves truly; but only as a balloon moves,
+rising by virtue of its emptiness, driven about by every blast that veers,
+and sinking when its inflation is at an end. But mark the living creature
+poised on widespread wings; it has a will, an intention, and an
+initiative, and as long as its life is healthy and unenslaved, it moves at
+its own good pleasure. How shall I know whether or not I am a true kinsman
+of the Lord? By seeing whether I advance, whether I work, whether I have
+real and practical zeal and love, or whether I have grown cold, and make
+more allowance for the flesh than I used to do, and expect less from the
+spirit. Obedience does not produce grace. But it proves it, for we can no
+more bear fruit except we abide in Christ, than the branch that does not
+abide in the vine.
+
+Lastly, we observe the individual love, the personal affection of Christ
+for each of His people. There is a love for masses of men and
+philanthropic causes, which does not much observe the men who compose the
+masses, and upon whom the causes depend. Thus, one may love his country,
+and rejoice when her flag advances, without much care for any soldier who
+has been shot down, or has won promotion. And so we think of Africa or
+India, without really feeling much about the individual Egyptian or
+Hindoo. Who can discriminate and feel for each one of the multitudes
+included in such a word as Want, or Sickness, or Heathenism? And judging
+by our own frailty, we are led to think that Christ's love can mean but
+little beyond this. As a statesman who loves the nation may be said, in
+some vague way, to love and care for me, so people think of Christ as
+loving and pitying us because we are items in the race He loves. But He
+has eyes and a heart, not only for all, but for each one. Looking down the
+shadowy vista of the generations, every sigh, every broken heart, every
+blasphemy, is a separate pang to His all-embracing heart. "Before that
+Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw _thee_,"
+lonely, unconscious, undistinguished drop in the tide of life, one leaf
+among the myriads which rustle and fall in the vast forest of existence.
+St. Paul speaks truly of Christ "Who loved me, and gave Himself for me."
+He shall bring every secret sin to judgment, and shall we so far wrong Him
+as to think His justice more searching, more penetrating, more
+individualizing than His love, His memory than His heart? It is not so.
+The love He offers adapts itself to every age and sex: it distinguishes
+brother from sister, and sister again from mother. It is mindful of "the
+least of these My brethren." But it names no Father except One.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+
+
+The Parables.
+
+
+    "And again He began to teach by the sea side. And there is
+    gathered unto Him a very great multitude, so that He entered into
+    a boat, and sat in the sea; and all the multitude were by the sea
+    on the land. And He taught them many things in parables, and said
+    unto them in His teaching....
+
+    "And when He was alone, they that were about Him with the twelve
+    asked of Him the parables. And He said unto them, Unto you is
+    given the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are
+    without, all things are done in parables: that seeing they may
+    see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not
+    understand; lest haply they should turn again, and it should be
+    forgiven them. And He saith unto them, Know ye not this parable?
+    and how shall ye know all the parables?"--MARK iv. 1, 2, 10-13
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+As opposition deepened, and to a vulgar ambition, the temptation to retain
+disciples by all means would have become greater, Jesus began to teach in
+parables. We know that He had not hitherto done so, both by the surprise
+of the Twelve, and by the necessity which He found, of giving them a clue
+to the meaning of such teachings, and so to "all the parables." His own
+ought to have understood. But He was merciful to the weakness which
+confessed its failure and asked for instruction.
+
+And yet He foresaw that they which were without would discern no spiritual
+meaning in such discourse. It was to have, at the same time, a revealing
+and a baffling effect, and therefore it was peculiarly suitable for the
+purposes of a Teacher watched by vindictive foes. Thus, when
+cross-examined about His authority by men who themselves professed to know
+not whence John's baptism was, He could refuse to be entrapped, and yet
+tell of One Who sent His own Son, His Beloved, to receive the fruit of the
+vineyard.
+
+This diverse effect is derived from the very nature of the parables of
+Jesus. They are not, like some in the Old Testament, mere fables, in which
+things occur that never happen in real life. Jotham's trees seeking a
+king, are as incredible as AEsop's fox leaping for grapes. But Jesus never
+uttered a parable which was not true to nature, the kind of thing which
+one expects to happen. We cannot say that a rich man in hell actually
+spoke to Abraham in heaven. But if he could do so, of which we are not
+competent to judge, we can well believe that he would have spoken just
+what we read, and that his pathetic cry, "Father Abraham," would have been
+as gently answered, "Son, remember." There is no ferocity in the skies;
+neither has the lost soul become a fiend. Everything commends itself to
+our judgment. And therefore the story not only illustrates, but appeals,
+enforces, almost proves.
+
+God in nature does not arrange that all seeds should grow: men have
+patience while the germ slowly fructifies, they know not how; in all
+things but religion such sacrifices are made, that the merchant sells all
+to buy one goodly pearl; an earthly father kisses his repentant prodigal;
+and even a Samaritan can be neighbour to a Jew in his extremity. So the
+world is constructed: such is even the fallen human heart. Is it not
+reasonable to believe that the same principles will extend farther; that
+as God governs the world of matter so He may govern the world of spirits,
+and that human helpfulness and clemency will not outrun the graces of the
+Giver of all good?
+
+This is the famous argument from analogy, applied long before the time of
+Butler, to purposes farther-reaching than his. But there is this
+remarkable difference, that the analogy is never pressed, men are left to
+discover it for themselves, or at least, to ask for an explanation,
+because they are conscious of something beyond the tale, something
+spiritual, something which they fain would understand.
+
+Now this difference is not a mannerism; it is intended. Butler pressed
+home his analogies because he was striving to silence gainsayers. His Lord
+and ours left men to discern or to be blind, because they had already
+opportunity to become His disciples if they would. The faithful among them
+ought to be conscious, or at least they should now become conscious, of
+the God of grace in the God of nature. To them the world should be
+eloquent of the Father's mind. They should indeed find tongues in trees,
+books in the running brooks, sermons in stones. He spoke to the sensitive
+mind, which would understand Him, as a wife reads her husband's secret
+joys and sorrows by signs no stranger can understand. Even if she fails to
+comprehend, she knows there is something to ask about. And thus, when they
+were alone, the Twelve asked Him of the parables. When they were
+instructed, they gained not only the moral lesson, and the sweet pastoral
+narrative, the idyllic picture which conveyed it, but also the assurance
+imparted by recognizing the same mind of God which is revealed in His
+world, or justified by the best impulses of humanity. Therefore, no
+parable is sensational. It cannot root itself in the exceptional, the
+abnormal events on which men do not reckon, which come upon us with a
+shock. For we do not argue from these to daily life.
+
+But while this mode of teaching was profitable to His disciples, and
+protected Him against His foes, it had formidable consequences for the
+frivolous empty followers after a sign. Because they were such they could
+only find frivolity and lightness in these stories; the deeper meaning lay
+farther below the surface than such eyes could pierce. Thus the light they
+had abused was taken from them. And Jesus explained to His disciples that,
+in acting thus, He pursued the fixed rule of God. The worst penalty of
+vice is that it loses the knowledge of virtue, and of levity that it
+cannot appreciate seriousness. He taught in parables, as Isaiah
+prophesied, "that seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they
+may hear, and not understand; lest haply they should turn again and it
+should be forgiven them." These last words prove how completely penal, how
+free from all caprice, was this terrible decision of our gentle Lord, that
+precautions must be taken against evasion of the consequences of crime.
+But it is a warning by no means unique. He said, "The things which make
+for thy peace ... are hid from thine eyes" (Luke xix. 42). And St. Paul
+said, "If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that are perishing";
+and still more to the point, "The natural man receiveth not the things of
+the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know
+them, because they are spiritually discerned" (2 Cor. iv. 3; 1 Cor. ii.
+14). To this law Christ, in speaking by parables, was conscious that He
+conformed.
+
+But now let it be observed how completely this mode of teaching suited our
+Lord's habit of mind. If men could finally rid themselves of His Divine
+claim, they would at once recognise the greatest of the sages; and they
+would also find in Him the sunniest, sweetest and most accurate
+discernment of nature, and its more quiet beauties, that ever became a
+vehicle for moral teaching. The sun and rain bestowed on the evil and the
+good, the fountain and the trees which regulate the waters and the fruit,
+the death of the seed by which it buys its increase, the provision for
+bird and blossom without anxiety of theirs, the preference for a lily over
+Solomon's gorgeous robes, the meaning of a red sky at sunrise and sunset,
+the hen gathering her chickens under her wing, the vine and its branches,
+the sheep and their shepherd, the lightning seen over all the sky, every
+one of these needed only to be re-set and it would have become a parable.
+
+All the Gospels, including the fourth, are full of proofs of this rich and
+attractive endowment, this warm sympathy with nature; and this fact is
+among the evidences that they all drew the same character, and drew it
+faithfully,
+
+
+
+
+The Sower.
+
+
+    "Hearken: Behold the sower went forth to sow: and it came to pass,
+    as he sowed, some _seed_ fell by the way side, and the birds came
+    and devoured it. And other fell on the rocky _ground_, where it
+    had not much earth; and straightway it sprang up, because it had
+    no deepness of earth: and when the sun was risen, it was scorched;
+    and because it had no root, it withered away. And other fell among
+    the thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded
+    no fruit. And others fell into the good ground, and yielded fruit,
+    growing up and increasing; and brought forth, thirtyfold, and
+    sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. And He said, Who hath ears to hear,
+    let him hear....
+
+    "The sower soweth the word. And these are they by the wayside,
+    where the word is sown; and when they have heard, straightway
+    cometh Satan, and taketh away the word which hath been sown in
+    them. And these in like manner are they that are sown upon the
+    rocky _places_, who, when they have heard the word, straightway
+    receive it with joy; and they have no root in themselves, but
+    endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution ariseth
+    because of the word, straightway they stumble. And others are they
+    that are sown among the thorns; these are they that have heard the
+    word, and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches,
+    and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it
+    becometh unfruitful. And those are they that were sown upon the
+    good ground; such as hear the word, and accept it, and bear fruit,
+    thirtyfold, and sixtyfold, and a hundredfold."--MARK iv. 3-9, 14-20
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+"Hearken" Jesus said; willing to caution men against the danger of
+slighting His simple story, and to impress on them that it conveyed more
+than met their ears. In so doing He protested in advance against
+fatalistic abuses of the parable, as if we were already doomed to be hard,
+or shallow, or thorny, or fruitful soil. And at the close He brought out
+still more clearly His protest against such doctrine, by impressing upon
+all, that if the vitalising seed were the imparted word, it was their part
+to receive and treasure it. Indolence and shallowness _must_ fail to bear
+fruit: that is the essential doctrine of the parable; but it is not
+necessary that we should remain indolent or shallow: "He that hath ears to
+hear, let him hear."
+
+And when the Epistle to the Hebrews reproduces the image of land which
+bringeth forth thorns and thistles, our Revised Version rightly brings out
+the fact, on which indeed the whole exhortation depends, that the same
+piece of land might have borne herbs meet for those for whose sake it is
+tilled (vi. 7).
+
+Having said "Hearken," Jesus added, "Behold." It has been rightly inferred
+that the scene was before their eyes. Very possibly some such process was
+within sight of the shore on which they were gathered; but in any case, a
+process was visible, if they would but see, of which the tilling of the
+ground was only a type. A nobler seed was being scattered for a vaster
+harvest, and it was no common labourer, but the true sower, who went forth
+to sow. "The sower soweth the word." But who was he? St. Matthew tells us
+"the sower is the Son of man," and whether the words were expressly
+uttered, or only implied, as the silence of St. Mark and St. Luke might
+possibly suggest, it is clear that none of His disciples could mistake His
+meaning. Ages have passed and He is the sower still, by whatever
+instrument He works, for we are God's husbandry as well as God's building.
+And the seed is the Word of God, so strangely able to work below the
+surface of human life, invisible at first, yet vital, and grasping from
+within and without, from secret thoughts and from circumstances, as from
+the chemical ingredients of the soil and from the sunshine and the shower,
+all that will contribute to its growth, until the field itself is
+assimilated, spread from end to end with waving ears, a corn-field now.
+This is why Jesus in His second parable did not any longer say "the seed
+is the word," but "the good seed are the sons of the kingdom" (Matt. xiii.
+38). The word planted was able to identify itself with the heart.
+
+And this seed, the Word of God, is sown broadcast as all our opportunities
+are given. A talent was not refused to him who buried it. Judas was an
+apostle. Men may receive the grace of God in vain, and this in more ways
+than one. On some it produces no vital impression whatever; it lies on the
+surface of a mind which the feet of earthly interests have trodden hard.
+There is no chance for it to expand, to begin its operation by sending out
+the smallest tendrils to grasp, to appropriate anything, to take root. And
+it may well be doubted whether any soul, wholly indifferent to religious
+truth, ever retained even its theoretic knowledge long. The foolish heart
+is darkened. The fowls of the air catch away for ever the priceless seed
+of eternity. Now it is of great importance to observe how Jesus explained
+this calamity. We should probably have spoken of forgetfulness, the fading
+away of neglected impressions, or at most of some judicial act of
+providence hiding the truth from the careless. But Jesus said,
+"straightway cometh Satan and taketh away the word which hath been sown in
+them." No person can fairly explain this text away, as men have striven to
+explain Christ's language to the demoniacs, by any theory of the use of
+popular language, or the toleration of harmless notions. The introduction
+of Satan into this parable is unexpected and uncalled for by any demand
+save one, the necessity of telling all the truth. It is true therefore
+that an active and deadly enemy of souls is at work to quicken the
+mischief which neglect and indifference would themselves produce, that
+evil processes are helped from beneath as truly as good ones from above;
+that the seed which is left to-day upon the surface may be maliciously
+taken thence long before it would have perished by natural decay; that men
+cannot reckon upon stopping short in their contempt of grace, since what
+they neglect the devil snatches quite away from them. And as seed is only
+safe from fowls when buried in the soil, so is the word of life only safe
+against the rapacity of hell when it has sunk down into our hearts.
+
+In the story of the early Church, St. Paul sowed upon such ground as this
+in Athens. Men who spent their time in the pursuit of artistic and
+cultivated novelties, in hearing and telling some new thing, mocked the
+gospel, or at best proposed to hear its preacher yet again. How long did
+such a purpose last?
+
+But there are other dangers to dread, besides absolute indifference to
+truth. And the first of these is a too shallow and easy acquiescence. The
+message of salvation is designed to affect the whole of human life
+profoundly. It comes to bind a strong man armed, it summons easy and
+indifferent hearts to wrestle against spiritual foes, to crucify the
+flesh, to die daily. On these conditions it offers the noblest blessings.
+But the conditions are grave and sobering. If one hears them without
+solemn and earnest searching of heart, he has only, at the best,
+apprehended half the message. Christ has warned us that we cannot build a
+tower without sitting down to count our means, nor fight a hostile king
+without reckoning the prospects of invasion. And it is very striking to
+compare the gushing and impulsive sensationalism of some modern schools,
+with the deliberate and circumspect action of St. Paul, even after God had
+been pleased miraculously to reveal His Son in him. He went into
+seclusion. He returned to Damascus to his first instructor. Fourteen years
+afterwards he deliberately laid his gospel before the Apostles, lest by
+any means he should be running or had run in vain. Such is the action of
+one penetrated with a sense of reality and responsibility in his decision;
+it is not the action likely to result from teaching men that it suffices
+to "say you believe" and to be "made happy." And in this parable, our
+Saviour has given striking expression to His judgment of the school which
+relies upon mere happiness. Next to those who leave the seed for Satan to
+snatch away, He places them "who, when they have heard the word,
+straightway receive it with joy." They have taken the promises without the
+precepts, they have hoped for the crown without the cross. Their type is
+the thin layer of earth spread over a shelf of rock. The water, which
+cannot sink down, and the heat reflected up from the stone, make it for a
+time almost a hot bed. Straightway the seed sprang up, because it had no
+deepness of earth. But the moisture thus detained upon the surface
+vanished utterly in time of drought; the young roots, unable to penetrate
+to any deeper supplies, were scorched; and it withered away. That
+superficial heat and moisture was impulsive emotion, glad to hear of
+heaven, and love, and privilege, but forgetful to mortify the flesh, and
+to be partaker with Christ in His death. The roots of a real Christian
+life must strike deeper down. Consciousness of sin and its penalty and of
+the awful price by which that penalty has been paid, consciousness of what
+life should have been and how we have degraded it, consciousness of what
+it must yet be made by grace--these do not lead to joy so immediate, so
+impulsive, as the growth of this shallow vegetation. A mature and settled
+joy is among "the fruits of the spirit:" it is not the first blade that
+shoots up.
+
+Now because the sense of sin and duty and atonement have not done their
+sobering work, the feelings, so easily quickened, are also easily
+perverted: "When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word,
+straightway they stumble." These were not counted upon. Neither trouble of
+mind nor opposition of wicked men was included in the holiday scheme of
+the life Divine. And their pressure is not counter-weighted by that of any
+deep convictions. The roots have never penetrated farther than temporal
+calamities and trials can reach. In the time of drought they have _not_
+enough. They endure, but only for a while.
+
+St. Paul sowed upon just such soil in Galatia. There his hearers spoke of
+such blessedness that they would have plucked out their eyes for him. But
+he became their enemy because he told them all the truth, when only a part
+was welcome. And as Christ said, Straightway they stumble, so St. Paul had
+to marvel that they were so soon subverted.
+
+If indifference be the first danger, and shallowness the second, mixed
+motive is the third. Men there are who are very earnest, and far indeed
+from slight views of truth, who are nevertheless in sore danger, because
+they are equally earnest about other things; because they cannot resign
+this world, whatever be their concern about the next; because the soil of
+their life would fain grow two inconsistent harvests. Like seed sown among
+thorns, "choked" by their entangling roots and light-excluding growths,
+the word in such hearts, though neither left upon a hard surface nor
+forbidden by rock to strike deep into the earth, is overmastered by an
+unworthy rivalry. A kind of vegetation it does produce, but not such as
+the tiller seeks: the word becometh unfruitful. It is the same lesson as
+when Jesus said, "No man can serve two masters. Ye cannot serve God and
+mammon."
+
+Perhaps it is the one most needed in our time of feverish religious
+controversy and heated party spirit, when every one hath a teaching, hath
+a revelation, hath a tongue, hath an interpretation, but scarcely any have
+denied the world and taken in exchange a cross.
+
+St. Paul found a thorny soil in Corinth which came behind in no gift, if
+only gifts had been graces, but was indulgent, factious and selfish,
+puffed up amid flagrant vices, one hungry and another drunken, while
+wrangling about the doctrine of the resurrection.
+
+The various evils of this parable are all of them worldliness, differently
+manifested. The deadening effect of habitual forgetfulness of God,
+treading the soil so hard that no seed can enter it; the treacherous
+effect of secret love of earth, a buried obstruction refusing to admit the
+gospel into the recesses of the life, however it may reach the feelings;
+and the fierce and stubborn competition of worldly interests, wherever
+they are not resolutely weeded out, against these Jesus spoke His earliest
+parable. And it is instructive to review the foes by which He represented
+His Gospel as warred upon. The personal activity of Satan; "tribulation or
+persecution" from without, and within the heart "cares" rather for self
+than for the dependent and the poor, "deceitfulness of riches" for those
+who possess enough to trust in, or to replace with a fictitious importance
+the only genuine value, which is that of character (although men are still
+esteemed for being "worth" a round sum, a strange estimate, to be made by
+Christians, of a being with a soul burning in him); and alike for rich and
+poor, "the lusts of other things," since none is too poor to covet, and
+none so rich that his desires shall not increase, like some diseases, by
+being fed.
+
+Lastly, we have those on the good ground, who are not described by their
+sensibilities or their enjoyments, but by their loyalty. They "hear the
+word and accept it and bear fruit." To accept is what distinguishes them
+alike from the wayside hearers into whose attention the word never sinks,
+from the rocky hearers who only receive it with a superficial welcome, and
+from the thorny hearers who only give it a divided welcome. It is not
+said, as if the word were merely the precepts, that they obey it. The
+sower of this seed is not he who bade the soldier not to do violence, and
+the publican not to extort: it is He who said, Repent, and believe the
+gospel. He implanted new hopes, convictions, and affections, as the germ
+which should unfold in a new life. And the good fruit is borne by those
+who honestly "accept" His word.
+
+Fruitfulness is never in the gospel the condition by which life is earned,
+but it is always the test by which to prove it. In all the accounts of the
+final judgment, we catch the principle of the bold challenge of St. James,
+"Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my
+works." The talent must produce more talents, and the pound more pounds;
+the servant must have his loins girt and a light in his hand; the blessed
+are they who did unto Jesus the kindness they did unto the least of His
+brethren, and the accursed are they who did it not to Jesus in His people.
+
+We are not wrong in preaching that honest faith in Christ is the only
+condition of acceptance, and the way to obtain strength for good works.
+But perhaps we fail to add, with sufficient emphasis, that good works are
+the only sufficient evidence of real faith, of genuine conversion. Lydia,
+whose heart the Lord opened and who constrained the Apostle to abide in
+her house, was converted as truly as the gaoler who passed through all the
+vicissitudes of despair, trembling and astonishment, and belief.
+
+"They bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and an hundredfold." And all
+are alike accepted. But the parable of the pounds shows that all are not
+alike rewarded, and in equal circumstances superior efficiency wins a
+superior prize. One star differeth from another star in glory, and they
+who turn many to righteousness shall shine as the sun for ever.
+
+
+
+
+Lamp And Stand.
+
+
+    "And He said unto them, Is the lamp brought to be put under the
+    bushel, or under the bed? and not to be put on the stand? For
+    there is nothing hid, save that it should be manifested; neither
+    was anything made secret, but that it should come to light. If any
+    man hath ears to hear, let him hear. And He said unto them, Take
+    heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete it shall be measured
+    unto you: and more shall be given unto you. For he that hath, to
+    him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken
+    away even that which he hath."--MARK iv. 21-25 (R.V.).
+
+
+Jesus had now taught that the only good ground was that in which the good
+seed bore fruit. And He adds explicitly, that men receive the truth in
+order to spread it, and are given grace that they may become, in turn,
+good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
+
+"Is the lamp brought to be put under the bushel or under the bed, and not
+to be put on the stand?" The language may possibly be due, as men have
+argued, to the simple conditions of life among the Hebrew peasantry, who
+possessed only one lamp, one corn-measure, and perhaps one bed. All the
+greater marvel is it that amid such surroundings He should have announced,
+and not in vain, that His disciples, His Church, should become the light
+of all humanity, "the lamp." Already He had put forward the same claim
+even more explicitly, saying, "Ye are the light of the world." And in each
+case, He spoke not in the intoxication of pride or self-assertion, but in
+all gravity, and as a solemn warning. The city on the hill could not be
+hid. The lamp would burn dimly under the bed; it would be extinguished
+entirely by the bushel. Publicity is the soul of religion, since religion
+is light. It is meant to diffuse itself, to be, as He expressed it, like
+leaven which may be hid at first, but cannot be concealed, since it will
+leaven all the lump. And so, if He spoke in parables, and consciously hid
+His meaning by so doing, this was not to withdraw His teaching from the
+masses, it was to shelter the flame which should presently illuminate all
+the house. Nothing was hid, save that it should be manifested, nor made
+secret, but that it should come to light. And it has never been otherwise.
+Our religion has no privileged inner circle, no esoteric doctrine; and its
+chiefs, when men glorified one or another, asked, What then is Apollos?
+And what is Paul? Ministers through whom ye believed. Agents only, for
+conveying to others what they had received from God. And thus He Who now
+spoke in parables, and again charged them not to make Him known, was able
+at the end to say, In secret have I spoken nothing. Therefore He repeats
+with emphasis His former words, frequent on His lips henceforward, and
+ringing through the messages He spoke in glory to His Churches. If any man
+hath ears to hear, let him hear. None is excluded but by himself.
+
+Yet another caution follows. If the seed be the Word, there is sore danger
+from false teaching; from strewing the ground with adulterated grain. St.
+Mark, indeed, has not recorded the Parable of the Tares. But there are
+indications of it, and the same thought is audible in this saying, "Take
+heed what ye hear." The added words are a little surprising: "With what
+measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you, and more shall be given
+unto you." The last clause expresses exactly the principle on which the
+forfeited pound was given to Him who had ten pounds already, the open hand
+of God lavishing additional gifts upon him who was capable of using them.
+But does not the whole statement seem to follow more suitably upon a
+command to beware what we teach, and thus "mete" to others, than what we
+hear? A closer examination finds in this apparent unfitness, a deeper
+harmony of thought. To "accept" the genuine word is the same as to bring
+forth fruit for God; it is to reckon with the Lord of the talents, and to
+yield the fruit of the vineyard. And this is to "mete," not indeed unto
+man, but unto God, Who shows Himself froward with the froward, and from
+him that hath not, whose possession is below his accountability, takes
+away even that he hath, but gives exceeding abundantly above all they ask
+or think to those who have, who are not disobedient to the heavenly
+calling.
+
+All this is most delicately connected with what precedes it; and the
+parables, hiding the truth from some, giving it authority, and colour, and
+effect to others, were a striking example of the process here announced
+
+Never was the warning to be heedful what we hear, more needed than at
+present. Men think themselves free to follow any teacher, especially if he
+be eloquent, to read any book, if only it be in demand, and to discuss any
+theory, provided it be fashionable, while perfectly well aware that they
+are neither earnest inquirers after truth, nor qualified champions against
+its assailants. For what then do they read and hear? For the pleasure of a
+rounded phrase, or to augment the prattle of conceited ignorance in a
+drawing-room.
+
+Do we wonder when these players with edged tools injure themselves, and
+become perverts or agnostics? It would be more wonderful if they remained
+unhurt, since Jesus said, "Take heed what ye hear ... from him that hath
+not shall be taken even that he hath." A rash and uninstructed exposure of
+our intellects to evil influences, is meting to God with an unjust
+measure, as really as a wilful plunge into any other temptation, since we
+are bidden to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the spirit as well
+as of the flesh.
+
+
+
+
+The Seed Growing Secretly.
+
+
+    "And He said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast
+    seed upon the earth; and should sleep and rise night and day, and
+    the seed should spring up and grow, he knoweth not how. The earth
+    beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the
+    full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he
+    putteth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come."--MARK iv.
+    26-29 (R.V.).
+
+
+St. Mark alone records this parable of a sower who sleeps by night, and
+rises for other business by day, and knows not how the seed springs up.
+That is not the sower's concern: all that remains for him is to put forth
+the sickle when the harvest is come.
+
+It is a startling parable for us who believe in the fostering care of the
+Divine Spirit. And the paradox is forced on our attention by the words
+"the earth beareth fruit of herself," contrasting strangely as it does
+with such other assertions, as that the branch cannot bear fruit of
+itself, that without Christ we can do nothing, and that when we live it is
+not we but Christ who liveth in us.
+
+It will often help us to understand a paradox if we can discover another
+like it. And exactly such an one as this will be found in the record of
+creation. God rested on the seventh day from all His work, yet we know
+that His providence never slumbers, that by Him all things consist, and
+that Jesus defended His own work of healing on a Sabbath day by urging
+that the Sabbath of God was occupied in gracious provision for His world.
+"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Thus the rest of God from
+creative work says nothing about His energies in that other field of
+providential care. Exactly so Jesus here treats only of what may be called
+the creative spiritual work, the deposit of the seed of life. And the
+essence of this remarkable parable is the assertion that we are to expect
+an orderly, quiet and gradual development from this principle of life, not
+a series of communications from without, of additional revelations, of
+semi-miraculous interferences. The life of grace is a natural process in
+the supernatural sphere. In one sense it is all of God, who maketh His sun
+to rise, and sendeth rain, without which the earth could bear no fruit of
+herself. In another sense we must work out our own salvation all the more
+earnestly because it is God that worketh in us.
+
+Now this parable, thus explained, has been proved true in the wonderful
+history of the Church. She has grown, not only in extent but by
+development, as marvellously as a corn of wheat which is now a waving
+wheat-stem with its ripening ear. When Cardinal Newman urged that an
+ancient Christian, returning to earth, would recognise the services and
+the Church of Rome, and would fail to recognise ours, he was probably
+mistaken. To go no farther, there is no Church on earth so unlike the
+Churches of the New Testament as that which offers praise to God in a
+strange tongue. St. Paul apprehended that a stranger in such an assembly
+would reckon the worshippers mad. But in any case the argument forgets
+that the whole kingdom of God is to resemble seed, not in a drawer, but in
+the earth, and advancing towards the harvest. It must "die" to much if it
+will bring forth fruit. It must acquire strange bulk, strange forms,
+strange organisms. It must become, to those who only knew it as it was,
+quite as unrecognisable as our Churches are said to be. And yet the
+changes must be those of logical growth, not of corruption. And this
+parable tells us they must be accomplished without any special
+interference such as marked the sowing time. Well then, the parable is a
+prophecy. Movement after movement has modified the life of the Church.
+Even its structure is not all it was. But these changes have every one
+been wrought by human agency, they have come from within it, like the
+force which pushes the germ out of the soil, and expands the bud into the
+full corn in the ear. There has been no grafting knife to insert a new
+principle of richer life; the gospel and the sacraments of our Lord have
+contained in them the promise and potency of all that was yet to be
+unfolded, all the gracefulness and all the fruit. And these words, "the
+earth beareth fruit of herself, first the blade, then the ear, then the
+full corn in the ear," each so different, and yet so dependent on what
+preceded, teach us two great ecclesiastical lessons. They condemn the
+violent and revolutionary changes, which would not develop old germs but
+tear them open or perhaps pull them up. Much may be distasteful to the
+spirit of sordid utilitarianism; a mere husk, which nevertheless within it
+shelters precious grain, otherwise sure to perish. If thus we learn to
+respect the old, still more do we learn that what is new has also its
+all-important part to play. The blade and the ear in turn are innovations.
+We must not condemn those new forms of Christian activity, Christian
+association, and Christian councils, which new times evoke, until we have
+considered well whether they are truly expansions, in the light and heat
+of our century, of the sacred life-germ of the ancient faith and the
+ancient love.
+
+And what lessons has this parable for the individual? Surely that of
+active present faith, not waiting for future gifts of light or feeling,
+but confident that the seed already sown, the seed of the word, has power
+to develop into the rich fruit of Christian character. In this respect the
+parable supplements the first one. From that we learned that if the soil
+were not in fault, if the heart were honest and good, the seed would
+fructify. From this we learn that these conditions suffice for a perfect
+harvest. The incessant, all-important help of God, we have seen, is not
+denied; it is taken for granted, as the atmospheric and magnetic
+influences upon the grain. So should we reverentially and thankfully rely
+upon the aid of God, and then, instead of waiting for strange visitations
+and special stirrings of grace, account that we already possess enough to
+make us responsible for the harvest of the soul. Multitudes of souls,
+whose true calling is, in obedient trust, to arise and walk, are at this
+moment lying impotent beside some pool which they expect an angel to stir,
+and into which they fain would then be put by some one, they know not
+whom--multitudes of expectant, inert, inactive souls, who know not that the
+text they have most need to ponder is this: "the earth beareth fruit of
+itself." For want of this they are actually, day by day, receiving the
+grace of God in vain.
+
+We learn also to be content with gradual progress. St. John did not blame
+the children and young men to whom he wrote, because they were not mature
+in wisdom and experience. St. Paul exhorts us to grow up in all things
+into Him which is the Head, even Christ. They do not ask for more than
+steady growth; and their Master, as He distrusted the fleeting joy of
+hearers whose hearts were shallow, now explicitly bids us not to be
+content with any first attainment, not to count all done if we are
+converted, but to develop first the blade, then the ear, and lastly the
+full corn in the ear.
+
+Does it seem a tedious weary sentence? Are we discontent for want of
+conscious interferences of heaven? Do we complain that, to human
+consciousness, the great Sower sleeps and rises up and leaves the grain to
+fare He knows not how? It is only for a little while. When the fruit is
+ripe, He will Himself gather it into His eternal garner.
+
+
+
+
+The Mustard Seed.
+
+
+    "And He said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God? or in what
+    parable shall we set it forth? It is like a grain of mustard seed,
+    which, when it is sown upon the earth, though it be less than all
+    the seeds that are upon the earth, yet when it is sown, groweth
+    up, and becometh greater than all the herbs, and putteth out great
+    branches; so that the birds of the heaven can lodge under the
+    shadow thereof. And with many such parables spake He the word unto
+    them, as they were able to hear it: and without a parable spake He
+    not unto them: but privately to His own disciples He expounded all
+    things."--MARK iv. 30-34 (R.V.).
+
+
+St. Mark has recorded one other parable of this great cycle. Jesus now
+invites the disciples to let their own minds play upon the subject. Each
+is to ask himself a question: How shall we liken the kingdom of God? or in
+what parable shall we set it forth?
+
+A gentle pause, time for them to form some splendid and ambitious image in
+their minds, and then we can suppose with what surprise they heard His own
+answer, "It is like a grain of mustard seed." And truly some Christians of
+a later day might be astonished also, if they could call up a fair image
+of their own conceptions of the kingdom of God, and compare it with this
+figure, employed by Jesus.
+
+But here one must observe a peculiarity in our Saviour's use of images.
+His illustrations of His first coming, and of His work of grace, which are
+many, are all of the homeliest kind. He is a shepherd who seeks one sheep.
+He is not an eagle that fluttereth over her young and beareth them on her
+pinions, but a hen who gathereth her chickens under her wings. Never once
+does He rise into that high and poetic strain with which His followers
+have loved to sing of the Star of Bethlehem, and which Isaiah lavished
+beforehand upon the birth of the Prince of Peace. There is no language
+more intensely concentrated and glowing than He has employed to describe
+the judgment of the hypocrites who rejected Him, of Jerusalem, and of the
+world at last. But when He speaks of His first coming and its effects, it
+is not of that sunrise to which all kings and nations shall hasten, but of
+a little grain of mustard seed, which is to become "greater than all the
+herbs," and put forth great branches, "so that the birds of the heaven can
+lodge under the shadow of them." When one thinks of such an image for such
+an event, of the founding of the kingdom of God, and its advance to
+universal supremacy, represented by the small seed of a shrub which grows
+to the height of a tree, and even harbours birds, he is conscious almost
+of incongruity. But when one reconsiders it, he is filled with awe and
+reverence. For this exactly expresses the way of thinking natural to One
+who has stooped immeasurably down to the task which all others feel to be
+so lofty. There is a poem of Shelley, which expresses the relative
+greatness of three spirits by the less and less value which they set on
+the splendours of the material heavens. To the first they are a
+palace-roof of golden lights, to the second but the mind's first chamber,
+to the last only drops which Nature's mighty heart drives through thinnest
+veins. Now that which was to Isaiah the exalting of every valley and the
+bringing low of every mountain, and to Daniel the overthrow of a mighty
+image whose aspect was terrible, by a stone cut out without hands, was to
+Jesus but the sowing of a grain of mustard seed. Could any other have
+spoken thus of the founding of the kingdom of God? An enthusiast
+over-values his work, he can think of nothing else; and he expects
+immediate revolutions. Jesus was keenly aware that His work in itself was
+very small, no more than the sowing of a seed, and even of the least,
+popularly speaking, among all seeds. Clearly He did not over-rate the
+apparent effect of His work on earth. And indeed, what germ of religious
+teaching could be less promising than the doctrine of the cross, held by a
+few peasants in a despised province of a nation already subjugated and
+soon to be overwhelmed?
+
+The image expresses more than the feeble beginning and victorious issue of
+His work, more than even the gradual and logical process by which this
+final triumph should be attained. All this we found in the preceding
+parable. But here the emphasis is laid on the development of Christ's
+influence in unexpected spheres. Unlike other herbs, the mustard in
+Eastern climates does grow into a tree, shoot out great branches from the
+main stem, and give shelter to the birds of the air. So has the Christian
+faith developed ever new collateral agencies, charitable, educational, and
+social: so have architecture, music, literature, flourished under its
+shade, and there is not one truly human interest which would not be
+deprived of its best shelter if the rod of Jesse were hewn down. Nay, we
+may urge that the Church itself has become the most potent force in
+directions not its own: it broke the chains of the negro; it asserts the
+rights of woman and of the poor; its noble literature is finding a
+response in the breast of a hundred degraded races; the herb has become a
+tree.
+
+And so in the life of individuals, if the seed be allowed its due scope
+and place to grow, it gives shelter and blessing to whatsoever things are
+honest and lovely, not only if there be any virtue, but also if there be
+any praise.
+
+Well is it with the nation, and well with the soul, when the faith of
+Jesus is not rigidly restricted to a prescribed sphere, when the leaves
+which are for the healing of the nations cast their shadow broad and cool
+over all the spaces in which all its birds of song are nestling.
+
+A remarkable assertion is added. Although the parabolic mode of teaching
+was adopted in judgment, yet its severe effect was confined within the
+narrowest limits. His many parables were spoken "as they were able to
+hear," but only to His own disciples privately was all their meaning
+expounded.
+
+
+
+
+Four Miracles.
+
+
+    "And there was a great calm."--MARK iv. 39 (R.V.).
+
+    "Behold, him that was possessed with devils, sitting, clothed and
+    in his right mind, _even_ him that had the legion."--v. 15 (R.V.).
+
+    "Who touched Me?"--v. 31 (R.V.).
+
+    "Talitha cumi."--v. 41 (R.V.).
+
+
+There are two ways, equally useful, of studying Scripture, as there are of
+regarding the other book of God, the face of Nature. We may bend over a
+wild flower, or gaze across a landscape; and it will happen that a
+naturalist, pursuing a moth, loses sight of a mountain-range. It is a
+well-known proverb, that one may fail to see the wood for the trees,
+losing in details the general effect. And so the careful student of
+isolated texts may never perceive the force and cohesion of a connected
+passage.
+
+The reader of a Gospel narrative thinks, that by pondering it as a whole,
+he secures himself against any such misfortune. But a narrative
+dislocated, often loses as much as a detached verse. The actions of our
+Lord are often exquisitely grouped, as becometh Him Who hath made
+everything not beautiful only, but especially beautiful in its season. And
+we should not be content without combining the two ways of reading
+Scripture, the detailed and the rapid,--lingering at times to apprehend the
+marvellous force of a solitary verse, and again sweeping over a broad
+expanse, like a surveyor, who, to map a country, stretches his triangles
+from mountain peak to peak.
+
+We have reached a point at which St. Mark records a special outshining of
+miraculous power. Four striking works follow each other without a break,
+and it must not for a moment be supposed that the narrative is thus
+constructed, certain intermediate discourses and events being sacrificed
+for the purpose, without a deliberate and a truthful intention. That
+intention is to represent the effect, intense and exalting, produced by
+such a cycle of wonders on the minds of His disciples. They saw them come
+close upon each other: we should lose the impression as we read, if other
+incidents were allowed to interpose themselves. It is one more example of
+St. Mark's desire to throw light, above all things, upon the energy and
+power of the sacred life.
+
+We have to observe therefore the bearing of these four miracles on each
+other, and upon what precedes, before studying them one by one.
+
+It was a time of trial. The Pharisees had decided that He had a devil. His
+relatives had said He was beside Himself. His manner of teaching had
+changed, because the people should see without perceiving, and hear
+without understanding. They who understood His parables heard much of seed
+that failed, of success a great way off, of a kingdom which would indeed
+be great at last, but for the present weak and small. And it is certain
+that there must have been heavy hearts among those who left, with Him, the
+populous side of the lake, to cross over into remote and semi-pagan
+retirement. To encourage them, and as if in protest against His rejection
+by the authorities, Jesus enters upon this great cycle of miracles.
+
+They find themselves, as the Church has often since been placed, and as
+every human soul has had to feel itself, far from shore, and
+tempest-beaten. The rage of human foes is not so deaf, so implacable, as
+that of wind and wave. It is the stress of adverse circumstances in the
+direst form. But Jesus proves Himself to be Master of the forces of nature
+which would overwhelm them.
+
+Nay, they learn that His seeming indifference is no proof that they are
+neglected, by the rebuke He speaks to their over-importunate appeals, Why
+are ye so fearful? have ye not yet faith? And they, who might have been
+shaken by the infidelity of other men, fear exceedingly as they behold the
+obedience of the wind and the sea, and ask, Who then is this?
+
+But in their mission as His disciples, a worse danger than the enmity of
+man or convulsions of nature awaits them. On landing, they are at once
+confronted by one whom an evil spirit has made exceeding fierce, so that
+no man could pass by that way. It is their way nevertheless, and they must
+tread it. And the demoniac adores, and the evil spirits themselves are
+abject in supplication, and at the word of Jesus are expelled. Even the
+inhabitants, who will not receive Him, are awe-struck and deprecatory, and
+if at their bidding Jesus turns away again, His followers may judge
+whether the habitual meekness of such a one is due to feebleness or to a
+noble self-command.
+
+Landing once more, they are soon accosted by a ruler of the synagogue,
+whom sorrow has purified from the prejudices of his class. And Jesus is
+about to heal the daughter of Jairus, when another form of need is brought
+to light. A slow and secret decline, wasting the vital powers, a silent
+woe, speechless, stealthily approaching the Healer--over this grief also He
+is Lord. And it is seen that neither the visible actions of Jesus nor the
+audible praises of His petitioners can measure the power that goes out of
+Him, the physical benefits which encompass the Teacher as a halo envelopes
+flame.
+
+Circumstances, and the fiends of the pit, and the woes that waste the
+lives of men, over these He has been seen to triumph. But behind all that
+we strive with here, there lurks the last enemy, and he also shall be
+subdued. And now first an example is recorded of what we know to have
+already taken place, the conquest of death by his predicted Spoiler. Youth
+and gentle maidenhood, high hope and prosperous circumstances have been
+wasted, but the call of Jesus is heard by the ear that was stopped with
+dust, and the spirit obeys Him in the far off realm of the departed, and
+they who have just seen such other marvels, are nevertheless amazed with a
+great amazement.
+
+No cycle of miracles could be more rounded, symmetrical and exhaustive;
+none could better vindicate to His disciples His impugned authority, or
+brace their endangered faith, or fit them for what almost immediately
+followed, their own commission, and the first journey upon which they too
+cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and
+healed them.
+
+
+
+
+The Two Storms.
+
+
+    "And on that day, when even was come, He saith unto them, Let us
+    go over unto the other side. And leaving the multitude, they take
+    Him with them, even as He was, in the boat. And other boats were
+    with Him. And there ariseth a great storm of wind, and the waves
+    beat into the boat, insomuch that the boat was now filling. And He
+    Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion: and they awake
+    Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest Thou not that we perish? And
+    He awoke, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be
+    still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And He
+    said unto them, Why are ye fearful? have ye not yet faith? And
+    they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, Who then is
+    this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"--MARK iv. 35-41
+    (R.V.).
+
+    "And when even was come, the boat was in the midst of the sea, and
+    He alone on the land. And seeing them distressed in rowing, for
+    the wind was contrary unto them, about the fourth watch of the
+    night He cometh unto them, walking on the sea; and He would have
+    passed by them: but they, when they saw Him walking on the sea,
+    supposed that it was an apparition, and cried out: for they all
+    saw Him, and were troubled. But He straightway spake with them,
+    and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. And
+    He went up unto them into the boat; and the wind ceased: and they
+    were sore amazed in themselves. For they understood not concerning
+    the loaves, but their hearts were hardened."--MARK vi. 47-52
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+Few readers are insensible to the wonderful power with which the Gospels
+tell the story of the two storms upon the lake. The narratives are
+favourites in every Sunday school; they form the basis of countless hymns
+and poems; and we always recur to them with fresh delight.
+
+In the first account we see as in a picture the weariness of the great
+Teacher, when, the long day being over and the multitude dismissed, He
+retreats across the sea without preparation, and "as He was," and sinks to
+sleep on the one cushion in the stern, undisturbed by the raging tempest
+or by the waves which beat into the boat. We observe the reluctance of the
+disciples to arouse Him until the peril is extreme, and the boat is "now"
+filling. We hear from St. Mark, the associate of St. Peter, the
+presumptuous and characteristic cry which expresses terror, and perhaps
+dread lest His tranquil slumbers may indicate a separation between His
+cause and theirs, who perish while He is unconcerned. We admire equally
+the calm and masterful words which quell the tempest, and those which
+enjoin a faith so lofty as to endure the last extremities of peril without
+dismay, without agitation in its prayers. We observe the strange incident,
+that no sooner does the storm cease than the waters, commonly seething for
+many hours afterwards, grow calm. And the picture is completed by the
+mention of their new dread (fear of the supernatural Man replacing their
+terror amid the convulsions of nature), and of their awestruck questioning
+among themselves.
+
+In the second narrative we see the ship far out in the lake, but watched
+by One, Who is alone upon the land. Through the gloom He sees them
+"tormented" by fruitless rowing; but though this is the reason why He
+comes, He is about to pass them by. The watch of the night is remembered;
+it is the fourth. The cry of their alarm is universal, for they all saw
+Him and were troubled. We are told of the promptitude with which He
+thereupon relieved their fears; we see Him climb up into the boat, and the
+sudden ceasing of the storm, and their amazement. Nor is that
+after-thought omitted in which they blamed themselves for their
+astonishment. If their hearts had not been hardened, the miracle of the
+loaves would have taught them that Jesus was the master of the physical
+world.
+
+Now all this picturesque detail belongs to a single Gospel. And it is
+exactly what a believer would expect. How much soever the healing of
+disease might interest St. Luke the physician, who relates all such events
+so vividly, it would have impressed the patient himself yet more, and an
+account of it by him, if we had it, would be full of graphic touches. Now
+these two miracles were wrought for the rescue of the apostles themselves.
+The Twelve took the place held in others by the lame, the halt and the
+blind: the suspense, the appeal, and the joy of deliverance were all their
+own. It is therefore no wonder that we find their accounts of these
+especial miracles so picturesque. But this is a solid evidence of the
+truth of the narratives; for while the remembrance of such actual events
+should thrill with agitated life, there is no reason why a legend of the
+kind should be especially clear and vivid. The same argument might easily
+be carried farther. When the disciples began to reproach themselves for
+their unbelieving astonishment, they were naturally conscious of having
+failed to learn the lesson which had been taught them just before. Later
+students and moralists would have observed that another miracle, a little
+earlier, was a still closer precedent, but they naturally blamed
+themselves most for being blind to what was immediately before their eyes.
+Now when Jesus walked upon the waters and the disciples were amazed, it is
+not said that they forgot how He had already stilled a tempest, but they
+considered not the miracle of the loaves, for their heart was hardened. In
+touches like this we find the influence of a bystander beyond denial.
+
+Every student of Scripture must have observed the special significance of
+those parables and miracles which recur a second time with certain
+designed variations. In the miraculous draughts of fishes, Christ Himself
+avowed an allusion to the catching of men. And the Church has always
+discerned a spiritual intention in these two storms, in one of which
+Christ slept, while in the other His disciples toiled alone, and which
+express, between them, the whole strain exercised upon a devout spirit by
+adverse circumstances. Dangers never alarmed one who realized both the
+presence of Jesus and His vigilant care. Temptation enters only because
+this is veiled. Why do adversities press hard upon me, if indeed I belong
+to Christ? He must either be indifferent and sleeping, or else absent
+altogether from my frail and foundering bark. It is thus that we let go
+our confidence, and incur agonies of mental suffering, and the rebuke of
+our Master, even though He continues to be the Protector of His unworthy
+people.
+
+On the voyage of life we may conceive of Jesus as our Companion, for He is
+with us always, or as watching us from the everlasting hills, whither it
+was expedient for us that He should go. Nevertheless, we are storm-tossed
+and in danger. Although we are His, and not separated from Him by any
+conscious disobedience, yet the conditions of life are unmitigated, the
+winds as wild, the waves as merciless, the boat as cruelly "tormented" as
+ever. And no rescue comes: Jesus is asleep: He cares not that we perish.
+Then we pray after a fashion so clamorous, and with supplication so like
+demands, that we too appear to have undertaken to awake our Lord. Then we
+have to learn from the first of these miracles, and especially from its
+delay. The disciples were safe, had they only known it, whether Jesus
+would have interposed of His own accord, or whether they might still have
+needed to appeal to Him, but in a gentler fashion. We may ask help,
+provided that we do so in a serene and trustful spirit, anxious for
+nothing, not seeking to extort a concession, but approaching with boldness
+the throne of grace, on which our Father sits. It is thus that the peace
+of God shall rule our hearts and minds, for want of which the apostles
+were asked, Where is your faith? Comparing the narratives, we learn that
+Jesus reassured their hearts even before He arose, and then, having first
+silenced by His calmness the storm within them, He stood up and rebuked
+the storm around.
+
+St. Augustine gave a false turn to the application, when he said, "If
+Jesus were not asleep within thee, thou wouldst be calm and at rest. But
+why is He asleep? Because thy faith is asleep," etc, (Sermon lxiii.) The
+sleep of Jesus was natural and right; and it answers not to our spiritual
+torpor, but to His apparent indifference and non-intervention in our time
+of distress. And the true lesson of the miracle is that we should trust
+Him Whose care fails not when it seems to fail, Who is able to save to the
+uttermost, and Whom we should approach in the direst peril without panic.
+It was fitly taught them first when all the powers of the State and the
+Church were leagued against Him, and He as a blind man saw not and as a
+dumb man opened not His mouth.
+
+The second storm should have found them braver by the experience of the
+first; but spiritually as well as bodily they were farther removed from
+Christ. The people, profoundly moved by the murder of the Baptist, wished
+to set Jesus on the throne, and the disciples were too ambitious to be
+allowed to be present while He dismissed the multitudes. They had to be
+sent away, and it was from the distant hillside that Jesus saw their
+danger. Surely it is instructive, that neither the shades of night, nor
+the abstracted fervour of His prayers, prevented him from seeing it, nor
+the stormlashed waters from bringing aid. And significant also, that the
+experience of remoteness, though not sinful, since He had sent them away,
+was yet the result of their own worldliness. It is when we are out of
+sympathy with Jesus that we are most likely to be alone in trouble. None
+was in their boat to save them, and in heart also they had gone out from
+the presence of their God. Therefore they failed to trust in His guidance
+Who had sent them into the ship: they had no sense of protection or of
+supervision; and it was a terrible moment when a form was vaguely seen to
+glide over the waves. Christ, it would seem, would have gone before and
+led them to the haven where they would be. Or perhaps He "would have
+passed by them," as He would afterwards have gone further than Emmaus, to
+elicit any trustful half-recognition which might call to Him and be
+rewarded. But they cried out for fear. And so it is continually with God
+in His world, men are terrified at the presence of the supernatural,
+because they fail to apprehend the abiding presence of the supernatural
+Christ. And yet there is one point at least in every life, the final
+moment, in which all else must recede, and the soul be left alone with the
+beings of another world. Then, and in every trial, and especially in all
+trials which press in upon us the consciousness of the spiritual universe,
+well is it for him who hears the voice of Jesus saying, It is I, be not
+afraid.
+
+For only through Jesus, only in His person, has that unknown universe
+ceased to be dreadful and mysterious. Only when He is welcomed does the
+storm cease to rage around us.
+
+It was the earlier of these miracles which first taught the disciples that
+not only were human disorders under His control, and gifts and blessings
+at His disposal, but also the whole range of nature was subject to Him,
+and the winds and the sea obey Him.
+
+Shall we say that His rebuke addressed to these was a mere figure of
+speech? Some have inferred that natural convulsions are so directly the
+work of evil angels that the words of Jesus were really spoken to them.
+But the plain assertion is that He rebuked the winds and the waves, and
+these would not become identical with Satan even upon the supposition that
+he excites them. We ourselves continually personify the course of nature,
+and even complain of it, wantonly enough, and Scripture does not deny
+itself the use of ordinary human forms of speech. Yet the very peculiar
+word employed by Jesus cannot be without significance. It is the same with
+which He had already confronted the violence of the demoniac in the
+synagogue, Be muzzled. At the least it expresses stern repression, and
+thus it reminds us that creation itself is made subject to vanity, the
+world deranged by sin, so that all around us requires readjustment as
+truly as all within, and Christ shall at last create a new earth as well
+as a new heaven.
+
+Some pious people resign themselves much too passively to the mischiefs of
+the material universe, supposing that troubles which are not of their own
+making, must needs be a Divine infliction, calling only for submission.
+But God sends oppositions to be conquered as well as burdens to be borne;
+and even before the fall the world had to be subdued. And our final
+mastery over the surrounding universe was expressed, when Jesus our Head
+rebuked the winds, and stilled the waves when they arose.
+
+As they beheld, a new sense fell upon His disciples of a more awful
+presence than they had yet discerned. They asked not only what manner of
+man this is? but, with surmises which went out beyond the limits of human
+greatness, Who then is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+
+
+The Demoniac Of Gadara.
+
+
+    "And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of
+    the Gerasenes. And when He was come out of the boat, straightway
+    there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who
+    had his dwelling in the tombs; and no man could any more bind him,
+    no, not with a chain; because that he had been often bound with
+    fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent asunder by him,
+    and the fetters broken in pieces: and no man had strength to tame
+    him. And always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains,
+    he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones. And when he
+    saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped Him; and crying out
+    with a loud voice, he saith, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus,
+    Thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God, torment me
+    not. For He said unto him, Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of
+    the man. And He asked him, What is thy name? And he saith unto
+    Him, My name is Legion; for we are many. And he besought Him much
+    that He would not send them away out of the country. Now there was
+    there on the mountain side a great herd of swine feeding. And they
+    besought Him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter
+    into them. And He gave them leave. And the unclean spirits came
+    out, and entered into the swine: and the herd rushed down the
+    steep into the sea, _in number_ about two thousand; and they were
+    choked in the sea. And they that fed them fled, and told it in the
+    city, and in the country. And they came to see what it was that
+    had come to pass. And they come to Jesus, and behold him that was
+    possessed with devils sitting, clothed and in his right mind,
+    _even_ him that had the legion: and they were afraid. And they
+    that saw it declared unto them how it befell him that was
+    possessed with devils, and concerning the swine. And they began to
+    beseech Him to depart from their borders. And as He was entering
+    into the boat, he that had been possessed with devils besought Him
+    that he might be with Him. And He suffered him not, but saith unto
+    him, Go to thy house unto thy friends, and tell them how great
+    things the Lord hath done for thee, and _how_ He had mercy on
+    thee. And he went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how
+    great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel."--MARK
+    v. 1-20 (R.V.).
+
+
+Fresh from asserting His mastery over winds and waves, the Lord was met by
+a more terrible enemy, the rage of human nature enslaved and impelled by
+the cruelty of hell. The place where He landed was a theatre not unfit for
+the tragedy which it revealed. A mixed race was there, indifferent to
+religion, rearing great herds of swine, upon which the law looked askance,
+but the profits of which they held so dear that they would choose to
+banish a Divine ambassador, and one who had released them from an
+incessant peril, rather than be deprived of these. Now it has already been
+shown that the wretches possessed by devils were not of necessity stained
+with special guilt. Even children fell into this misery. But yet we should
+expect to find it most rampant in places where God was dishonoured, in
+Gerasa and in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And it is so. All misery is
+the consequence of sin, although individual misery does not measure
+individual guilt. And the places where the shadow of sin has fallen
+heaviest are always the haunts of direst wretchedness.
+
+The first Gospel mentions two demoniacs, but one was doubtless so
+pre-eminently fierce, and possibly so zealous afterward in proclaiming his
+deliverance, that only St. Matthew learned the existence of another, upon
+whom also Satan had wrought, if not his worst, enough to show his hatred,
+and the woes he would fain bring upon humanity.
+
+Among the few terrible glimpses given us of the mind of the fallen angels,
+one is most significant and sinister. When the unclean spirit is gone out
+of a man, to what haunts does he turn? He has no sympathy with what is
+lovely or sublime; in search of rest he wanders through dry places,
+deserts of arid sand in which his misery may be soothed by congenial
+desolation. Thus the ruins of the mystic Babylon become an abode of
+devils. And thus the unclean spirit, when he mastered this demoniac, drove
+him to a foul and dreary abode among the tombs. One can picture the victim
+in some lucid moment, awakening to consciousness only to shudder in his
+dreadful home, and scared back again into that ferocity which is the child
+of terror.
+
+
+                "Is it not very like,
+    The horrible conceit of death and night,
+    Together with the terror of the place
+
+                  -------------------------------------
+
+    Oh! if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
+    Environed with all these hideous fears?"
+
+    _Romeo and Juliet_, iv. 3.
+
+
+There was a time when he had been under restraint, but "now no man could
+any more bind him" even with iron upon feet and wrists. The ferocity of
+his cruel subjugator turned his own strength against himself, so that
+night and day his howling was heard, as he cut himself with stones, and
+his haunts in the tombs and in the mountains were as dangerous as the lair
+of a wild breast, which no man dared pass by. What strange impulse drove
+him thence to the feet of Jesus? Very dreadful is the picture of his
+conflicting tendencies: the fiend within him struggling against something
+still human and attracted by the Divine, so that he runs from afar, yet
+cries aloud, and worships yet disowns having anything to do with Him; and
+as if the fiend had subverted the true personality, and become the very
+man, when ordered to come out he adjures Jesus to torment him not.
+
+And here we observe the knowledge of Christ's rank possessed by the evil
+ones. Long before Peter won a special blessing for acknowledging the Son
+of the living God, the demoniac called Him by the very name which flesh
+and blood did not reveal to Cephas. For their chief had tested and
+discovered Him in the wilderness, saying twice with dread surmise, If Thou
+be the Son of God. It is also noteworthy that the phrase, the most High
+God, is the name of Jehovah among the non-Jewish races. It occurs in both
+Testaments in connection with Melchizedek the Canaanite. It is used
+throughout the Babylonian proclamations in the book of Daniel. Micah puts
+it into the lips of Balaam. And the damsel with a spirit of divination
+employed it in Philippi. Except once, in a Psalm which tells of the return
+of apostate Israel to the Most High God (lxxviii. 35), the epithet is used
+only in relation with the nations outside the covenant. Its occurrence
+here is probably a sign of the pagan influences by which Gadara was
+infected, and for which it was plagued. By the name of God then, whose Son
+He loudly confessed that Jesus was, the fiend within the man adjures Him
+to torment Him not. But Jesus had not asked to be acknowledged: He had
+bidden the devil to come out. And persons who substitute loud confessions
+and clamorous orthodoxies for obedience should remember that so did the
+fiend of Gadara. Jesus replied by asking, What is thy name? The question
+was not an idle one, but had a healing tendency. For the man was beside
+himself; it was part of his cure that he was found in his right mind; and
+meanwhile his very consciousness was merged in that of the fiends who
+tortured him, so that his voice was their voice, and they returned a
+vaunting answer through His lips. Our Lord sought therefore both to calm
+His excitement and to remind him of himself, and of what he once had been
+before evil beings dethroned his will. These were not the man, but his
+enemies by whom he was "carried about," and "led captive at their will."
+And it is always sobering to think of "Myself," the lonely individual,
+apart from even those who most influence me, with a soul to lose or save.
+With this very question the Church Catechism begins its work of arousing
+and instructing the conscience of each child, separating him from his
+fellows in order to lead him on to the knowledge of the individualising
+grace of God.
+
+It may be that the fiends within him dictated his reply, or that he
+himself, conscious of their tyranny, cried out in agony, We are many; a
+regiment like those of conquering Rome, drilled and armed to trample and
+destroy, a legion. This answer distinctly contravened what Christ had just
+implied, that he was one, an individual, and precious in his Maker's eyes.
+But there are men and women in every Christian land, whom it might startle
+to look within, and see how far their individuality is oppressed and
+overlaid by a legion of impulses, appetites, and conventionalities, which
+leave them nothing personal, nothing essential and characteristic, nothing
+that deserves a name. The demons, now conscious of the power which calls
+them forth, besought Him to leave them a refuge in that country. St. Luke
+throws light upon this petition, as well as their former complaint, when
+he tells us they feared to be sent to "the abyss" of their final
+retribution. And as we read of men who are haunted by a fearful looking
+for of judgment and a fierceness of fire, so they had no hope of escape,
+except until "the time." For a little respite they prayed to be sent even
+into the swine, and Jesus gave them leave.
+
+What a difference there is between the proud and heroic spirits whom
+Milton celebrated, and these malignant but miserable beings, haunting the
+sepulchres like ghosts, truculent and yet dastardly, as ready to
+supplicate as to rend, filled with dread of the appointed time and of the
+abyss, clinging to that outlying country as a congenial haunt, and
+devising for themselves a last asylum among the brutes. And yet they are
+equally far from the materialistic superstitions of that age and place;
+they are not amenable to fumigations or exorcisms, and they do not upset
+the furniture in rushing out. Many questions have been asked about the
+petition of the demons and our Lord's consent. But none of them need much
+distress the reverential enquirer, who remembers by what misty horizons
+all our knowledge is enclosed. Most absurd is the charge that Jesus acted
+indefensibly in destroying property. Is it then so clear that the owners
+did not deserve their loss through the nature of their investments? Was it
+merely as a man, or as the Son of the living God, that His consent was
+felt to be necessary? And was it any part of His mission to protect brutes
+from death?
+
+The loss endured was no greater than when a crop is beaten down by hail,
+or a vineyard devastated by insects, and in these cases an agency beyond
+the control of man is sent or permitted by God, Who was in Christ.
+
+A far harder question it is, How could devils enter into brute creatures?
+and again, Why did they desire to do so? But the first of these is only a
+subdivision of the vaster problem, at once inevitable and insoluble, How
+does spirit in any of its forms animate matter, or even manipulate it? We
+know not by what strange link a thought contracts a sinew, and transmutes
+itself into words or deeds. And if we believe the dread and melancholy
+fact of the possession of a child by a fiend, what reason have we, beyond
+prejudice, for doubting the possession of swine? It must be observed also,
+that no such possession is proved by this narrative to be a common event,
+but the reverse. The notion is a last and wild expedient of despair,
+proposing to content itself with the uttermost abasement, if only the
+demons might still haunt the region where they had thriven so well. And
+the consent of Jesus does not commit Him to any judgment upon the merit or
+the possibility of the project. He leaves the experiment to prove itself,
+exactly as when Peter would walk upon the water; and a laconic "Go" in
+this case recalls the "Come" in that; an assent, without approval, to an
+attempt which was about to fail. Not in the world of brutes could they
+find shelter from the banishment they dreaded; for the whole herd, frantic
+and ungoverned, rushed headlong into the sea and was destroyed. The second
+victory of the series was thus completed. Jesus was Master over the evil
+spirits which afflict humanity, as well as over the fierceness of the
+elements which rise against us.
+
+
+
+
+The Men Of Gadara.
+
+
+    "And they that fed them fled, and told it in the city, and in the
+    country. And they came to see what it was that had come to pass.
+    And they come to Jesus, and behold him that was possessed with
+    devils sitting, clothed and in his right mind, _even_ him that had
+    the legion: and they were afraid. And they that saw it declared
+    unto them how it befell him that was possessed with devils, and
+    concerning the swine. And they began to beseech him to depart from
+    their borders. And as He was entering into the boat, he that had
+    been possessed with devils besought Him that he might be with Him.
+    And He suffered him not but saith unto him, Go to thy house unto
+    thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for
+    thee, and _how_ He had mercy on thee. And he went his way, and
+    began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for
+    him: and all men did marvel."--MARK v. 14-20 (R.V.).
+
+
+The expulsion of the demons from the possessed, their entrance into the
+herd, and the destruction of the two thousand swine, were virtually one
+transaction, and must have impressed the swineherds in its totality. They
+saw on the one hand the restoration of a dangerous and raging madman,
+known to be actuated by evil spirits, the removal of a standing peril
+which had already made one tract of country impassable, and (if they
+considered such a thing at all) the calming of a human soul, and its
+advent within the reach of all sacred influences. On the other side what
+was there? The loss of two thousand swine; and the consciousness that the
+kingdom of God was come nigh unto them. This was always an alarming
+discovery. Isaiah said, Woe is me! when his eyes beheld God high and
+lifted up. And Peter said, Depart from me, when he learned by the
+miraculous draught of fish that the Lord was there. But Isaiah's concern
+was because he was a man of unclean lips, and Peter's was because he was a
+sinful man. Their alarm was that of an awakened conscience, and therefore
+they became the heralds of Him Whom they feared. But these men were simply
+scared at what they instinctively felt to be dangerous; and so they took
+refuge in a crowd, that frequent resort of the frivolous and
+conscience-stricken, and told in the city what they had seen. And when the
+inhabitants came forth, a sight met them which might have won the
+sternest, the man sitting, clothed (a nice coincidence, since St. Mark had
+not mentioned that he "ware no clothes,") and in his right mind, even him
+that had the legion, as the narrative emphatically adds. And doubtless the
+much debated incident of the swine had greatly helped to reassure this
+afflicted soul; the demons were palpably gone, visibly enough they were
+overmastered. But the citizens, like the swineherds, were merely
+terrified, neither grateful nor sympathetic; uninspired with hope of pure
+teaching, of rescue from other influences of the evil one, or of any
+unearthly kingdom. Their formidable visitant was one to treat with all
+respect, but to remove with all speed, "and they began to beseech Him to
+depart from their borders." They began, for it did not require long
+entreaty; the gospel which was free to all was not to be forced upon any.
+But how much did they blindly fling away, who refused the presence of the
+meek and lowly Giver of rest unto souls; and chose to be denied, as
+strangers whom He never knew, in the day when every eye shall see Him.
+
+With how sad a heart must Jesus have turned away. Yet one soul at least
+was won, for as He was entering into the boat, the man who owed all to Him
+prayed Him that he might be with Him. Why was the prayer refused?
+Doubtless it sprang chiefly from gratitude and love, thinking it hard to
+lose so soon the wondrous benefactor, the Man at whose feet he had sat
+down, Who alone had looked with pitiful and helpful eyes on one whom
+others only sought to "tame." Such feelings are admirable, but they must
+be disciplined so as to seek, not their own indulgence, but their Master's
+real service. Now a reclaimed demoniac would have been a suspected
+companion for One who was accused of league with the Prince of the devils.
+There is no reason to suppose that he had any fitness whatever to enter
+the immediate circle of our Lord's intimate disciples. His special
+testimony would lose all its force when he left the district where he was
+known; but there, on the contrary, the miracle could not fail to be
+impressive, as its extent and permanence were seen. This man was perhaps
+the only missionary who could reckon upon a hearing from those who
+banished Jesus from their coasts. And Christ's loving and unresentful
+heart would give this testimony to them in its fulness. It should begin at
+his own house and among his friends, who would surely listen. They should
+be told how great things the Lord had done for him, and Jesus expressly
+added, how He had mercy upon thee, that so they might learn their mistake,
+who feared and shrank from such a kindly visitant. Here is a lesson for
+these modern days, when the conversion of any noted profligate is sure to
+be followed by attempts to push him into a vagrant publicity, not only
+full of peril in itself, but also removing him from the familiar sphere in
+which his consistent life would be more convincing than all sermons, and
+where no suspicion of self-interest could overcloud the brightness of his
+testimony.
+
+Possibly there was yet another reason for leaving him in his home. He may
+have desired to remain close to Jesus, lest, when the Saviour was absent,
+the evil spirits should resume their sway. In that case it would be
+necessary to exercise his faith and convince him that the words of Jesus
+were far-reaching and effectual, even when He was Himself remote. If so,
+he learned the lesson well, and became an evangelist through all the
+region of Decapolis. And where all did marvel, we may hope that some were
+won. What a revelation of mastery over the darkest and most dreadful
+forces of evil, and of respect for the human will (which Jesus never once
+coerced by miracle, even when it rejected Him), what unwearied care for
+the rebellious, and what a sense of sacredness in lowly duties, better for
+the demoniac than the physical nearness of his Lord, are combined in this
+astonishing narrative, which to invent in the second century would itself
+have required miraculous powers.
+
+
+
+
+With Jairus.
+
+
+    "And when Jesus had crossed over again in the boat unto the other
+    side, a great multitude was gathered unto Him: and He was by the
+    sea. And there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus
+    by name; and seeing Him, he falleth at His feet, and beseecheth
+    Him much, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death: _I
+    pray Thee_ that Thou come and lay Thy hands on her, that she may
+    be made whole, and live. And He went with him; and a great
+    multitude followed Him, and they thronged Him. And a woman, which
+    had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things
+    of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was
+    nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, having heard the things
+    concerning Jesus, came in the crowd behind, and touched His
+    garment. For she said, If I touch but His garments, I shall be
+    made whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried
+    up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her plague.
+    And straightway Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power
+    _proceeding_ from Him had gone forth, turned Him about in the
+    crowd, and said, Who touched My garments? And His disciples said
+    unto Him, Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest
+    Thou, Who touched Me? And He looked round about to see her that
+    had done this thing. But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing
+    what had been done to her, came and fell down before Him, and told
+    Him all the truth. And He said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath
+    made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague. While He
+    yet spake, they come from the ruler of the synagogue's _house_,
+    saying, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any
+    further? But Jesus not heeding the word spoken, saith unto the
+    ruler of the synagogue, Fear not, only believe. And He suffered no
+    man to follow with Him, save Peter, and James, and John the
+    brother of James. And they come to the house of the ruler of the
+    synagogue; and He beholdeth a tumult, and _many_ weeping and
+    wailing greatly. And when He was entered in, He saith unto them,
+    Why make ye a tumult, and weep? the child is not dead, but
+    sleepeth. And they laughed Him to scorn. But He, having put them
+    all forth, taketh the father of the child and her mother and them
+    that were with Him, and goeth in where the child was. And taking
+    the child by the hand, He saith unto her, Talitha cumi; which is,
+    being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise. And straightway
+    the damsel rose up, and walked; for she was twelve years old. And
+    they were amazed straightway with a great amazement. And He
+    charged them much that no man should know this; and He commanded
+    that _something_ should be given her to eat."--MARK v. 21-43
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+Repulsed from Decapolis, but consoled by the rescue and zeal of the
+demoniac, Jesus returned to the western shore, and a great multitude
+assembled. The other boats which were with Him had doubtless spread the
+tidings of the preternatural calm which rescued them from deadly peril,
+and it may be that news of the event of Gadara arrived almost as soon as
+He Whom they celebrated. We have seen that St. Mark aims at bringing the
+four great miracles of this period into the closest sequence. And so he
+passes over a certain brief period with the words "He was by the sea." But
+in fact Jesus was reasoning with the Pharisees, and with the disciples of
+John, who had assailed Him and His followers, when one of their natural
+leaders threw himself at His feet.
+
+The contrast is sharp enough, as He rises from a feast to go to the house
+of mourning, from eating with publicans and sinners to accompany a ruler
+of the synagogue. These unexpected calls, these sudden alternations all
+found Him equally ready to bear the same noble part, in the most
+dissimilar scenes, and in treating temperaments the most unlike. But the
+contrast should also be observed between those harsh and hostile critics
+who hated Him in the interests of dogma and of ceremonial, and Jairus,
+whose views were theirs, but whose heart was softened by trouble. The
+danger of his child was what drove him, perhaps reluctantly enough, to
+beseech Jesus much. And nothing could be more touching than his prayer for
+his "little daughter," its sequence broken as if with a sob; wistfully
+pictorial as to the process, "that Thou come and lay Thy hands upon her,"
+and dilating wistfully too upon the effect, "that she may be made whole
+and live." If a miracle were not in question, the dullest critic in Europe
+would confess that this exquisite supplication was not composed by an
+evangelist, but a father. And he would understand also why the very words
+in their native dialect were not forgotten, which men had heard awake the
+dead.
+
+As Jesus went with him, a great multitude followed Him, and they thronged
+Him. It is quite evident that Jesus did not love these gatherings of the
+idly curious. Partly from such movements He had withdrawn Himself to
+Gadara; and partly to avoid exciting them He strove to keep many of His
+miracles a secret. Sensationalism is neither grace nor a means of grace.
+And it must be considered that the perfect Man, as far from mental apathy
+or physical insensibility as from morbid fastidiousness, would find much
+to shrink away from in the pressure of a city crowd. The contact of
+inferior organizations, selfishness driving back the weak and gentle,
+vulgar scrutiny and audible comment, and the desire for some miracle as an
+idle show, which He would only work because His gentle heart was full of
+pity, all these would be utterly distressing to Him who was
+
+
+    "The first true gentleman that ever breathed,"
+
+
+as well as the revelation of God in flesh. It is therefore noteworthy that
+we have many examples of His grace and goodness amid such trying scenes,
+as when He spoke to Zacchaeus, and called Bartimaeus to Him to be healed.
+Jesus could be wrathful but He was never irritated. Of these examples one
+of the most beautiful is here recorded, for as He went with Jairus, amidst
+the rude and violent thronging of the crowds, moving alone (as men often
+are in sympathy and in heart alone amid seething thoroughfares), He
+suddenly became aware of a touch, the timid and stealthy touch of a
+broken-hearted woman, pale and wasted with disease, but borne through the
+crowd by the last effort of despair and the first energy of a newborn
+hope. She ought not to have come thither, since her touch spread
+ceremonial uncleanness far and wide. Nor ought she to have stolen a
+blessing instead of praying for it. And if we seek to blame her still
+further, we may condemn the superstitious notion that Christ's gifts of
+healing were not conscious and loving actions, but a mere contagion of
+health, by which one might profit unfelt and undiscovered. It is urged
+indeed that hers was not a faith thus clouded, but so majestic as to
+believe that Christ would know and respond to the silent hint of a gentle
+touch. And is it supposed that Jesus would have dragged into publicity
+such a perfect lily of the vale as this? and what means her trembling
+confession, and the discovery that she could not be hid? But when our
+keener intellects have criticised her errors, and our clearer ethics have
+frowned upon her misconduct, one fact remains. She is the only woman upon
+whom Jesus is recorded to have bestowed any epithet but a formal one. Her
+misery and her faith drew from His guarded lips, the tender and yet lofty
+word Daughter.
+
+So much better is the faith which seeks for blessing, however erroneous be
+its means, than the heartless propriety which criticises with most
+dispassionate clearness, chiefly because it really seeks nothing for
+itself at all. Such faith is always an appeal, and is responded to, not as
+she supposed, mechanically, unconsciously, nor, of course, by the _opus
+operatum_ of a garment touched (or of a sacrament formally received), but
+by the going forth of power from a conscious Giver, in response to the
+need which has approached His fulness. He knew her secret and fearful
+approach to Him, as He knew the guileless heart of Nathanael, whom He
+marked beneath the fig-tree. And He dealt with her very gently. Doubtless
+there are many such concealed woes, secret, untold miseries which eat deep
+into gentle hearts, and are never spoken, and cannot, like Bartimaeus, cry
+aloud for public pity. For these also there is balm in Gilead, and if the
+Lord requires them to confess Him publicly, He will first give them due
+strength to do so. This enfeebled and emaciated woman was allowed to feel
+in her body that she was healed of her plague, before she was called upon
+for her confession. Jesus asked, Who touched my clothes? It was one thing
+to press Him, driven forward by the multitude around, as circumstances
+impel so many to become churchgoers, readers of Scripture, interested in
+sacred questions and controversies until they are borne as by physical
+propulsion into the closest contact with our Lord, but not drawn thither
+by any personal craving or sense of want, nor expecting any blessed
+reaction of "the power proceeding from Him." It was another thing to reach
+out a timid hand and touch appealingly even that tasselled fringe of His
+garment which had a religious significance, whence perhaps she drew a
+semi-superstitious hope. In the face of this incident, can any orthodoxy
+forbid us to believe that the grace of Christ extends, now as of yore, to
+many a superstitious and erring approach by which souls reach after
+Christ?
+
+The disciples wondered at His question: they knew not that "the flesh
+presses but faith touches;" but as He continued to look around and seek
+her that had done this thing, she fell down and told Him all the truth.
+Fearing and trembling she spoke, for indeed she had been presumptuous, and
+ventured without permission. But the chief thing was that she had
+ventured, and so He graciously replied, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee
+whole, go in peace and be whole of thy plague. Thus she received more than
+she had asked or thought; not only healing for the body, but also a
+victory over that self-effacing, fearful, half morbid diffidence, which
+long and weakening disease entails. Thus also, instead of a secret cure,
+she was given the open benediction of her Lord, and such confirmation in
+her privilege as many more would enjoy if only with their mouth confession
+were made unto salvation.
+
+While He yet spoke, and the heart of Jairus was divided between joy at a
+new evidence of the power of Christ, and impatience at every moment of
+delay, not knowing that his Benefactor was the Lord of time itself, the
+fatal message came, tinged with some little irony as it asked, Why
+troublest thou the Teacher any more? It is quite certain that Jesus had
+before now raised the dead, but no miracle of the kind had acquired such
+prominence as afterwards to claim a place in the Gospel narratives.
+
+One is led to suspect that the care of Jesus had prevailed, and they had
+not been widely published. To those who brought this message, perhaps no
+such case had travelled, certainly none had gained their credence. It was
+in their eyes a thing incredible that He should raise the dead, and indeed
+there is a wide difference between every other miracle and this. We
+struggle against all else, but when death comes we feel that all is over
+except to bury out of our sight what once was beautiful and dear. Death is
+destiny made visible; it is the irrevocable. Who shall unsay the words of
+a bleeding heart, I shall go to him but he shall not return to me? But
+Christ came to destroy him that had the power of death. Even now, through
+Him, we are partakers of a more intense and deeper life, and have not only
+the hope but the beginning of immortality. And it was the natural seal
+upon His lofty mission, that He should publicly raise up the dead. For so
+great a task, shall we say that Jesus now gathers all His energies? That
+would be woefully to misread the story; for a grand simplicity, the easy
+bearing of unstrained and amply adequate resources, is common to all the
+narratives of life brought back. We shall hereafter see good reason why
+Jesus employed means for other miracles, and even advanced by stages in
+the work. But lest we should suppose that effort was necessary, and His
+power but just sufficed to overcome the resistance, none of these supreme
+miracles is wrought with the slightest effort. Prophets and apostles may
+need to stretch themselves upon the bed or to embrace the corpse; Jesus,
+in His own noble phrase, awakes it out of sleep. A wonderful ease and
+quietness pervade the narratives, expressing exactly the serene bearing of
+the Lord of the dead and of the living. There is no holding back, no
+toying with the sorrow of the bereaved, such as even Euripides, the
+tenderest of the Greeks, ascribed to the demigod who tore from the grip of
+death the heroic wife of Admetus. Hercules plays with the husband's
+sorrow, suggests the consolation of a new bridal, and extorts the angry
+cry, "Silence, what have you said? I would not have believed it of you."
+But what is natural to a hero, flushed with victory and the sense of
+patronage, would have ill become the absolute self-possession and gentle
+grace of Jesus. In every case, therefore, He is full of encouragement and
+sympathy, even before His work is wrought. To the widow of Nain He says,
+"Weep not." He tells the sister of Lazarus, "If thou wilt believe, thou
+shalt see the salvation of God." And when these disastrous tidings shake
+all the faith of Jairus, Jesus loses not a moment in reassuring Him: "Fear
+not, only believe," He says, not heeding the word spoken; that is to say,
+Himself unagitated and serene.(10)
+
+In every case some co-operation was expected from the bystanders. The
+bearers of the widow's son halted, expectant, when this majestic and
+tender Wayfarer touched the bier. The friends of Lazarus rolled away the
+stone from the sepulchre. But the professional mourners in the house of
+Jairus were callous and insensible, and when He interrupted their
+clamorous wailing, with the question, Why make ye tumult and weep? they
+laughed Him to scorn; a fit expression of the world's purblind
+incredulity, its reliance upon ordinary "experience" to disprove all
+possibilities of the extraordinary and Divine, and its heartless
+transition from conventional sorrow to ghastly laughter, mocking in the
+presence of death--which is, in its view, so desperate--the last hope of
+humanity. Laughter is not the fitting mood in which to contradict the
+Christian hope, that our lost ones are not dead, but sleep. The new and
+strange hope for humanity which Jesus thus asserted, He went on to prove,
+but not for them. Exerting that moral ascendency, which sufficed Him twice
+to cleanse the Temple, He put them all forth, as already He had shut out
+the crowd, and all His disciples but "the elect of His election," the
+three who now first obtain a special privilege. The scene was one of
+surpassing solemnity and awe; but not more so than that of Nain, or by the
+tomb of _Lazarus_. Why then were not only the idly curious and the
+scornful, but nine of His chosen ones excluded? Surely we may believe, for
+the sake of the little girl, whose tender grace of unconscious maidenhood
+should not, in its hour of reawakened vitality, be the centre of a gazing
+circle. He kept with Him the deeply reverential and the loving, the ripest
+apostles and the parents of the child, since love and reverence are ever
+the conditions of real insight. And then, first, was exhibited the gentle
+and profound regard of Christ for children. He did not arouse her, as
+others, with a call only, but took her by the hand, while He spoke to her
+those Aramaic words, so marvellous in their effect, which St. Peter did
+not fail to repeat to St. Mark as he had heard them, Talitha cumi; Damsel,
+I say unto thee, Arise. They have an added sweetness when we reflect that
+the former word, though applied to a very young child, is in its root a
+variation of the word for a little lamb. How exquisite from the lips of
+the Good Shepherd, Who gave His life for the sheep. How strange to be thus
+awakened from the mysterious sleep, and to gaze with a child's fresh eyes
+into the loving eyes of Jesus. Let us seek to realise such positions, to
+comprehend the marvellous heart which they reveal to us, and we shall
+derive more love and trust from the effort than from all such doctrinal
+inference and allegorizing as would dry up, into a _hortus siccus_, the
+sweetest blooms of the sweetest story ever told.
+
+So shall we understand what happened next in all three cases. Something
+preternatural and therefore dreadful, appeared to hang about the lives so
+wondrously restored. The widow of Nain did not dare to embrace her son
+until Christ "gave him to his mother." The bystanders did not touch
+Lazarus, bound hand and foot, until Jesus bade them "loose him and let him
+go." And the five who stood about this child's bed, amazed straightway
+with a great amazement, had to be reminded that being now in perfect
+health, after an illness which left her system wholly unsupplied,
+something should be given her to eat. This is the point at which Euripides
+could find nothing fitter for Hercules to utter than the awkward boast,
+"Thou wilt some day say that the son of Jove was a capital guest to
+entertain." What a contrast. For Jesus was utterly unflushed, undazzled,
+apparently unconscious of anything to disturb His composure. And so far
+was He from the unhappy modern notion, that every act of grace must be
+proclaimed on the housetop, and every recipient of grace however young,
+however unmatured, paraded and exhibited, that He charged them much that
+no man should know this.
+
+The story throughout is graphic and full of character; every touch, every
+word reveals the Divine Man; and only reluctance to believe a miracle
+prevents it from proving itself to every candid mind. Whether it be
+accepted or rejected, it is itself miraculous. It could not have grown up
+in the soil which generated the early myths and legends, by the working of
+the ordinary laws of mind. It is beyond their power to invent or to dream,
+supernatural in the strictest sense.
+
+This miracle completes the cycle. Nature, distracted by the Fall, has
+revolted against Him in vain. Satan, intrenched in his last stronghold,
+has resisted, and humbled himself to entreaties and to desperate
+contrivances, in vain. Secret and unspoken woes, and silent germs of
+belief, have hidden from Him in vain. Death itself has closed its bony
+fingers upon its prey, in vain. Nothing can resist the power and love,
+which are enlisted on behalf of all who put their trust in Jesus.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+
+
+Rejected In His Own Country.
+
+
+    "And He went out from thence; and He cometh into His own country;
+    and His disciples follow Him."--MARK vi. 1-6 (R.V.).
+
+
+We have seen how St. Mark, to bring out more vividly the connection
+between four mighty signs, their ideal completeness as a whole, and that
+mastery over nature and the spiritual world which they reveal, grouped
+them resolutely together, excluding even significant incidents which would
+break in upon their sequence. Bearing this in mind, how profoundly
+instructive it is that our Evangelist shows us this Master over storm and
+demons, over too-silent disease, and over death, too clamorously bewailed,
+in the next place teaching His own countrymen in vain, and an offence to
+them. How startling to read, at this juncture, when legend would surely
+have thrown all men prostrate at his feet, of His homely family and His
+trade, and how He Who rebuked the storm "could there do no mighty work."
+
+First of all, it is touching to see Jesus turning once more to "His own
+country," just at this crisis. They had rejected Him in a frenzy of rage,
+at the outset of His ministry. And He had very lately repulsed the rude
+attempt of His immediate relatives to interrupt His mission. But now His
+heart leads Him thither, once again to appeal to the companions of His
+youth, with the halo of His recent and surpassing works upon His forehead.
+He does not abruptly interrupt their vocations, but waits as before for
+the Sabbath, and the hushed assembly in the sacred place. And as He
+teaches in the synagogue, they are conscious of His power. Whence could He
+have these things? His wisdom was an equal wonder with His mighty works,
+of the reality of which they could not doubt. And what excuse then had
+they for listening to His wisdom in vain? But they went on to ask, Is not
+this the carpenter? the Son of Mary? they knew His brothers, and His
+sisters were living among them. And they were offended in Him, naturally
+enough. It _is_ hard to believe in the supremacy of one, whom
+circumstances marked as our equal, and to admit the chieftainship of one
+who started side by side with us. In Palestine it was not disgraceful to
+be a tradesman, but yet they could fairly claim equality with "the
+carpenter." And it is plain enough that they found no impressive or
+significant difference from their neighbours in the "sisters" of Jesus,
+nor even in her whom all generations call blessed. Why then should they
+abase themselves before the claims of Jesus?
+
+It is an instructive incident. First of all, it shows us the perfection of
+our Lord's abasement. He was not only a carpenter's son, but what this
+passage only declares to us explicitly, He wrought as an artizan, and
+consecrated for ever a lowly trade, by the toil of those holy limbs whose
+sufferings should redeem the world.
+
+And we learn the abject folly of judging by mere worldly standards. We are
+bound to give due honour and precedence to rank and station. Refusing to
+do this, we virtually undertake to dissolve society, and readjust it upon
+other principles, or by instincts and intuitions of our own, a grave task,
+when it is realized. But we are not to be dazzled, much less to be misled,
+by the advantages of station or of birth. Yet if, as it would seem,
+Nazareth rejected Christ because He was not a person of quality, this is
+only the most extreme and ironical exhibition of what happens every day,
+when a noble character, self-denying, self-controlled and wise, fails to
+win the respect which is freely and gladly granted to vice and folly in a
+coronet.
+
+And yet, to one who reflected, the very objection they put forward was an
+evidence of His mission. His wisdom was confessed, and His miracles were
+not denied; were they less wonderful or more amazing, more supernatural,
+as the endowments of the carpenter whom they knew? Whence, they asked, had
+He derived His learning, as if it were not more noble for being original.
+
+Are we sure that men do not still make the same mistake? The perfect and
+lowly humanity of Jesus is a stumbling block to some who will freely admit
+His ideal perfections, and the matchless nobility of His moral teaching.
+They will grant anything but the supernatural origin of Him to Whom they
+attribute qualities beyond parallel. But whence had He those qualities?
+What is there in the Galilee of the first century which prepares one for
+discovering there and then the revolutionizer of the virtues of the world,
+the most original, profound, and unique of all teachers, Him Whose example
+is still mightier than His precepts, and only not more perfect, because
+these also are without a flaw, Him Whom even unbelief would shrink from
+saluting by so cold a title as that of the most saintly of the saints. To
+ask with a clear scrutiny, whence the teaching of Jesus came, to realize
+the isolation from all centres of thought and movement, of this Hebrew,
+this provincial among Hebrews, this villager in Galilee, this carpenter in
+a village, and then to observe His mighty works in every quarter of the
+globe, is enough to satisfy all candid minds that His earthly
+circumstances have something totally unlike themselves behind them. And
+the more men give ear to materialism and to materialistic evolution
+without an evolving mind, so much the more does the problem press upon
+them, Whence hath this man this wisdom? and what mean these mighty works?
+
+From our Lord's own commentary upon their rejection we learn to beware of
+the vulgarising effects of familiarity. They had seen His holy youth,
+against which no slander was ever breathed. And yet, while His teaching
+astonished them, He had no honour in his own house. It is the same result
+which so often seems to follow from a lifelong familiarity with Scripture
+and the means of grace. We read, almost mechanically, what melts and
+amazes the pagan to whom it is a new word. We forsake, or submit to the
+dull routine of, ordinances the most sacred, the most searching, the most
+invigorating and the most picturesque.
+
+And yet we wonder that the men of Nazareth could not discern the divinity
+of "the carpenter," whose family lived quiet and unassuming lives in their
+own village.
+
+It is St. Mark, the historian of the energies of Christ, who tells us that
+He "could there do no mighty work," with only sufficient exception to
+prove that neither physical power nor compassion was what failed Him,
+since "He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and healed them." What then
+is conveyed by this bold phrase? Surely the fearful power of the human
+will to resist the will of man's compassionate Redeemer. He would have
+gathered Jerusalem under His wing, but she would not; and the temporal
+results of her disobedience had to follow; siege, massacre and ruin. God
+has no pleasure in the death of him who dieth, yet death follows, as the
+inevitable wages of sin. Therefore, as surely as the miracles of Jesus
+typified His gracious purposes for the souls of men, Who forgiveth all our
+iniquities, Who healeth all our diseases, so surely the rejection and
+defeat of those loving purposes paralysed the arm stretched out to heal
+their sick.
+
+Does it seem as if the words "He could not," even thus explained, convey a
+certain affront, throw a shadow upon the glory of our Master? And the
+words "they mocked, scourged, crucified Him," do these convey no affront?
+The suffering of Jesus was not only physical: His heart was wounded; His
+overtures were rejected; His hands were stretched out in vain; His pity
+and love were crucified.
+
+But now let this be considered, that men who refuse His Spirit continually
+presume upon His mercy, and expect not to suffer the penalty of their evil
+deeds. Alas, that is impossible. Where unbelief rejected His teaching, He
+"could not" work the marvels of His grace. How shall they escape who
+reject so great salvation?
+
+
+
+
+The Mission Of The Twelve.
+
+
+    "And He called unto Him the twelve, and began to send them forth
+    by two and two; and He gave them authority over the unclean
+    spirits; and He charged them that they should take nothing for
+    _their_ journey, save a staff only; no bread, no wallet, no money
+    in their purse; but _to go_ shod with sandals: and, _said He_, put
+    not on two coats. And He said unto them, Wheresoever ye enter into
+    a house, there abide till ye depart thence. And whatsoever place
+    shall not receive you, and they hear you not, as ye go forth
+    thence, shake off the dust that is under your feet for a testimony
+    unto them. And they went out, and preached that _men_ should
+    repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many
+    that were sick, and healed them."--MARK vi. 7-13 (R.V.).
+
+
+Repulsed a second time from the cradle of His youth, even as lately from
+Decapolis, with what a heavy heart must the Loving One have turned away.
+Yet we read of no abatement of His labours. He did not, like the fiery
+prophet, wander into the desert and make request that He might die. And it
+helps us to realise the elevation of our Lord, when we reflect how utterly
+the discouragement with which we sympathise in the great Elijah would ruin
+our conception of Jesus.
+
+It was now that He set on foot new efforts, and advanced in the training
+of His elect. For Himself, He went about the villages, whither slander and
+prejudice had not yet penetrated, and was content to break new ground
+among the most untaught and sequestered of the people. The humblest field
+of labour was not too lowly for the Lord, although we meet, every day,
+with men who are "thrown away" and "buried" in obscure fields of
+usefulness. We have not yet learned to follow without a murmur the
+Carpenter, and the Teacher in villages, even though we are soothed in
+grief by thinking, because we endure the inevitable, that we are followers
+of the Man of Sorrows. At the same moment when democracies and priesthoods
+are rejecting their Lord, a king had destroyed His forerunner. On every
+account it was necessary to vary as well as multiply the means for the
+evangelisation of the country. Thus the movement would be accelerated, and
+it would no longer present one solitary point of attack to its
+unscrupulous foes.
+
+Jesus therefore called to Him the Twelve, and began to send them forth. In
+so doing, His directions revealed at once His wisdom and His fears for
+them.
+
+Not even for unfallen man was it good to be alone. It was a bitter
+ingredient in the cup which Christ Himself drank, that His followers
+should be scattered to their own and leave Him alone. And it was at the
+last extremity, when he could no longer forbear, that St. Paul thought it
+good to be at Athens alone. Jesus therefore would not send His
+inexperienced heralds forth for the first time except by two and two, that
+each might sustain the courage and wisdom of his comrade. And His example
+was not forgotten. Peter and John together visited the converts in
+Samaria. And when Paul and Barnabas, whose first journey was together,
+could no longer agree, each of them took a new comrade and departed.
+Perhaps our modern missionaries lose more in energy than is gained in area
+by neglecting so humane a precedent, and forfeiting the special presence
+vouchsafed to the common worship of two or three.
+
+St. Mark has not recorded the mission of the seventy evangelists, but this
+narrative is clearly coloured by his knowledge of that event. Thus He does
+not mention the gift of miraculous power, which was common to both, but He
+does tell of the authority over unclean spirits, which was explicitly
+given to the Twelve, and which the Seventy, returning with joy, related
+that they also had successfully dared to claim. In conferring such power
+upon His disciples, Jesus took the first step towards that marvellous
+identification of Himself and His mastery over evil, with all His
+followers, that giving of His presence to their assemblies, His honour to
+their keeping, His victory to their experience, and His lifeblood to their
+veins, which makes Him the second Adam, represented in all the newborn
+race, and which finds its most vivid and blessed expression in the
+sacrament where His flesh is meat indeed and His blood is drink indeed.
+Now first He is seen to commit His powers and His honour into mortal
+hands.
+
+In doing this, He impressed on them the fact that they were not sent at
+first upon a toilsome and protracted journey. Their personal connection
+with Him was not broken but suspended for a little while. Hereafter, they
+would need to prepare for hardship, and he that had two coats should take
+them. It was not so now: sandals would suffice their feet; they should
+carry no wallet; only a staff was needed for their brief excursion through
+a hospitable land. But hospitality itself would have its dangers for them,
+and when warmly received they might be tempted to be feted by various
+hosts, enjoying the first enthusiastic welcome of each, and refusing to
+share afterwards the homely domestic life which would succeed. Yet it was
+when they ceased to be strangers that their influence would really be
+strongest; and so there was good reason, both for the sake of the family
+they might win, and for themselves who should not become self-indulgent,
+why they should not go from house to house.
+
+These directions were not meant to become universal rules, and we have
+seen how Jesus afterwards explicitly varied them. But their spirit is an
+admonition to all who are tempted to forget their mission in personal
+advantages which it may offer. Thus commissioned and endowed, they should
+feel as they went the greatness of the message they conveyed. Wherever
+they were rejected; no false meekness should forbid their indignant
+protest, and they should refuse to carry even the dust of that evil and
+doomed place upon their feet.
+
+And they went forth and preached repentance, casting out many devils, and
+healing many that were sick. In doing this, they anointed them with oil,
+as St. James afterwards directed, but as Jesus never did. He used no
+means, or when faith needed to be helped by a visible application, it was
+always the touch of His own hand or the moisture of His own lip. The
+distinction is significant. And also it must be remembered that oil was
+never used by disciples for the edification of the dying, but for the
+recovery of the sick.
+
+By this new agency the name of Jesus was more than ever spread abroad,
+until it reached the ears of a murderous tyrant, and stirred in his bosom
+not the repentance which they preached, but the horrors of ineffectual
+remorse.
+
+
+
+
+Herod.
+
+
+    "And king Herod heard _thereof;_ for His name had become known:
+    and he said, John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and
+    therefore do these powers work in him. But others said, It is
+    Elijah. And others said, _It is_ a prophet, _even_ as one of the
+    prophets. But Herod, when he heard _thereof_, said, John, whom I
+    beheaded, he is risen. For Herod himself had sent forth and laid
+    hold upon John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias,
+    his brother Philip's wife: for he had married her. For John said
+    unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife.
+    And Herodias set herself against him, and desired to kill him; and
+    she could not; for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a
+    righteous man and a holy, and kept him safe. And when he heard
+    him, he was much perplexed; and he heard him gladly. And when a
+    convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper
+    to his lords, and the high captains, and the chief men of Galilee;
+    and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, she
+    pleased Herod and them that sat at meat with him; and the king
+    said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will
+    give it thee. And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of
+    me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. And she went
+    out, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The
+    head of John the Baptist. And she came in straightway with haste
+    unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou forthwith give
+    me in a charger the head of John the Baptist. And the king was
+    exceeding sorry; but for the sake of his oaths, and of them that
+    sat at meat, he would not reject her. And straightway the king
+    sent forth a soldier of his guard, and commanded to bring his
+    head: and he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his
+    head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel; and the damsel gave
+    it to her mother. And when his disciples heard _thereof_, they
+    came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb."--MARK vi.
+    14-29 (R.V.).
+
+
+The growing influence of Jesus demanded the mission of the Twelve, and
+this in its turn increased His fame until it alarmed the tetrarch Herod.
+An Idumaean ruler of Israel was forced to dread every religious movement,
+for all the waves of Hebrew fanaticism beat against the foreign throne.
+And Herod Antipas was especially the creature of circumstances, a weak and
+plastic man. He is the Ahab of the New Testament, and it is a curious
+coincidence that he should have to do with its Elijah. As Ahab fasted when
+he heard his doom, and postponed the evil by his submission, so Herod was
+impressed and agitated by the teaching of the Baptist. But Ahab
+surrendered his soul to the imperious Jezebel, and Herod was ruined by
+Herodias. Each is the sport of strong influences from without, and warns
+us that a man, no more than a ship, can hope by drifting to come safe to
+haven.
+
+No contrast could be imagined more dramatic than between the sleek seducer
+of his brother's wife and the imperious reformer, rude in garment and
+frugal of fare, thundering against the generation of vipers who were the
+chiefs of his religion.
+
+How were these two brought together? Did the Baptist stride unsummoned
+into the court? Did his crafty foemen contrive his ruin by inciting the
+Tetrarch to consult him? Or did that restless religious curiosity, which
+afterwards desired to see Jesus, lead Herod to consult his forerunner? The
+abrupt words of John are not unlike an answer to some feeble question of
+casuistry, some plea of extenuating circumstances such as all can urge in
+mitigation of their worst deeds. He simply and boldly states the
+inflexible ordinance of God: It is not lawful for thee to have her.
+
+What follows may teach us much.
+
+1. It warns us that good inclinations, veneration for holiness in others,
+and ineffectual struggles against our own vices, do not guarantee
+salvation. He who feels them is not God-forsaken, since every such emotion
+is a grace. But he must not infer that he never may be forsaken, or that
+because he is not wholly indifferent or disobedient, God will some day
+make him all that his better moods desire. Such a man should be warned by
+Herod Antipas. Ruggedly and abruptly rebuked, his soul recognised and did
+homage to the truthfulness of his teacher. Admiration replaced the anger
+in which he cast him into prison. As he stood between him and the
+relentless Herodias, and "kept him safely," he perhaps believed that the
+gloomy dungeon, and the utter interruption of a great career, were only
+for the Baptist's preservation. Alas, there was another cause. He was
+"much perplexed": he dared not provoke his temptress by releasing the man
+of God. And thus temporizing, and daily weakening the voice of conscience
+by disobedience, he was lost.
+
+2. It is distinctly a bad omen that he "heard him gladly," since he had no
+claim to well-founded religious happiness. Our Lord had already observed
+the shallowness of men who immediately with joy receive the word, yet have
+no root. But this guilty man, disquieted by the reproaches of memory and
+the demands of conscience, found it a relief to hear stern truth, and to
+see from far the beauteous light of righteousness. He would not reform his
+life, but he would fain keep his sensibilities alive. It was so that
+Italian brigands used to maintain a priest. And it is so that fraudulent
+British tradesmen too frequently pass for religious men. People cry shame
+on their hypocrisy. Yet perhaps they less often wear a mask to deceive
+others than a cloke to keep their own hearts warm, and should not be
+quoted to prove that religion is a deceit, but as witnesses that even the
+most worldly soul craves as much of it as he can assimilate. So it was
+with Herod Antipas.
+
+3. But no man can serve two masters. He who refuses the command of God to
+choose whom he will serve, in calmness and meditation, when the means of
+grace and the guidance of the Spirit are with him, shall hear some day the
+voice of the Tempter, derisive and triumphant, amid evil companions, when
+flushed with guilty excitements and with sensual desires, and deeply
+committed by rash words and "honour rooted in dishonour," bidding him
+choose now, and choose finally. Salome will tolerate neither weak
+hesitation nor half measures; she must herself possess "forthwith" the
+head of her mother's foe, which is worth more than half the kingdom, since
+his influence might rob them of it all. And the king was exceeding sorry,
+but chose to be a murderer rather than be taken for a perjurer by the bad
+companions who sat with him. What a picture of a craven soul, enslaved
+even in the purple. And of the meshes for his own feet which that man
+weaves, who gathers around him such friends that their influence will
+surely mislead his lonely soul in its future struggles to be virtuous.
+What a lurid light does this passage throw upon another and a worse scene,
+when we meet Herod again, not without the tyrannous influence of his men
+of war.
+
+4. We learn the mysterious interconnection of sin with sin. Vicious luxury
+and self-indulgence, the plastic feebleness of character which half yields
+to John, yet cannot break with Herodias altogether, these do not seem
+likely to end in murder. They have scarcely strength enough, we feel, for
+a great crime. Alas, they have feebleness enough for it, for he who joins
+in the dance of the graces may give his hand to the furies unawares.
+Nothing formidable is to be seen in Herod, up to the fatal moment when
+revelry, and the influence of his associates, and the graceful dancing of
+a woman whose beauty was pitiless, urged him irresistibly forward to bathe
+his shrinking hands in blood. And from this time forward he is a lost man.
+When a greater than John is reported to be working miracles, he has a wild
+explanation for the new portent, and his agitation is betrayed in his
+broken words, "John, whom I beheaded, he is risen." "For" St. Mark adds
+with quiet but grave significance, "Herod himself had sent forth and laid
+hold upon John, and bound him." Others might speak of a mere teacher, but
+the conscience of Herod will not suffer it to be so; it is his victim; he
+has learnt the secret of eternity; "and therefore do these powers work in
+him." Yet Herod was a Sadducee.
+
+5. These words are dramatic enough to prove themselves; it would have
+tasked Shakespere to invent them. But they involve the ascription from the
+first of unearthly powers to Jesus, and they disprove, what sceptics would
+fain persuade us, that miracles were inevitably ascribed, by the credulity
+of the age, to all great teachers, since John wrought none, and the
+astonishing theory that he had graduated in another world, was invented by
+Herod to account for those of Jesus. How inevitable it was that such a man
+should set at nought our Lord. Dread, and moral repulsion, and the
+suspicion that he himself was the mark against which all the powers of the
+avenger would be directed, these would not produce a mood in which to
+comprehend One who did not strive nor cry. To them it was a supreme relief
+to be able to despise Christ.
+
+Elsewhere we can trace the gradual cessation of the alarm of Herod. At
+first he dreads the presence of the new Teacher, and yet dares not assail
+Him openly. And so, when Jesus was advised to go thence or Herod would
+kill Him, He at once knew who had instigated the crafty monition, and sent
+back his defiance to that fox. But even fear quickly dies in a callous
+heart, and only curiosity survives. Herod is soon glad to see Jesus, and
+hopes that He may work a miracle. For religious curiosity and the love of
+spiritual excitement often survive grace, just as the love of stimulants
+survives the healthy appetite for bread. But our Lord, Who explained so
+much for Pilate, spoke not a word to him. And the wretch, whom once the
+forerunner had all but won, now set the Christ Himself at nought, and
+mocked Him, So yet does the God of this world blind the eyes of the
+unbelieving. So great are still the dangers of hesitation, since not to be
+for Christ is to be against Him.
+
+6. But the blood of the martyr was not shed before his work was done. As
+the falling blossom admits the sunshine to the fruit, so the herald died
+when his influence might have clashed with the growing influence of his
+Lord, Whom the Twelve were at last trained to proclaim far and wide. At a
+stroke, his best followers were naturally transferred to Jesus, Whose way
+he had prepared. Rightly, therefore, has St. Mark placed the narrative at
+this juncture, and very significantly does St. Matthew relate that his
+disciples, when they had buried him, "came and told Jesus."
+
+Upon the path of our Lord Himself this violent death fell as a heavy
+shadow. Nor was He unconscious of its menace, for after the
+transfiguration He distinctly connected with a prediction of His own
+death, the fact that they had done to Elias also whatsoever they listed.
+Such connections of thought help us to realise the truth, that not once
+only, but throughout His ministry, He Who bids us bear our cross while we
+follow Him, was consciously bearing His own. We must not limit to "three
+days" the sorrows which redeemed the world.
+
+
+
+
+Bread In The Desert.
+
+
+    "And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus; and they
+    told Him all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they
+    had taught. And He saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into
+    a desert place, and rest awhile. For there were many coming and
+    going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they went
+    away in the boat to a desert place apart. And _the people_ saw
+    them going, and many knew _them_, and they ran there together on
+    foot from all the cities, and outwent them. And He came forth and
+    saw a great multitude, and He had compassion on them, because they
+    were as sheep not having a shepherd: and He began to teach them
+    many things. And when the day was now far spent, His disciples
+    came onto Him, and said, The place is desert, and the day is now
+    far spent: send them away, that they may go into the country and
+    villages round about, and buy themselves somewhat to eat. But He
+    answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say
+    unto Him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and
+    give them to eat? And He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye?
+    go _and_ see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes.
+    And He commanded them that all should sit down by companies upon
+    the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by
+    fifties. And He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and
+    looking up to heaven, He blessed, and brake the loaves; and He
+    gave to the disciples to set before them; and the two fishes
+    divided He among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled.
+    And they took up broken pieces, twelve basketfuls, and also of the
+    fishes. And they that ate the loaves were five thousand men. And
+    straightway He constrained His disciples to enter into the boat,
+    and to go before _Him_ unto the other side to Bethsaida, while He
+    Himself sendeth the multitude away. And after He had taken leave
+    of them He departed into the mountain to pray."--MARK vi. 30-46
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+The Apostles, now first called by that name, because now first these
+"Messengers" had carried the message of their Lord, returned and told Him
+all, the miracles they had performed, and whatever they had taught. From
+the latter clause it is plain that to preach "that men should repent,"
+involved arguments, motives, promises, and perhaps threatenings which
+rendered it no meagre announcement. It is in truth a demand which involves
+free will and responsibility as its basis, and has hell or heaven for the
+result of disobedience or compliance. Into what controversies may it have
+led these first preachers of Jesus! All was now submitted to the judgment
+of their Master. And happy are they still who do not shrink from the
+healing pain of bringing all their actions and words to Him, and
+hearkening what the Lord will speak.
+
+Upon the whole, they brought a record of success, and around Him also were
+so many coming and going that they had no leisure so much as to eat.
+Whereupon Jesus draws them aside to rest awhile. For the balance must
+never be forgotten between the outer and the inner life. The Lord Himself
+spent the following night in prayer, until He saw the distress of His
+disciples, and came to them upon the waves. And the time was at hand when
+they, who now rejoiced that the devils were subject unto them, should
+learn by sore humiliation and defeat that this kind goeth not forth except
+by prayer. We may be certain that it was not bodily repose alone that
+Jesus desired for his flushed and excited ambassadors, in the hour of
+their success. And yet bodily repose also at such a time is healing, and
+in the very pause, the silence, the cessation of the rush, pressure, and
+excitement of every conspicuous career, there is an opportunity and even a
+suggestion of calm and humble recollection of the soul. Accordingly they
+crossed in the boat to some quiet spot, open and unreclaimed, but very far
+from such dreariness as the mention of a desert suggests to us. But the
+people saw Him, and watched His course, while outrunning him along the
+coast, and their numbers were augmented from every town as they poured
+through it, until He came forth and saw a great multitude, and knew that
+His quest of solitude was baffled. Few things are more trying than the
+world's remorseless intrusion upon one's privacy, and subversions of plans
+which one has laid, not for himself alone. But Jesus was as thoughtful for
+the multitude as He had just shown Himself to be for His disciples. Not to
+petulance but to compassion did their urgency excite Him; for as they
+streamed across the wilderness, far from believing upon Him, but yet
+conscious of sore need, unsatisfied with the doctrine of their
+professional teachers, and just bereaved of the Baptist, they seemed in
+the desert like sheep that had no shepherd. And He patiently taught them
+many things.
+
+Nor was He careful only for their souls. We have now reached that
+remarkable miracle which alone is related by all the four Evangelists. And
+the narratives, while each has its individual and peculiar points,
+corroborate each other very strikingly. All four mention the same kind of
+basket, quite different from what appears in the feeding of the four
+thousand. St. John alone tells us that it was the season of the Passover,
+the middle of the Galilean spring-time; but yet this agrees exactly with
+St. Mark's allusion to the "green grass" which summer has not yet dried
+up. All four have recorded that Jesus "blessed" or "gave thanks," and
+three of them that He looked up to heaven while doing so. What was there
+so remarkable, so intense or pathetic in His expression, that it should
+have won this three-fold celebration? If we remember the symbolical
+meaning of what He did, and that as His hands were laid upon the bread
+which He would break, so His own body should soon be broken for the relief
+of the hunger of the world, how can we doubt that absolute self-devotion,
+infinite love, and pathetic resignation were in that wonderful look, which
+never could be forgotten?
+
+There could have been but few women and children among the multitudes who
+"outran Jesus," and these few would certainly have been trodden down if a
+rush of strong and hungry men for bread had taken place. Therefore St.
+John mentions that while Jesus bade "the people" to be seated, it was the
+men who were actually arranged (vi. 10 R.V.). Groups of fifty were easy to
+keep in order, and a hundred of these were easily counted. And thus it
+comes to pass that we know that there were five thousand men, while the
+women and children remained unreckoned, as St. Matthew asserts, and St.
+Mark implies. This is a kind of harmony which we do not find in two
+versions of any legend. Nor could any legendary impulse have imagined the
+remarkable injunction, which impressed all four Evangelists, to be frugal
+when it would seem that the utmost lavishness was pardonable. They were
+not indeed bidden to gather up fragments left behind upon the ground, for
+thrift is not meanness; but the "broken pieces" which our Lord had
+provided over and above should not be lost. "This union of economy with
+creative power," said Olshausen, "could never have been invented, and yet
+Nature, that mirror of the Divine perfections, exhibits the same
+combination of boundless munificence with truest frugality." And Godet
+adds the excellent remark, that "a gift so obtained was not to be
+squandered."
+
+There is one apparent discord to set against these remarkable harmonies,
+and it will at least serve to show that they are not calculated and
+artificial.
+
+St. John represents Jesus as the first to ask Philip, Whence are we to buy
+bread? whereas the others represent the Twelve as urging upon Him the need
+to dismiss the multitude, at so late an hour, from a place so ill
+provided. The inconsistency is only an apparent one. It was early in the
+day, and upon "seeing a great company come unto Him," that Jesus
+questioned Philip, who might have remembered an Old Testament precedent,
+when Elisha said "Give unto the people that they may eat. And his servitor
+said, What? shall I set this before an hundred men? He said, again, they
+shall both eat and shall also leave thereof." But the faith of Philip did
+not respond, and if any hope of a miracle were excited, it faded as time
+passed over. Hours later, when the day was far spent, the Twelve, now
+perhaps excited by Philip's misgiving, and repeating his calculation about
+the two hundred pence, urge Jesus to dismiss the multitude. They took no
+action until "the time was already past," but Jesus saw the end from the
+beginning. And surely the issue taught them not to distrust their Master's
+power. Now the same power is for ever with the Church; and our heavenly
+Father knoweth that we have need of food and raiment.
+
+Even in the working of a miracle, the scantiest means vouchsafed by
+Providence are not despised. Jesus takes the barley-loaves and the fishes,
+and so teaches all men that true faith is remote indeed from the
+fanaticism which neglects any resources brought within the reach of our
+study and our toil. And to show how really these materials were employed,
+the broken pieces which they gathered are expressly said to have been
+composed of the barley-loaves and of the fish.
+
+Indeed it must be remarked that in no miracle of the Gospel did Jesus
+actually create. He makes no new members of the body, but restores old
+useless ones. "And so, without a substratum to work upon He creates
+neither bread nor wine." To do this would not have been a whit more
+difficult, but it would have expressed less aptly His mission, which was
+not to create a new system of things, but to renew the old, to recover the
+lost sheep, and to heal the sick at heart.
+
+Every circumstance of this miracle is precious. That vigilant care for the
+weak which made the people sit down in groups, and await their turn to be
+supplied, is a fine example of the practical eye for details which was
+never, before or since, so perfectly united with profound thought, insight
+into the mind of God and the wants of the human race.
+
+The words, Give ye them to eat, may serve as an eternal rebuke to the
+helplessness of the Church, face to face with a starving world, and
+regarding her own scanty resources with dismay. In the presence of
+heathenism, of dissolute cities, and of semi-pagan peasantries, she is
+ever looking wistfully to some costly far-off supply. And her Master is
+ever bidding her believe that the few loaves and fishes in her hand, if
+blessed and distributed by Him, will satisfy the famine of mankind.
+
+For in truth He is Himself this bread. All that the Gospel of St. John
+explains, underlies the narratives of the four. And shame on us, with
+Christ given to us to feed and strengthen us, if we think our resources
+scanty, if we grudge to share them with mankind, if we let our thoughts
+wander away to the various palliatives for human misery and salves for
+human anguish, which from time to time gain the credence of an hour; if we
+send the hungry to the country and villages round about, when Christ the
+dispenser of the Bread of souls, for ever present in His Church, is
+saying, They need not depart, give ye them to eat.
+
+The sceptical explanations of this narrative are exquisitely ludicrous.
+One tells us how, finding themselves in a desert, "thanks to their extreme
+frugality they were able to exist, and this was naturally" (what,
+naturally?) "regarded as a miracle." This is called the legendary
+explanation, and every one can judge for himself how much it succeeds in
+explaining to him.
+
+Another tells us that Jesus being greater than Moses, it was felt that He
+must have outstripped him in miraculous power. And so the belief grew up
+that as Moses fed a nation during forty years, with angels' food, He, to
+exceed this, must have bestowed upon five thousand men one meal of barley
+bread.
+
+This is called the mythical explanation, and the credulity which accepts
+it must not despise Christians, who only believe their Bibles.
+
+Jesus had called away His followers to rest. The multitude which beheld
+this miracle was full of passionate hate against the tyrant, upon whose
+hands the blood of the Baptist was still warm. All they wanted was a
+leader. And now they would fain have taken Jesus by force to thrust this
+perilous honour upon Him. Therefore He sent away His disciples first, that
+ambition and hope might not agitate and secularise their minds; and when
+He had dismissed the multitude He Himself ascended the neighbouring
+mountain, to cool His frame with the pure breezes, and to refresh His Holy
+Spirit by communion with His Father. Prayer was natural to Jesus; but
+think how much more needful is it to us. And yet perhaps we have never
+taken one hour from sleep for God.
+
+
+
+
+Jesus Walking On The Water.
+
+
+MARK vi. 47-52 (R.V.).
+
+(See iv. 36, pp. 133-140.)
+
+
+
+
+Unwashen Hands.
+
+
+    "And when they had crossed over, they came to the land unto
+    Gennesaret, and moored to the shore.... Making void the word of
+    God by your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like
+    things ye do."--MARK vi. 53-vii. 13 (R.V.).
+
+
+There is a condition of mind which readily accepts the temporal blessings
+of religion, and yet neglects, and perhaps despises, the spiritual truths
+which they ratify and seal. When Jesus landed on Gennesaret, He was
+straightway known, and as He passed through the district, there was hasty
+bearing of all the sick to meet Him, laying them in public places, and
+beseeching Him that they might touch, if no more, the border of His
+garment. By the faith which believed in so easy a cure, a timid woman had
+recently won signal commendation. But the very fact that her cure had
+become public, while it accounts for the action of these crowds, deprives
+it of any special merit. We only read that as many as touched Him were
+made whole. And we know that just now He was forsaken by many even of His
+disciples, and had to ask His very apostles, Will ye also go away?
+
+Thus we find these two conflicting movements: among the sick and their
+friends a profound persuasion that He can heal them; and among those whom
+He would fain teach, resentment and revolt against His doctrine. The
+combination is strange, but we dare not call it unfamiliar. We see the
+opposing tendencies even in the same man, for sorrow and pain drive to His
+knees many a one who will not take upon His neck the easy yoke. Yet how
+absurd it is to believe in Christ's goodness and His power, and still to
+dare to sin against Him, still to reject the inevitable inference that His
+teaching must bring bliss. Men ought to ask themselves what is involved
+when they pray to Christ and yet refuse to serve Him.
+
+As Jesus moved thus around the district, and responded so amply to their
+supplication that His very raiment was charged with health as if with
+electricity, which leaps out at a touch, what an effect He must have
+produced, even upon the ceremonial purity of the district. Sickness meant
+defilement, not for the sufferer alone, but for his friends, his nurse,
+and the bearers of his little pallet. By the recovery of one sick man, a
+fountain of Levitical pollution was dried up. And the harsh and rigid
+legalist ought to have perceived that from his own point of view the
+pilgrimage of Jesus was like the breath of spring upon a garden, to
+restore its freshness and bloom.
+
+It was therefore an act of portentous waywardness when, at this juncture,
+a complaint was made of His indifference to ceremonial cleanness. For of
+course a charge against His disciples was really a complaint against the
+influence which guided them so ill.
+
+It was not a disinterested complaint. Jerusalem was alarmed at the new
+movement resulting from the mission of the Twelve, their miracles, and the
+mighty works which He Himself had lately wrought. And a deputation of
+Pharisees and scribes came from this centre of ecclesiastical prejudice,
+to bring Him to account. They do not assail His doctrine, nor charge Him
+with violating the law itself, for He had put to shame their querulous
+complaints about the sabbath day. But tradition was altogether upon their
+side: it was a weapon ready sharpened for their use against one so free,
+unconventional and fearless.
+
+The law had imposed certain restrictions upon the chosen race,
+restrictions which were admirably sanitary in their nature, while aiming
+also at preserving the isolation of Israel from the corrupt and foul
+nations which lay around. All such restrictions were now about to pass
+away, because religion was to become aggressive, it was henceforth to
+invade the nations from whose inroads it had heretofore sought a convert.
+But the Pharisees had not been content even with the severe restrictions
+of the law. They had not regarded these as a fence for themselves against
+spiritual impurity, but as an elaborate and artificial substitute for love
+and trust. And therefore, as love and spiritual religion faded out of
+their hearts, they were the more jealous and sensitive about the letter of
+the law. They "fenced" it with elaborate rules, and precautions against
+accidental transgressions, superstitiously dreading an involuntary
+infraction of its minutest details. Certain substances were unclean food.
+But who could tell whether some atom of such substance, blown about in the
+dust of summer, might adhere to the hand with which he ate, or to the cups
+and pots whence his food was drawn? Moreover, the Gentile nations were
+unclean, and it was not possible to avoid all contact with them in the
+market-places, returning whence, therefore, every devout Jew was careful
+to wash himself, which washing, though certainly not an immersion, is here
+plainly called a baptism. Thus an elaborate system of ceremonial washing,
+not for cleansing, but as a religious precaution, had grown up among the
+Jews.
+
+But the disciples of Jesus had begun to learn their emancipation. Deeper
+and more spiritual conceptions of God and man and duty had grown up in
+them. And the Pharisees saw that they ate their bread with unwashen hands.
+It availed nothing that half a population owed purity and health to their
+Divine benevolence, if in the process the letter of a tradition were
+infringed. It was necessary to expostulate with Jesus, because they walked
+not according to the tradition of the elders, that dried skin of an old
+orthodoxy in which prescription and routine would ever fain shut up the
+seething enthusiasms and insights of the present time.
+
+With such attempts to restrict and cramp the free life of the soul, Jesus
+could have no sympathy. He knew well that an exaggerated trust in any
+form, any routine or ritual whatever, was due to the need of some stay and
+support for hearts which have ceased to trust in a Father of souls. But He
+chose to leave them without excuse by showing their transgression of
+actual precepts which real reverence for God would have respected. Like
+books of etiquette for people who have not the instincts of gentlemen; so
+do ceremonial religions spring up where the instinct of respect for the
+will of God is dull or dead. Accordingly Jesus quotes against these
+Pharisees a distinct precept, a word not of their fathers, but of God,
+which their tradition had caused them to trample upon. If any genuine
+reverence for His commandment had survived, it would have been outraged by
+such a collision between the text and the gloss, the precept and the
+precautionary supplement. But they had never felt the incongruity, never
+been jealous enough for the commandment of God to revolt against the
+encroaching tradition which insulted it. The case which Jesus gave, only
+as one of "many such like things," was an abuse of the system of vows, and
+of dedicated property. It would seem that from the custom of "devoting" a
+man's property, and thus putting it beyond his further control, had grown
+up the abuse of consecrating it with such limitations, that it should
+still be available for the owner, but out of his power to give to others.
+And thus, by a spell as abject as the taboo of the South Sea islanders, a
+man glorified God by refusing help to his father and mother, without being
+at all the poorer for the so-called consecration of his means. And even if
+he awoke up to the shameful nature of his deed, it was too late, for "ye
+no longer suffer him to do ought for his father of his mother." And yet
+Moses had made it a capital offence to "speak evil of father or mother."
+Did they then allow such slanders? Not at all, and so they would have
+refused to confess any aptness in the quotation. But Jesus was not
+thinking of the letter of a precept, but of the spirit and tendency of a
+religion, to which they were blind. With what scorn He regarded their
+miserable subterfuges, is seen by His vigorous word, "full well do ye make
+void the commandment of God that ye may keep your traditions."
+
+Now the root of all this evil was unreality. It was not merely because
+their heart was far from God that they invented hollow formalisms;
+indifference leads to neglect, not to a perverted and fastidious
+earnestness. But while their hearts were earthly, they had learned to
+honour God with their lips. The judgments which had sent their fathers
+into exile, the pride of their unique position among the nations, and the
+self-interest of privileged classes, all forbade them to neglect the
+worship in which they had no joy, and which, therefore, they were unable
+to follow as it reached out into infinity, panting after God, a living
+God. There was no principle of life, growth, aspiration, in their dull
+obedience. And what could it turn into but a routine, a ritual, a verbal
+homage, and the honour of the lips only? And how could such a worship fail
+to shelter itself in evasions from the heart-searching earnestness of a
+law which was spiritual, while the worshipper was carnal and sold under
+sin?
+
+It was inevitable that collisions should arise. And the same results will
+always follow the same causes. Wherever men bow the knee for the sake of
+respectability, or because they dare not absent themselves from the
+outward haunts of piety, yet fail to love God and their neighbour, there
+will the form outrage the spirit, and in vain will they worship, teaching
+as their doctrines the traditions of men.
+
+Very completely indeed was the relative position of Jesus and His critics
+reversed, since they had expressed pain at the fruitless effort of His
+mother to speak with Him, and He had seemed to set the meanest disciple
+upon a level with her. But He never really denied the voice of nature, and
+they never really heard it. An affectation of respect would have satisfied
+their heartless formality: He thought it the highest reward of
+discipleship to share the warmth of His love. And therefore, in due time,
+it was seen that His critics were all unconscious of the wickedness of
+filial neglect which set His heart on fire.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+
+
+Things Which Defile.
+
+
+    "And He called to Him the multitude again, and said unto them,
+    Hear Me all of you, and understand: there is nothing from without
+    the man, that going into him can defile him: but the things which
+    proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. And when He
+    was entered into the house from the multitude, His disciples asked
+    of Him the parable. And He saith unto them, Are ye so without
+    understanding also? Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without
+    goeth into the man, _it_ cannot defile him; because it goeth not
+    into his heart, but into his belly, and goeth out into the
+    draught? _This He said_, making all meats clean. And He said, That
+    which proceeded out of the man, that defileth the man. For from
+    within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed,
+    fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings,
+    wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride,
+    foolishness: all these evil things proceed from within, and defile
+    the man."--MARK vii. 14-23 (R.V.).
+
+
+When Jesus had exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, He took a bold and
+significant step. Calling the multitude to Him, He publicly announced that
+no diet can really pollute the soul; only its own actions and desires can
+do that: not that which entereth into the man can defile him, but the
+things which proceed out of the man.
+
+He does not as yet proclaim the abolition of the law, but He surely
+declares that it is only temporary, because it is conventional, not rooted
+in the eternal distinctions between right and wrong, but artificial. And
+He shows that its time is short indeed, by charging the multitude to
+understand how limited is its reach, how poor are its effects.
+
+Such teaching, addressed with marked emphasis to the public, the masses,
+whom the Pharisees despised as ignorant of the law, and cursed, was a
+defiance indeed. And the natural consequence was an opposition so fierce
+that He was driven to betake Himself, for the only time, and like Elijah
+in his extremity, to a Gentile land. And yet there was abundant evidence
+in the Old Testament itself that the precepts of the law were not the life
+of souls. David ate the shewbread. The priests profaned the sabbath.
+Isaiah spiritualized fasting. Zechariah foretold the consecration of the
+Philistines. Whenever the spiritual energies of the ancient saints
+received a fresh access, they were seen to strive against and shake off
+some of the trammels of a literal and servile legalism. The doctrine of
+Jesus explained and justified what already was felt by the foremost
+spirits in Israel.
+
+When they were alone, "the disciples asked of Him the parable," that is,
+in other words, the saying which they felt to be deeper than they
+understood, and full of far-reaching issues. But Jesus rebuked them for
+not understanding what uncleanness really meant. For Him, defilement was
+badness, a condition of the soul. And therefore meats could not defile a
+man, because they did not reach the heart, but only the bodily organs. In
+so doing, as St. Mark plainly adds, He made all meats clean, and thus
+pronounced the doom of Judaism, and the new dispensation of the Spirit. In
+truth, St. Paul did little more than expand this memorable saying.
+"Nothing that goeth into a man can defile him," here is the germ of all
+the decision about idol meats--"neither if 'one' eat is he the better,
+neither if he eat not is he the worse." "The things which proceed out of
+the man are those which defile the man," here is the germ of all the
+demonstration that love fulfils the law; and that our true need is to be
+renewed inwardly, so that we may bring forth fruit unto God.
+
+But the true pollution of the man comes from within; and the life is
+stained because the heart is impure. For from within, out of the heart of
+men, evil thoughts proceed, like the uncharitable and bitter judgments of
+His accusers--and thence come also the sensual indulgences which men
+ascribe to the flesh, but which depraved imaginations excite, and love of
+God and their neighbour would restrain--and thence are the sins of violence
+which men excuse by pleading sudden provocation, whereas the spark led to
+a conflagration only because the heart was a dry fuel--and thence, plainly
+enough, come deceit and railing, pride and folly.
+
+It is a hard saying, but our conscience acknowledges the truth of it. We
+are not the toy of circumstances, but such as we have made ourselves; and
+our lives would have been pure if the stream had flowed from a pure
+fountain. However modern sentiment may rejoice in highly coloured pictures
+of the noble profligate and his pure minded and elegant victim; of the
+brigand or the border ruffian full of kindness, with a heart as gentle as
+his hands are red; and however true we may feel it to be that the worst
+heart may never have betrayed itself by the worst actions, but many that
+are first shall be last, it still continues to be the fact, and undeniable
+when we do not sophisticate our judgment, that "all these evil things
+proceed from within."
+
+It is also true that they "further defile the man." The corruption which
+already existed in the heart is made worse by passing into action; shame
+and fear are weakened; the will is confirmed in evil; a gap is opened or
+widened between the man who commits a new sin, and the virtue on which he
+has turned his back. Few, alas! are ignorant of the defiling power of a
+bad action, or even of a sinful thought deliberately harboured, and the
+harbouring of which is really an action, a decision of the will.
+
+This word which makes all meats clean, ought for ever to decide the
+question whether certain drinks are in the abstract unlawful for a
+Christian.
+
+We must remember that it leaves untouched the question, what restrictions
+may be necessary for men who have depraved and debased their own
+appetites, until innocent indulgence _does_ reach the heart and pervert
+it. Hand and foot are innocent, but men there are who cannot enter into
+life otherwise than halt or maimed. Also it leaves untouched the question,
+as long as such men exist, how far may I be privileged to share and so to
+lighten the burden imposed on them by past transgressions? It is surely a
+noble sign of religious life in our day, that many thousands can say, as
+the Apostle said, of innocent joys, "Have we not a right? ... Nevertheless
+we did not use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no
+hindrance to the gospel of Christ."
+
+Nevertheless the rule is absolute: "Whatsoever from without goeth into the
+man, it cannot defile him." And the Church of Christ is bound to maintain,
+uncompromised and absolute, the liberty of Christian souls.
+
+Let us not fail to contrast such teaching as this of Jesus with that of
+our modern materialism.
+
+"The value of meat and drink is perfectly transcendental," says one. "Man
+is what he eats," says another. But it is enough to make us tremble, to
+ask what will issue from such teaching if it ever grasps firmly the mind
+of a single generation. What will become of honesty, when the value of
+what may be had by theft is transcendental? How shall armies be persuaded
+to suffer hardness, and populations to famish within beleaguered walls,
+when they learn that "man is what he eats," so that his very essence is
+visibly enfeebled, his personality starved out, as he grows pale and
+wasted underneath his country's flag? In vain shall such a generation
+strive to keep alive the flame of generous self-devotion. Self-devotion
+seemed to their fathers to be the noblest attainment; to them it can be
+only a worn-out form of speech to say that the soul can overcome the
+flesh. For to them the man is the flesh; he is the resultant of his
+nourishment; what enters into the mouth makes his character, for it makes
+him all.
+
+There is that within us all which knows better; which sets against the
+aphorism, "Man is what he eats;" the text "As a man thinketh in his heart
+so is he;" which will always spurn the doctrine of the brute, when it is
+boldly confronted with the doctrine of the Crucified.
+
+
+
+
+The Children And The Dogs.
+
+
+    "And from thence He arose, and went away into the borders of Tyre
+    and Sidon. And He entered into a house, and would have no man know
+    it: and He could not be hid. But straightway a woman, whose little
+    daughter had an unclean spirit, having heard of Him, came and fell
+    down at His feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by
+    race. And she besought Him that He would cast forth the devil out
+    of her daughter. And He said unto her, Let the children first be
+    filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast
+    it to the dogs. But she answered and saith unto Him, Yea, Lord:
+    even the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. And He
+    said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out
+    of thy daughter. And she went away unto her house, and found the
+    child laid upon the bed, and the devil gone out."--MARK vii. 24-30
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+The ingratitude and perverseness of His countrymen have now driven Jesus
+into retirement "on the borders" of heathenism. It it is not clear that He
+has yet crossed the frontier, and some presumption to the contrary is
+found in the statement that a woman, drawn by a fame which had long since
+gone throughout all Syria, "came out of those borders" to reach Him. She
+was not only "a Greek" (by language or by creed as conjecture may decide,
+though very probably the word means little more than a Gentile), but even
+of the especially accursed race of Canaan, the reprobate of reprobates.
+And yet the prophet Zechariah had foreseen a time when the Philistine also
+should be a remnant for our God, and as a chieftain in Judah, and when the
+most stubborn race of all the Canaanites should be absorbed in Israel as
+thoroughly as that which gave Araunah to the kindliest intercourse with
+David, for Ekron should be as a Jebusite (ix. 7). But the hour for
+breaking down the middle wall of partition was not yet fully come. Nor did
+any friend plead for this unhappy woman, that she loved the nation and had
+built a synagogue; nothing as yet lifted her above the dead level of that
+paganism to which Christ, in the days of His flesh and upon earth, had no
+commission. Even the great champion and apostle of the Gentiles confessed
+that his Lord was a minister of the circumcision by the grace of God, and
+it was by His ministry to the Jews that the Gentiles were ultimately to be
+won. We need not be surprised therefore at His silence when she pleaded,
+for this might well be calculated to elicit some expression of faith,
+something to separate her from her fellows, and so enable Him to bless her
+without breaking down prematurely all distinctions. Also it must be
+considered that nothing could more offend His countrymen than to grant her
+prayer, while as yet it was impossible to hope for any compensating
+harvest among her fellows, such as had been reaped in Samaria. What is
+surprising is the apparent harshness of expression which follows that
+silence, when even His disciples are induced to intercede for her. But
+theirs was only the softness which yields to clamour, as many people give
+alms, not to silent worth but to loud and pertinacious importunity. And
+they even presumed to throw their own discomfort into the scale, and urge
+as a reason for this intercession, that she crieth after _us_. But Jesus
+was occupied with His mission, and unwilling to go farther than He was
+sent.
+
+In her agony she pressed nearer still to Him when He refused, and
+worshipped Him, no longer as the Son of David, since what was Hebrew in
+His commission made against her; but simply appealed to His compassion,
+calling Him Lord. The absence of these details from St. Mark's narrative
+is interesting, and shows the mistake of thinking that his Gospel is
+simply the most graphic and the fullest. It is such when our Lord Himself
+is in action; its information is derived from one who pondered and told
+all things, not as they were pictorial in themselves, but as they
+illustrated the one great figure of the Son of man. And so the answer of
+Jesus is fully given, although it does not appear as if grace were poured
+into His lips. "Let the children first be filled, for it is not meet to
+take the children's bread, and to cast it to the dogs." It might seem that
+sterner words could scarcely have been spoken, and that His kindness was
+only for the Jews, who even in their ingratitude were to the best of the
+Gentiles as children compared with dogs. Yet she does not contradict Him.
+Neither does she argue back,--for the words "Truth, Lord, but ..." have
+rightly disappeared from the Revised Version, and with them a certain
+contentious aspect which they give to her reply. On the contrary she
+assents, she accepts all the seeming severity of His view, because her
+penetrating faith has detected its kindly undertone, and the triple
+opportunity which it offers to a quick and confiding intelligence. It is
+indeed touching to reflect how impregnable was Jesus in controversy with
+the keenest intellects of Judaism, with how sharp a weapon He rent their
+snares, and retorted their arguments to their confusion, and then to
+observe Him inviting, tempting, preparing the way for an argument which
+would lead Him, gladly won, captive to a heathen's and a woman's
+importunate and trustful sagacity. It is the same Divine condescension
+which gave to Jacob his new name of Israel because he had striven with God
+and prevailed.
+
+And let us reverently ponder the fact that this pagan mother of a
+demoniacal child, this woman whose name has perished, is the only person
+who won a dialectical victory in striving with the Wisdom of God; such a
+victory as a father allows to his eager child, when he raises gentle
+obstacles, and even assumes a transparent mask of harshness, but never
+passes the limit of the trust and love which he is probing.
+
+The first and most obvious opportunity which He gives to her is
+nevertheless hard to show in English. He might have used an epithet
+suitable for those fierce creatures which prowl through Eastern streets at
+night without any master, living upon refuse, a peril even to men who are
+unarmed. But Jesus used a diminutive word, not found elsewhere in the New
+Testament, and quite unsuitable to those fierce beasts, a word "in which
+the idea of uncleanness gives place to that of dependence, of belonging to
+man and to the family." No one applies our colloquial epithet "doggie" to
+a fierce or rabid brute. Thus Jesus really domesticated the Gentile world.
+And nobly, eagerly, yet very modestly she used this tacit concession, when
+she repeated His carefully selected word, and inferred from it that her
+place was not among those vile "dogs" which are "without," but with the
+domestic dogs, the little dogs underneath the table.
+
+Again, she observed the promise which lurked under seeming refusal, when
+He said, "Let the children first be filled," and so implied that her turn
+should come, that it was only a question of time. And so she answers that
+such dogs as He would make of her and hers do not fast utterly until their
+mealtime after the children have been satisfied; they wait under the
+table, and some ungrudged fragments reach them there, some "crumbs."
+
+Moreover, and perhaps chiefly, the bread she craves need not be torn from
+hungry children. Their Benefactor has had to wander off into concealment,
+they have let fall, unheeding, not only crumbs, although her noble tact
+expresses it thus lightly to their countryman, but far more than she
+divined, even the very Bread of Life. Surely His own illustration has
+admitted her right to profit by the heedlessness of "the children." And He
+_had_ admitted all this: He had meant to be thus overcome. One loves to
+think of the first flush of hope in that trembling mother's heavy heart,
+as she discerned His intention and said within herself, "Oh, surely I am
+not mistaken; He does not really refuse at all; He wills that I should
+answer Him and prevail." One supposes that she looked up, half afraid to
+utter the great rejoinder, and took courage when she met His questioning
+inviting gaze.
+
+And then comes the glad response, no longer spoken coldly and without an
+epithet: "O woman, great is thy faith." He praises not her adroitness nor
+her humility, but the faith which would not doubt, in that dark hour, that
+light was behind the cloud; and so He sets no other limit to His reward
+than the limit of her desires: "Be it unto thee even as thou wilt."
+
+Let us learn that no case is too desperate for prayer, and perseverance
+will surely find at last that our Lord delighteth to be gracious. Let us
+be certain that the brightest and most confiding view of all His dealings
+is the truest, and man, if only he trusts aright, shall live by every word
+that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
+
+Thus did Jesus declare, in action as in word, the fading out of all
+distinction between the ceremonially clean and unclean. He crossed the
+limits of the Holy Land: He found great faith in a daughter of the
+accursed race; and He ratified and acted upon her claim that the bread
+which fell neglected from the table of the Jew was not forbidden to the
+hunger of the Gentile. The history of the Acts of the Apostles is already
+here in spirit.
+
+
+
+
+The Deaf And Dumb Man.
+
+
+    "And again He went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through
+    Sidon unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the borders of
+    Decapolis. And they bring unto Him one that was deaf, and had an
+    impediment in his speech; and they beseech Him to lay His hand
+    upon him. And He took him aside from the multitude privately, and
+    put His fingers into his ears, and He spat, and touched His
+    tongue; and looking up to heaven, He sighed, and saith unto him,
+    Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And his ears were opened, and the
+    bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And He charged
+    them that they should tell no man: but the more He charged them,
+    so much the more a great deal they published it. And they were
+    beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well:
+    He maketh even the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak."--MARK vii.
+    31-37 (R.V.).
+
+
+There are curious and significant varieties in the methods by which our
+Saviour healed. We have seen Him, when watched on the sabbath by eager and
+expectant foes, baffling all their malice by a miracle without a deed, by
+refusing to cross the line of the most rigid and ceremonial orthodoxy, by
+only commanding an innocent gesture, Stretch forth thine hand. In sharp
+contrast with such a miracle is the one which we have now reached. There
+is brought to Him a man who is deaf, and whose speech therefore could not
+have been more than a babble, since it is by hearing that we learn to
+articulate; but of whom we are plainly told that he suffered from organic
+inability to utter as well as to hear, for he had an impediment in his
+speech, the string of his tongue needed to be loosed, and Jesus touched
+his tongue as well as his ears, to heal him.
+
+It should be observed that no unbelieving theory can explain the change in
+our Lord's method. Some pretend that all the stories of His miracles grew
+up afterward, from the sense of awe with which He was regarded. How does
+that agree with effort, sighing, and even gradation in the stages of
+recovery, following after the most easy, astonishing and instantaneous
+cures? Others believe that the enthusiasm of His teaching and the charm of
+His presence conveyed healing efficacy to the impressible and the nervous.
+How does this account for the fact that His earliest miracles were the
+prompt and effortless ones, and as time passes on, He secludes the patient
+and uses agencies, as if the resistance to His power were more
+appreciable? Enthusiasm would gather force with every new success.
+
+All becomes clear when we accept the Christian doctrine. Jesus came in the
+fulness of the love of God, with both hands filled with gifts. On His part
+there is no hesitation and no limit. But on the part of man there is
+doubt, misconception, and at last open hostility. A real chasm is opened
+between man and the grace He gives, so that, although not straitened in
+Him, they are straitened in their own affections. Even while they believe
+in Him as a healer, they no longer accept Him as their Lord.
+
+And Jesus makes it plain to them that the gift is no longer so easy,
+spontaneous and of public right as formerly. In His own country He could
+not do many mighty works. And now, returning by indirect routes, and
+privately, from the heathen shores whither Jewish enmity had driven Him,
+He will make the multitude feel a kind of exclusion, taking the patient
+from among them, as He does again presently in Bethsaida (chap. viii. 23).
+There is also, in the deliberate act of seclusion and in the means
+employed, a stimulus for the faith of the sufferer, which would scarcely
+have been needed a little while before.
+
+The people were unconscious of any reason why this cure should differ from
+former ones. And so they besought Jesus to lay His hand on him, the usual
+and natural expression for a conveyance of invisible power. But even if no
+other objection had existed, this action would have meant little to the
+deaf and dumb man, living in a silent world, and needing to have his faith
+aroused by some yet plainer sign. Jesus therefore removes him from the
+crowd whose curiosity would distract his attention--even as by affliction
+and pain He still isolates each of us at times from the world, shutting us
+up with God.
+
+He speaks the only language intelligible to such a man, the language of
+signs, putting His fingers into his ears as if to break a seal, conveying
+the moisture of His own lip to the silent tongue, as if to impart its
+faculty, and then, at what should have been the exultant moment of
+conscious and triumphant power, He sighed deeply.
+
+What an unexpected revelation of the man rather than the wonder worker.
+How unlike anything that theological myth or heroic legend would have
+invented. Perhaps, as Keble sings, He thought of those moral defects for
+which, in a responsible universe, no miracle may be wrought, of "the deaf
+heart, the dumb by choice." Perhaps, according to Stier's ingenious guess,
+He sighed because, in our sinful world, the gift of hearing is so doubtful
+a blessing, and the faculty of speech so apt to be perverted. One can
+almost imagine that no human endowment is ever given by Him Who knows all,
+without a touch of sadness. But it is more natural to suppose that He Who
+is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and Who bare our sickness,
+thought upon the countless miseries of which this was but a specimen, and
+sighed for the perverseness by which the fulness of His compassion was
+being restrained. We are reminded by that sigh, however we explain it,
+that the only triumphs which made Him rejoice in Spirit were very
+different from displays of His physical ascendancy.
+
+It is interesting to observe that St. Mark, informed by the most ardent
+and impressible of the apostles, by him who reverted, long afterwards, to
+the voice which he heard in the holy mount, has recorded several of the
+Aramaic words which Jesus uttered at memorable junctures. "Ephphatha, Be
+opened," He said, and the bond of his tongue was loosed, and his speech,
+hitherto incoherent, became plain. But the Gospel which tells us the first
+word he heard is silent about what he said. Only we read, and this is
+suggestive enough, that the command was at once given to him, as well as
+to the bystanders, to keep silent. Not copious speech, but wise restraint,
+is what the tongue needs most to learn. To him, as to so many whom Christ
+had healed, the injunction came, not to preach without a commission, not
+to suppose that great blessings require loud announcement, or unfit men
+for lowly and quiet places. Legend would surely have endowed with special
+eloquence the lips which Jesus unsealed. He charged them that they should
+tell no man.
+
+It was a double miracle, and the latent unbelief became clear of the very
+men who had hoped for some measure of blessing. For they were beyond
+measure astonished, saying He doeth all things well, celebrating the power
+which restored the hearing and the speech together. Do we blame their
+previous incredulity? Perhaps we also expect some blessing from our Lord,
+yet fail to bring Him all we have and all we are for blessing. Perhaps we
+should be astonished beyond measure if we received at the hands of Jesus a
+sanctification that extended to all our powers.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+
+
+The Four Thousand.
+
+
+    "In those days, when there was again a great multitude, and they
+    had nothing to eat, He called unto Him His disciples, and saith
+    unto them, I have compassion on the multitude, because they
+    continue with Me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and if I
+    send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way;
+    and some of them are come from far. And His disciples answered
+    Him, Whence shall one be able to fill these men with bread here in
+    a desert place? And He asked them, How many loaves have ye? And
+    they said, Seven. And He commandeth the multitude to sit down on
+    the ground: and He took the seven loaves, and having given thanks,
+    He brake, and gave to His disciples, to set before them; and they
+    set them before the multitude. And they had a few small fishes:
+    and having blessed them, He commanded to set these also before
+    them. And they did eat, and were filled: and they took up, of
+    broken pieces that remained over, seven baskets. And they were
+    about four thousand: and He sent them away. And straightway He
+    entered into the boat with His disciples, and came into the parts
+    of Dalmanutha."--MARK viii. 1-10 (R.V.).
+
+
+We now come upon a miracle strangely similar to that of the Feeding of the
+Five Thousand. And it is worth while to ask what would have been the
+result, if the Gospels which contain this narrative had omitted the former
+one. Scepticism would have scrutinized every difference between the two,
+regarding them as variations of the same story, to discover traces of the
+growth of the myth or legend, and entirely to discredit it. Now however it
+is plain that the events are quite distinct; and we cannot doubt but that
+information as full would clear away as completely many a perplexity which
+still entangles us. Archbishop Trench has well shown that the later
+narrative cannot have grown out of the earlier, because it has not grown
+at all, but fallen away. A new legend always "outstrips the old, but here
+... the numbers fed are smaller, the supply of food is greater, and the
+fragments that remain are fewer." The latter point is however doubtful. It
+is likely that the baskets, though fewer, were larger, for in such a one
+St. Paul was lowered down over the wall of Damascus (Acts ix. 25). In all
+the Gospels the Greek word for baskets in the former miracle is different
+from the latter. And hence arises an interesting coincidence; for when the
+disciples had gone into a desert place, and there gathered the fragments
+into wallets, each of them naturally carried one of these, and accordingly
+twelve were filled. But here they had recourse apparently to the large
+baskets of persons who sold bread, and the number seven remains
+unaccounted for. Scepticism indeed persuades itself that the whole story
+is to be spiritualized, the twelve baskets answering to the twelve
+apostles who distributed the Bread of Life, and the seven to the seven
+deacons. How came it then that the sorts of baskets are so well
+discriminated, that the inferior ministers are represented by the larger
+ones, and that the bread is not dealt out from these baskets but gathered
+into them?
+
+The second repetition of such a work is a fine proof of that genuine
+kindness of heart, to which a miracle is not merely an evidence, nor
+rendered useless as soon as the power to work it is confessed. Jesus did
+not shrink from thus repeating Himself, even upon a lower level, because
+His object was not spectacular but beneficent. He sought not to astonish
+but to bless.
+
+It is plain that Jesus strove to lead His disciples, aware of the former
+miracle, up to the notion of its repetition. With this object He
+marshalled all the reasons why the people should be relieved. "I have
+compassion on the multitude, because they continue with Me now three days,
+and have nothing to eat: and if I send them away fasting to their home,
+they will faint in the way; and some of them are come from far." It is the
+grand argument from human necessity to the Divine compassion. It is an
+argument which ought to weigh equally with the Church. For if it is
+promised that "nothing shall be impossible" to faith and prayer, then the
+deadly wants of debauched cities, of ignorant and brutal peasantries, and
+of heathenisms festering in their corruptions--all these, by their very
+urgency, are vehement appeals instead of the discouragements we take them
+for. And whenever man is baffled and in need, there he is entitled to fall
+back upon the resources of the Omnipotent.
+
+It may be that the disciples had some glimmering hope, but they did not
+venture to suggest anything; they only asked, Whence shall one be able to
+fill these men with bread here in a desert place? It is the cry of
+unbelief--_our_ cry, when we look at our resources, and declare our
+helplessness, and conclude that possibly God may interpose, but otherwise
+nothing can be done. We ought to be the priests of a famishing world (so
+ignorant of any relief, so miserable), its interpreters and intercessors,
+full of hope and energy. But we are content to look at our empty
+treasuries, and ineffective organizations, and to ask, Whence shall a man
+be able to fill these men with bread?
+
+They have ascertained however what resources are forthcoming, and these He
+proceeds to use, first demanding the faith which He will afterwards
+honour, by bidding the multitudes to sit down. And then His loving heart
+is gratified by relieving the hunger which it pitied, and He promptly
+sends the multitude away, refreshed and competent for their journey.
+
+
+
+
+The Leaven Of The Pharisees.
+
+
+    "And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with Him,
+    seeking of Him a sign from heaven, tempting Him. And He sighed
+    deeply in His spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek a
+    sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto
+    this generation. And He left them, and again entering into _the
+    boat_ departed to the other side. And they forgot to take bread;
+    and they had not in the boat with them more than one loaf. And He
+    charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the
+    Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned one with
+    another, saying, We have no bread. And Jesus perceiving it saith
+    unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? do ye not yet
+    perceive, neither understand? have ye your heart hardened? Having
+    eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not
+    remember? When I brake the five loaves among the five thousand,
+    how many baskets full of broken pieces took ye up? They said unto
+    Him, Twelve. And when the seven among the four thousand, how many
+    basketfuls of broken pieces took ye up? And they said unto Him,
+    Seven. And He said unto them, Do ye not yet understand?"--MARK
+    viii. 11-21 (R.V.).
+
+
+Whenever a miracle produced a deep and special impression, the Pharisees
+strove to spoil its effect by some counter-demonstration. By so doing, and
+at least appearing to hold the field, since Jesus always yielded this to
+them, they encouraged their own faction, and shook the confidence of the
+feeble and hesitating multitude. At almost every crisis they might have
+been crushed by an appeal to the stormy passions of those whom the Lord
+had blessed. Once He might have been made a king. Again and again His
+enemies were conscious that an imprudent word would suffice to make the
+people stone them. But that would have spoiled the real work of Jesus more
+than to retreat before them, now across the lake, or, just before, into
+the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. Doubtless it was this constant avoidance of
+physical conflict, this habitual repression of the carnal zeal of His
+supporters, this refusal to form a party instead of founding a Church,
+which renewed incessantly the courage of His often-baffled foes, and led
+Him, by the path of steady ceaseless self-depression, to the cross which
+He foresaw, even while maintaining His unearthly calm, amid the
+contradiction of sinners against Himself.
+
+Upon the feeding of the four thousand, they demand of Him a sign from
+heaven. He had wrought for the public no miracle of this peculiar kind.
+And yet Moses had gone up, in the sight of all Israel, to commune with God
+in the mount that burned; Samuel had been answered by thunder and rain in
+the wheat harvest; and Elijah had called down fire both upon his sacrifice
+and also upon two captains and their bands of fifty. Such a miracle was
+now declared to be the regular authentication of a messenger from God, and
+the only sign which evil spirits could not counterfeit.
+
+Moreover the demand would specially embarrass Jesus, because He alone was
+not accustomed to invoke heaven: His miracles were wrought by the exertion
+of His own will. And perhaps the challenge implied some understanding of
+what this peculiarity involved, such as Jesus charged them with, when
+putting into their mouth the words, This is the heir, come, let us kill
+Him. Certainly the demand ignored much. Conceding the fact of certain
+miracles, and yet imposing new conditions of belief, they shut their eyes
+to the unique nature of the works already wrought, the glory as of the
+Only-begotten of the Father which they displayed. They held that thunder
+and lightning revealed God more certainly than supernatural victories of
+compassion, tenderness and love. What could be done for moral blindness
+such as this? How could any sign be devised which unwilling hearts would
+not evade? No wonder that hearing this demand, Jesus sighed deeply in His
+spirit. It revealed their utter hardness; it was a snare by which others
+would be entangled; and for Himself it foretold the cross.
+
+St. Mark simply tells us that He refused to give them any sign. In St.
+Matthew He justifies this decision by rebuking the moral blindness which
+demanded it. They had material enough for judgment. The face of the sky
+foretold storm and fair weather, and the process of nature could be
+anticipated without miracles to coerce belief. And thus they should have
+discerned the import of the prophecies, the course of history, the signs
+of the times in which they lived, so plainly radiant with Messianic
+promise, so menacing with storm-clouds of vengeance upon sin. The sign was
+refused moreover to an evil and adulterous generation, as God, in the Old
+Testament, would not be inquired of at all by such a people as this. This
+indignant rejoinder St. Mark has compressed into the words, "There shall
+no sign be given unto this generation"--this which has proof enough, and
+which deserves none. Men there were to whom a sign from heaven was not
+refused. At His baptism, on the Mount of Transfiguration, and when the
+Voice answered His appeal, "Father, glorify Thy name," while the multitude
+said only that it thundered--at these times His chosen ones received a sign
+from heaven. But from those who had not was taken away even that which
+they seemed to have; and the sign of Jonah availed them not.
+
+Once more Jesus "left them" and crossed the lake. The disciples found
+themselves with but one loaf, approaching a wilder district, where the
+ceremonial purity of food could not easily be ascertained. But they had
+already acted on the principle which Jesus had formally proclaimed, that
+all meats were clean. And therefore it was not too much to expect them to
+penetrate below the letter of the words, "Take heed, beware of the leaven
+of the Pharisees, and the leaven of Herod." In giving them this enigma to
+discover, He acted according to His usage, wrapping the spiritual truth in
+earthly phrases, picturesque and impressive; and He treated them as life
+treats every one of us, which keeps our responsibility still upon the
+strain, by presenting new moral problems, fresh questions and trials of
+insight, for every added attainment which lays our old tasks aside. But
+they understood Him not. Some new ceremonial appeared to them to be
+designed, in which everything would be reversed, and the unclean should be
+those hypocrites, the strictest observers of the old code. Such a mistake,
+however blameworthy, reveals the profound sense of an ever-widening chasm,
+and an expectation of a final and hopeless rupture with the chiefs of
+their religion. It prepares us for what is soon to come, the contrast
+between the popular belief and theirs, and the selection of a rock on
+which a new Church is to be built. In the meantime the dire practical
+inconvenience of this announcement led to hot discussion, because they had
+no bread. And Jesus, perceiving this, remonstrated in a series of
+indignant questions. Personal want should not have disturbed their
+judgment, remembering that twice over He had fed hungry multitudes, and
+loaded them with the surplus of His gift. Their eyes and ears should have
+taught them that He was indifferent to such distinctions, and His doctrine
+could never result in a new Judaism. How was it that they did not
+understand?
+
+Thereupon they perceived that His warning was figurative. He had spoken to
+them, after feeding the five thousand, of spiritual bread which He would
+give, even His flesh to be their food. What then could He have meant by
+the leaven of the Pharisees but the imparting of _their_ religious
+tendencies, their teaching, and their insincerity?
+
+Was there any real danger that these, His chosen ones, should be shaken by
+the demand for a sign from heaven? Did not Philip presently, when Christ
+spoke of seeing the Father, eagerly cry out that this, if it were granted,
+would suffice them? In these words he confessed the misgiving which
+haunted their minds, and the longing for a heavenly sign. And yet the
+essence of the vision of God was in the life and the love which they had
+failed to know. If they could not see Him in these, He must for ever
+remain invisible to them.
+
+We too require the same caution. When we long for miracles, neglecting
+those standing miracles of our faith, the gospel and the Church: when our
+reason is satisfied of a doctrine or a duty, and yet we remain irresolute,
+sighing for the impulse of some rare spiritual enlightenment or
+excitement, for a revival, or a mission, or an oration to lift us above
+ourselves, we are virtually asking to be shown what we already confess, to
+behold a sign, while we possess the evidence.
+
+And the only wisdom of the languid, irresolute will, which postpones
+action in hope that feeling may be deepened, is to pray. It is by the
+effort of communion with the unfelt, but confessed Reality above us, that
+healthy feeling is to be recovered.
+
+
+
+
+Men As Trees.
+
+
+    "And they come unto Bethsaida. And they bring to Him a blind man,
+    and beseech Him to touch him. And He took hold of the blind man by
+    the hand, and brought him out of the village; and when He had spit
+    on his eyes, and laid His hands upon him, He asked him, Seest thou
+    aught? And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I behold _them_
+    as trees, walking. Then again He laid His hands upon his eyes; and
+    he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw all things
+    clearly. And He sent him away to his home, saying, Do not even
+    enter into the village."--MARK viii. 22-26 (R.V.).
+
+
+When the disciples arrived at Bethsaida, they were met by the friends of a
+blind man, who besought Him to touch him. And this gave occasion to the
+most remarkable by far of all the progressive and tentative miracles, in
+which means were employed, and the result was gradually reached. The
+reasons for advancing to this cure by progressive stages have been much
+discussed. St. Chrysostom and many others have conjectured that the blind
+man had but little faith, since he neither found his own way to Jesus, nor
+pleaded his own cause, like Bartimaeus. Others brought him, and interceded
+for him. This may be so, but since he was clearly a consenting party, we
+can infer little from details which constitutional timidity would explain,
+or helplessness (for the resources of the blind are very various), or the
+zeal of friends or of paid servants, or the mere eagerness of a crowd,
+pushing him forward in desire to see a marvel.
+
+We cannot expect always to penetrate the motives which varied our
+Saviour's mode of action; it is enough that we can pretty clearly discern
+some principles which led to their variety. Many of them, including all
+the greatest, were wrought without instrumentality and without delay,
+showing His unrestricted and underived power. Others were gradual, and
+wrought by means. These connected His "signs" with nature and the God of
+nature; and they could be so watched as to silence many a cavil; and they
+exhibited, by the very disproportion of the means, the grandeur of the
+Worker. In this respect the successive stages of a miracle were like the
+subdivisions by which a skilful architect increases the effect of a
+_facade_ or an interior. In every case the means employed were such as to
+connect the result most intimately with the person as well as the will of
+Christ.
+
+It must be repeated also, that the need of secondary agents shows itself,
+only as the increasing wilfulness of Israel separates between Christ and
+the people. It is as if the first rush of generous and spontaneous power
+had been frozen by the chill of their ingratitude.
+
+Jesus again, as when healing the deaf and dumb, withdraws from idle
+curiosity. And we read, what is very impressive when we remember that any
+of the disciples could have been bidden to lead the blind man, that Jesus
+Himself drew Him by the hand out of the village. What would have been
+affectation in other cases was a graceful courtesy to the blind. And it
+reveals to us the hearty human benignity and condescension of Him Whom to
+see was to see the Father, that He should have clasped in His helpful hand
+the hand of a blind suppliant for His grace. Moistening his eyes from His
+own lips, and laying His hands upon him, so as to convey the utmost
+assurance of power actually exerted, He asked, Seest thou aught?
+
+The answer is very striking: it is such as the knowledge of that day could
+scarcely have imagined; and yet it is in the closest accord with later
+scientific discovery. What we call the act of vision is really a two-fold
+process; there is in it the report of the nerves to the brain, and also an
+inference, drawn by the mind, which previous experience has educated to
+understand what that report implies. For want of such experience, an
+infant thinks the moon as near him as the lamp, and reaches out for it.
+And when Christian science does its Master's work by opening the eyes of
+men who have been born blind, they do not know at first what appearances
+belong to globes and what to flat and square objects. It is certain that
+every image conveyed to the brain reaches it upside down, and is corrected
+there. When Jesus then restored a blind man to the perfect enjoyment of
+effective intelligent vision, He wrought a double miracle; one which
+instructed the intelligence of the blind man as well as opened his eyes.
+This was utterly unknown to that age. But the scepticism of our century
+would complain that to open the eyes was not enough, and that such a
+miracle would have left the man perplexed; and it would refuse to accept
+narratives which took no account of this difficulty, but that the cavil is
+anticipated. The miracle now before us refutes it in advance, for it
+recognises, what no spectator and no early reader of the marvel could have
+understood, the middle stage, when sight is gained but is still
+uncomprehended and ineffective. The process is shown as well as the
+completed work. Only by their motion could he at first distinguish living
+creatures from lifeless things of far greater bulk. "He looked up," (mark
+this picturesque detail,) "and said, I see men; for I behold them as
+trees, walking."
+
+But Jesus leaves no unfinished work: "Then again laid He His hands upon
+his eyes, and he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw all things
+clearly."
+
+In this narrative there is a deep significance. That vision, forfeited
+until grace restores it, by which we look at the things which are not
+seen, is not always quite restored at once. We are conscious of great
+perplexity, obscurity and confusion. But a real work of Christ may have
+begun amid much that is imperfect, much that is even erroneous. And the
+path of the just is often a haze and twilight at the first, yet is its
+light real, and one that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
+
+
+
+
+The Confession And The Warning.
+
+
+    "And Jesus went forth, and His disciples, into the villages of
+    Caesarea Philippi: and in the way He asked His disciples, saying
+    unto them, Who do men say that I am? And they told Him, saying,
+    John the Baptist: and others, Elijah; but others, One of the
+    prophets. And He asked them, But Who say ye that I am? Peter
+    answereth and saith unto Him, Thou art the Christ. And He charged
+    them that they should tell no man of Him. And He began to teach
+    them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected
+    by the elders, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be
+    killed, and after three days rise again. And He spake the saying
+    openly."--MARK viii. 27-32 (R.V.).
+
+
+We have now reached an important stage in the Gospel narrative, the
+comparative withdrawal from evangelistic effort, and the preparation of
+the disciples for an approaching tragedy. We find them in the wild country
+to the north of the Lake of Galilee, and even as far withdrawn as to the
+neighbourhood of the sources of the Jordan. Not without a deliberate
+intention has Jesus led them thither. He wishes them to realise their
+separation. He will fix upon their consciousness the failure of the world
+to comprehend Him, and give them the opportunity either to acknowledge
+Him, or sink back to the lower level of the crowd.
+
+This is what interests St. Mark; and it is worthy of notice that he, the
+friend of Peter, mentions not the special honour bestowed upon him by
+Christ, nor the first utterance of the memorable words "My Church."
+
+"Who do men say that I am?" Jesus asked. The answer would tell of
+acceptance or rejection, the success or failure of His ministry, regarded
+in itself, and apart from ultimate issues unknown to mortals. From this
+point of view it had very plainly failed. At the beginning there was a
+clear hope that this was He that should come, the Son of David, the Holy
+One of God. But now the pitch of men's expectation was lowered. Some said,
+John the Baptist, risen from the dead, as Herod feared; others spoke of
+Elijah, who was to come before the great and notable day of the Lord; in
+the sadness of His later days some had begun to see a resemblance to
+Jeremiah, lamenting the ruin of his nation; and others fancied a
+resemblance to various of the prophets. Beyond this the apostles confessed
+that men were not known to go. Their enthusiasm had cooled, almost as
+rapidly as in the triumphal procession, where they who blessed both Him,
+and "the kingdom that cometh," no sooner felt the chill of contact with
+the priestly faction, than their confession dwindled into "This is Jesus,
+the prophet of Nazareth." "But Who say ye that I am?" He added; and it
+depended on the answer whether or not there should prove to be any solid
+foundation, any rock, on which to build His Church. Much difference, much
+error may be tolerated there, but on one subject there must be no
+hesitation. To make Him only a prophet among others, to honour Him even as
+the first among the teachers of mankind, is to empty His life of its
+meaning, His death of its efficacy, and His Church of its authority. And
+yet the danger was real, as we may see by the fervent blessing (unrecorded
+in our Gospel) which the right answer won. For it was no longer the bright
+morning of His career, when all bare Him witness and wondered; the noon
+was over now, and the evening shadows were heavy and lowering. To confess
+Him then was to have learned what flesh and blood could not reveal.
+
+But Peter did not hesitate. In answer to the question, "Who say _ye_? Is
+your judgment like the the world's?" He does not reply, "We believe, we
+say," but with all the vigour of a mind at rest, "Thou art the Christ;"
+that is not even a subject of discussion: the fact is so.
+
+Here one pauses to admire the spirit of the disciples, so unjustly treated
+in popular exposition because they were but human, because there were
+dangers which could appal them, and because the course of providence was
+designed to teach them how weak is the loftiest human virtue.
+Nevertheless, they could part company with all they had been taught to
+reverence and with the unanimous opinion of their native land, they could
+watch the slow fading out of public enthusiasm, and continue faithful,
+because they knew and revered the Divine life, and the glory which was
+hidden from the wise and prudent.
+
+The confession of Peter is variously stated in the Gospels. St. Matthew
+wrote for Jews, familiar with the notion of a merely human Christ, and St.
+Luke for mixed Churches. Therefore the first Gospel gives the explicit
+avowal not only of Messiahship, but of divinity; and the third Gospel
+implies this. "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God"--"the Christ
+of God." But St. Mark wrote for Gentiles, whose first and only notion of
+the Messiah was derived from Christian sources, and steeped in Christian
+attributes, so that, for their intelligence, all the great avowal was
+implied in the title itself, Thou art the Christ. Yet it is instructive to
+see men insisting on the difference, and even exaggerating it, who know
+that this Gospel opens with an assertion of the Divine sonship of Jesus,
+and whose theory is that its author worked with the Gospel of St. Matthew
+before his eyes. How then, or why, do they suppose the confession to have
+been weakened?
+
+This foundation of His Church being secured, His Divine Messiahship being
+confessed in the face of an unbelieving world, Jesus lost no time in
+leading His apostles forward. They were forbidden to tell any man of Him:
+the vain hope was to be absolutely suppressed of winning the people to
+confess their king. The effort would only make it harder for themselves to
+accept that stern truth which they were now to learn, that His matchless
+royalty was to be won by matchless suffering. Never hitherto had Jesus
+proclaimed this truth, as He now did, in so many words. It had been,
+indeed, the secret spring of many of His sayings; and we ought to mark
+what loving ingenuity was lavished upon the task of gradually preparing
+them for the dread shock of this announcement. The Bridegroom was to be
+taken away from them, and then they should fast. The temple of His body
+should be destroyed, and in three days reared again. The blood of all the
+slaughtered prophets was to come upon this generation. It should suffice
+them when persecuted unto death, that the disciple was as His Master. It
+was still a plainer intimation when He said, that to follow Him was to
+take up a cross. His flesh was promised to them for meat and His blood for
+drink. (Chap. ii. 20; John ii. 19; Luke xi. 50; Matt. x. 21, 25; 38; John
+vi. 54.) Such intimations Jesus had already given them, and doubtless many
+a cold shadow, many a dire misgiving had crept over their sunny hopes. But
+these it had been possible to explain away, and the effort, the attitude
+of mental antagonism thus forced upon them, would make the grief more
+bitter, the gloom more deadly, when Jesus spoke openly the saying,
+thenceforth so frequently repeated, that He must suffer keenly, be
+rejected formally by the chiefs of His creed and nation, and be killed.
+When He recurs to the subject (ix. 31), He adds the horror of being
+"delivered into the hands of men." In the tenth chapter we find Him
+setting His face toward the city outside which a prophet could not perish,
+with such fixed purpose and awful consecration in His bearing that His
+followers were amazed and afraid. And then He reveals the complicity of
+the Gentiles, who shall mock and spit upon and scourge and kill Him.
+
+But in every case, without exception, He announced that on the third day
+He should arise again. For neither was He Himself sustained by a sullen
+and stoical submission to the worst, nor did He seek so to instruct His
+followers. It was for the joy that was set before Him that He endured the
+cross. And all the faithful who suffer with Him shall also reign together
+with Him, and are instructed to press toward the mark for the prize of
+their high calling. For we are saved by hope.
+
+But now, contrast with the utmost courage of the martyrs, who braved the
+worst, when it emerged at the last suddenly from the veil which mercifully
+hides our future, and which hope can always gild with starry pictures,
+this courage that looked steadily forward, disguising nothing, hoping for
+no escape, living through all the agony so long before it came, seeing His
+wounds in the breaking of bread, and His blood when wine was poured.
+Consider how marvellous was the love, which met with no real sympathy, nor
+even comprehension, as He spoke such dreadful words, and forced Himself to
+repeat what must have shaken the barb He carried in His heart, that
+by-and-by His followers might be somewhat helped by remembering that He
+had told them.
+
+And yet again, consider how immediately the doctrine of His suffering
+follows upon the confession of His Christhood, and judge whether the
+crucifixion was merely a painful incident, the sad close of a noble life
+and a pure ministry, or in itself a necessary and cardinal event, fraught
+with transcendent issues.
+
+
+
+
+The Rebuke Of Peter.
+
+
+    "And He spake the saying openly. And Peter took Him, and began to
+    rebuke Him." ... "And He said unto them, Verily I say unto you,
+    There be some here of them that stand by, which shall in no wise
+    taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with
+    power."--MARK viii. 32-ix. 1 (R.V.).
+
+
+The doctrine of a suffering Messiah was strange in the time of Jesus. And
+to the warm-hearted apostle the announcement that his beloved Master
+should endure a shameful death was keenly painful. Moreover, what had just
+passed made it specially unwelcome then. Jesus had accepted and applauded
+a confession which implied all honour. He had promised to build a new
+Church upon a rock; and claimed, as His to give away, the keys of the
+kingdom of heaven. Hopes were thus excited which could not brook His stern
+repression; and the career which the apostle promised himself was very
+unlike that defence of a lost cause, and a persecuted and martyred leader,
+which now threatened him. The rebuke of Jesus clearly warns Peter, that he
+had miscalculated his own prospect as well as that of his Lord, and that
+he must prepare for the burden of a cross. Above all, it is plain that
+Peter was intoxicated by the great position just assigned to him, and
+allowed himself an utterly strange freedom of interference with his
+Master's plans. He "took Him and began to rebuke Him," evidently drawing
+Him aside for the purpose, since Jesus "turned about" in order to see the
+disciples whom He had just addressed. Thus our narrative implies that
+commission of the keys to him which it omits to mention, and we learn how
+absurd is the infidel contention that each evangelist was ignorant of all
+that he did not record. Did the appeal against those gloomy forebodings of
+Jesus, the protest that such evil must not be, the refusal to recognise a
+prophecy in His fears, awaken any answer in the sinless heart? Sympathy
+was not there, nor approval, nor any shade of readiness to yield. But
+innocent human desire for escape, the love of life, horror of His fate,
+more intense as it vibrated in the apostle's shaken voice, these He
+assuredly felt. For He tells us in so many words that Peter was a
+stumbling-block to Him, although He, walking in the clear day, stumbled
+not. Jesus, let us repeat it again and again, endured not like a Stoic,
+deadening the natural impulses of humanity. Whatever outraged His tender
+and perfect nature was not less dreadful to Him than to us; it was much
+more so, because His sensibilities were unblunted and exquisitely strung.
+At every thought of what lay before Him, his soul shuddered like a rudely
+touched instrument of most delicate structure. And it was necessary that
+He should throw back the temptation with indignation and even vehemence,
+with the rebuke of heaven set against the presumptuous rebuke of flesh,
+"Get thee behind Me ... for thou art mindful not of the things of God, but
+the things of men."
+
+But what shall we say to the hard word, "Satan"? Assuredly Peter, who
+remained faithful to Him, did not take it for an outbreak of bitterness,
+an exaggerated epithet of unbridled and undisciplined resentment. The very
+time occupied in looking around, the "circumspection" which was shown,
+while it gave emphasis, removed passion from the saying.
+
+Peter would therefore understand that Jesus heard, in his voice, the
+prompting of the great tempter, to whom He had once already spoken the
+same words. He would be warned that soft and indulgent sentiment, while
+seeming kind, may become the very snare of the destroyer.
+
+And the strong word which sobered him will continue to be a warning to the
+end of time.
+
+When love of ease or worldly prospects would lead us to discourage the
+self-devotion, and repress the zeal of any convert; when toil or
+liberality beyond the recognised level seems a thing to discountenance,
+not because it is perhaps misguided, but only because it is exceptional;
+when, for a brother or a son, we are tempted to prefer an easy and
+prosperous life rather than a fruitful but stern and even perilous course,
+then we are in the same danger as Peter of becoming the mouthpiece of the
+Evil One.
+
+Danger and hardness are not to be chosen for their own sake; but to reject
+a noble vocation, because these are in the way, is to mind not the things
+of God but the things of men. And yet the temptation is one from which men
+are never free, and which intrudes into what seems most holy. It dared to
+assail Jesus; and it is most perilous still, because it often speaks to
+us, as then to Him, through compassionate and loving lips.
+
+But now the Lord calls to Himself all the multitude, and lays down the
+rule by which discipleship must to the end be regulated.
+
+The inflexible law is, that every follower of Jesus must deny himself and
+take up his cross. It is not said, Let him devise some harsh and ingenious
+instrument of self-torture: wanton self-torture is cruelty, and is often
+due to the soul's readiness rather to endure any other suffering than that
+which God assigns. Nor is it said, Let him take up My cross, for the
+burden Christ bore devolves upon no other: the fight He fought is over.
+
+But it speaks of some cross allotted, known, but not yet accepted, some
+lowly form of suffering, passive or active, against which nature pleads,
+as Jesus heard His own nature pleading when Peter spoke. In taking up this
+cross we must deny self, for it will refuse the dreadful burden. What it
+is, no man can tell his neighbour, for often what seems a fatal besetment
+is but a symptom and not the true disease; and the angry man's
+irritability, and the drunkard's resort to stimulants, are due to remorse
+and self-reproach for a deeper-hidden evil gnawing the spiritual life
+away. But the man himself knows it. Our exhortations miss the mark when we
+bid him reform in this direction or in that, but conscience does not err;
+and he well discerns the effort or the renouncement, hateful to him as the
+very cross itself, by which alone he can enter into life.
+
+To him, that life seems death, the death of all for which he cares to
+live, being indeed the death of selfishness. But from the beginning, when
+God in Eden set a barrier against lawless appetite, it was announced that
+the seeming life of self-indulgence and of disobedience was really death.
+In the day when Adam ate of the forbidden fruit he surely died. And thus
+our Lord declared that whosoever is resolved to save his life--the life of
+wayward, isolated selfishness--he shall lose all its reality, the sap, the
+sweetness, and the glow of it. And whosoever is content to lose all this
+for the sake of the Great Cause, the cause of Jesus and His gospel, he
+shall save it.
+
+It was thus that the great apostle was crucified with Christ, yet lived,
+and yet no longer he, for Christ Himself inspired in his breast a nobler
+and deeper life than that which he had lost, for Jesus and the gospel. The
+world knows, as the Church does, how much superior is self-devotion to
+self-indulgence, and that one crowded hour of glorious life is worth an
+age without a name. Its imagination is not inflamed by the picture of
+indolence and luxury, but by resolute and victorious effort. But it knows
+not how to master the rebellious senses, nor how to insure victory in the
+struggle, nor how to bestow upon the masses, plunged in their monotonous
+toils, the rapture of triumphant strife. That can only be done by
+revealing to them the spiritual responsibilities of life, and the beauty
+of His love Who calls the humblest to walk in His own sacred footsteps.
+
+Very striking is the moderation of Jesus, Who does not refuse discipleship
+to self-seeking wishes but only to the self-seeking will, in which wishes
+have ripened into choice, nor does He demand that we should welcome the
+loss of the inferior life, but only that we should accept it. He can be
+touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
+
+And striking also is this, that He condemns not the vicious life only: not
+alone the man whose desires are sensual and depraved; but all who live for
+self. No matter how refined and artistic the personal ambitions be, to
+devote ourselves to them is to lose the reality of life, it is to become
+querulous or jealous or vain or forgetful of the claims of other men, or
+scornful of the crowd. Not self-culture but self-sacrifice is the vocation
+of the child of God.
+
+Many people speak as if this text bade us sacrifice the present life in
+hope of gaining another life beyond the grave. That is apparently the
+common notion of saving our "souls." But Jesus used one word for the
+"life" renounced and gained. He spoke indeed of saving it unto life
+eternal, but His hearers were men who trusted that they had eternal life,
+not that it was a far-off aspiration (John vi. 47, 54).
+
+And it is doubtless in the same sense, thinking of the freshness and joy
+which we sacrifice for worldliness, and how sadly and soon we are
+disillusionised, that He went on to ask, What shall it profit a man to
+gain the whole world and forfeit His life? Or with what price shall he buy
+it back when he discovers his error? But that discovery is too often
+postponed beyond the horizon of mortality. As one desire proves futile,
+another catches the eye, and somewhat excites again the often baffled
+hope. But the day shall come when the last self-deception shall be at an
+end. The cross of the Son of man, that type of all noble sacrifice, shall
+then be replaced by the glory of His Father with the holy angels; and
+ignoble compromise, aware of Jesus and His words, yet ashamed of them in a
+vicious and self-indulgent age, shall in turn endure His averted face.
+What price shall they offer then, to buy back what they have forfeited?
+
+Men who were standing there should see the beginning of the end, the
+approach of the kingdom of God with power, in the fall of Jerusalem, and
+the removal of the Hebrew candlestick out of its place.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+
+
+The Transfiguration.
+
+
+    "And after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, and
+    John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by
+    themselves: and He was transfigured before them: and His garments
+    became glistering, exceeding white: so as no fuller on earth can
+    whiten them. And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses: and
+    they were talking with Jesus. And Peter answered and saith to
+    Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three
+    tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
+    For He wist not what to answer; for they became sore afraid. And
+    there came a cloud overshadowing them: and there came a voice out
+    of the cloud, This is My beloved Son: hear ye Him. And suddenly
+    looking round about, they saw no one any more, save Jesus only
+    with themselves."--MARK ix. 2-8 (R.V.).
+
+
+The Transfiguration is an event without a parallel in all the story of our
+Lord. This breaking forth of unearthly splendour in a life of
+self-negation, this miracle wrought without suffering to be relieved or
+want supplied, and in which He seems to be not the Giver of Help but the
+Receiver of Glory, arrests our attention less by the greatness of the
+marvel than by its loneliness.
+
+But if myth or legend had to do with the making of our Gospels, we should
+have had wonders enough which bless no suppliant, but only crown the
+sacred head with laurels. They are as plentiful in the false Gospels as in
+the later stories of Mahomed or Gautama. Can we find a sufficient
+difference between these romantic tales and this memorable event--causes
+enough to lead up to it, and ends enough for it to serve?
+
+An answer is hinted by the stress laid in all three narratives upon the
+date of the Transfiguration. It was "after six days" according to the
+first two. St. Luke reckons the broken portions of the first day and the
+last, and makes it "about eight days after these sayings." A week has
+passed since the solemn announcement that their Lord was journeying to a
+cruel death, that self pity was discordant with the things of God, that
+all His followers must in spirit endure the cross, that life was to be won
+by losing it. Of that week no action is recorded, and we may well believe
+that it was spent in profound searchings of heart. The thief Iscariot
+would more than ever be estranged. The rest would aspire and struggle and
+recoil, and explain away His words in such strange ways, as when they
+presently failed to understand what the rising again from the dead should
+mean (ver. 10). But in the deep heart of Jesus there was peace, the same
+which He bequeathed to all His followers, the perfect calm of an
+absolutely surrendered will. He had made the dread announcement and
+rejected the insidious appeal; the sacrifice was already accomplished in
+his inner self, and the word spoken, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. We
+must steadily resist the notion that the Transfiguration was required to
+confirm His consecration; or, after six days had passed since He bade
+Satan get behind Him, to complete and perfect His decision. Yet doubtless
+it had its meaning for Him also. Such times of more than heroic
+self-devotion make large demands upon the vital energies. And He whom the
+angels more than once sustained, now sought refreshment in the pure air
+and solemn silence of the hills, and above all in communion with His
+Father, since we read in St. Luke that He went up to pray. Who shall say
+how far-reaching, how all-embracing such a prayer would be? What age, what
+race may not hope to have shared its intercessions, remembering how He
+once expressly prayed not for His immediate followers alone. But we need
+not doubt that now, as in the Garden, He prayed also for Himself, and for
+support in the approaching death-struggle. And the Twelve, so keenly
+tried, would be especially remembered in this season. And even among these
+there would be distinctions; for we know His manner, we remember that when
+Satan claimed to have them all, Jesus prayed especially for Peter, because
+his conversion would strengthen his brethren. Now this principle of
+benefit to all through the selection of the fittest, explains why three
+were chosen to be the eye-witnesses of His glory. If the others had been
+there, perhaps they would have been led away into millennarian day-dreams.
+Perhaps the worldly aspirations of Judas, thus inflamed, would have spread
+far. Perhaps they would have murmured against that return to common life,
+which St. Peter was so anxious to postpone. Perhaps even the chosen three
+were only saved from intoxicating and delusive hopes by the sobering
+knowledge that what they had seen was to remain a secret until some
+intervening and mysterious event. The unripeness of the others for special
+revelations was abundantly shown, on the morrow, by their failure to cast
+out a devil. It was enough that their leaders should have this grand
+confirmation of their faith. There was among them, henceforth, a secret
+fountain of encouragement and trust, amid the darkest circumstances. The
+panic in which all forsook Him might have been final, but for this vision
+of His glory. For it is noteworthy that these three are the foremost
+afterwards in sincere though frail devotion: one offering to die with Him,
+and the others desiring to drink of His cup and to be baptized with His
+baptism.
+
+While Jesus prays for them, He is Himself made the source of their
+revival. He had lately promised that they who willed to lose their life
+should find it unto life eternal. And now, in Him who had perfectly so
+willed, they beheld the eternal glory beaming forth, until His very
+garments were steeped in light. There is no need of proof that the spirit
+has power over the body; the question is only of degree. Vile passions can
+permanently degrade human comeliness. And there is a beauty beyond that of
+line or colour, seen in vivid hours of emotion, on the features of a
+mother beside her sleeping babe, of an orator when his soul burns within
+him, of a martyr when his face is as the face of an angel, and often
+making fairer than youthful bloom the old age that has suffered long and
+been kind. These help us, however faintly, to believe that there is a
+spiritual body, and that we may yet bear the image of the heavenly. And so
+once, if only once, it is given to sinful men to see how a perfect spirit
+can illuminate its fleshly tabernacle, as a flame illuminates a lamp, and
+what the life is like in which self-crucifixion issues. In this hour of
+rapt devotion His body was steeped in the splendour which was natural to
+holiness, and which would never have grown dim but that the great
+sacrifice had still to be carried out in action. We shall best think of
+the glories of transfiguration not as poured over Jesus, but as a
+revelation from within. Moreover, while they gaze, the conquering chiefs
+of the Old Testament approach the Man of Sorrows. Because the spirit of
+the hour is that of self-devotion, they see not Abraham, the prosperous
+friend of God, nor Isaiah whose burning words befit the lips that were
+touched by fire from an unearthly altar, but the heroic law-giver and the
+lion-hearted prophet, the typical champions of the ancient dispensation.
+Elijah had not seen death; a majestic obscurity veiled the ashes of Moses
+from excess of honour; yet these were not offended by the cross which
+tried so cruelly the faith of the apostles. They spoke of His decease, and
+their word seems to have lingered in the narrative as strangely
+appropriate to one of the speakers; it is Christ's "exodus."(11)
+
+But St. Mark does not linger over this detail, nor mention the drowsiness
+with which they struggled; he leans all the weight of his vivid narrative
+upon one great fact, the evidence now given of our Lord's absolute
+supremacy.
+
+For, at this juncture Peter interposed. He "answered," a phrase which
+points to his consciousness that he was no unconcerned bystander, that the
+vision was in some degree addressed to him and his companions. But he
+answers at random, and like a man distraught. "Lord, it is good for us to
+be here," as if it were not always good to be where Jesus led, even though
+men should bear a cross to follow Him. Intoxicated by the joy of seeing
+the King in His beauty, and doubtless by the revulsion of new hope in the
+stead of his dolorous forebodings, he proposes to linger there. He will
+have more than is granted, just as, when Jesus washed his feet, he said
+"not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." And if this might be,
+it was fitting that these superhuman personages should have tabernacles
+made for them. No doubt the assertion that he wist not what to say, bears
+specially upon this strange offer to shelter glorified bodies from the
+night air, and to provide for each a place of separate repose. The words
+are incoherent, but they are quite natural from one who has so impulsively
+begun to speak that now he must talk on, because he knows not how to stop.
+They are the words of the very Peter whose actions we know so well. As he
+formerly walked upon the sea, before considering how boisterous were the
+waves, and would soon afterwards smite with the sword, and risk himself in
+the High Priest's palace, without seeing his way through either adventure,
+exactly so in this bewildering presence he ventures into a sentence
+without knowing how to close it.
+
+Now this perfect accuracy of character, so dramatic and yet so unaffected,
+is evidence of the truth of this great miracle. To a frank student who
+knows human nature, it is a very admirable evidence. To one who knows how
+clumsily such effects are produced by all but the greatest masters of
+creative literature, it is almost decisive.
+
+In speaking thus, he has lowered his Master to the level of the others,
+unconscious that Moses and Elijah were only attendants upon Jesus, who
+have come from heaven because He is upon earth, and who speak not of their
+achievements but of His sufferings. If Peter knew it, the hour had struck
+when their work, the law of Moses and the utterances of the prophets whom
+Elijah represented, should cease to be the chief impulse in religion, and
+without being destroyed, should be "fulfilled," and absorbed in a new
+system. He was there to whom Moses in the law, and the prophets bore
+witness, and in His presence they had no glory by reason of the glory that
+excelleth. Yet Peter would fain build equal tabernacles for all alike.
+
+Now St. Luke tells us that he interposed just when they were departing,
+and apparently in the hope of staying them. But all the narratives convey
+a strong impression that his words hastened their disappearance, and
+decided the manner of it. For while he yet spake, as if all the vision
+were eclipsed on being thus misunderstood, a cloud swept over the
+three--bright, yet overshadowing them--and the voice of God proclaimed their
+Lord to be His beloved Son (not faithful only, like Moses, as a steward
+over the house), and bade them, instead of desiring to arrest the flight
+of rival teachers, hear Him.
+
+Too often Christian souls err after the same fashion. We cling to
+authoritative teachers, familiar ordinances, and traditional views, good
+it may be, and even divinely given, as if they were not intended wholly to
+lead us up to Christ. And in many a spiritual eclipse, from many a cloud
+which the heart fears to enter, the great lesson resounds through the
+conscience of the believer, Hear Him!
+
+Did the words remind Peter how he had lately begun to rebuke his Lord? Did
+the visible glory, the ministration of blessed spirits and the voice of
+God, teach him henceforth to hear and to submit? Alas, he could again
+contradict Jesus, and say Thou shalt never wash my feet. I never will deny
+Thee. And we, who wonder and blame him, as easily forget what we are
+taught.
+
+Let it be observed that the miraculous and Divine Voice reveals nothing
+new to them. For the words, This is My beloved Son, and also their drift
+in raising Him above all rivalry, were involved in the recent confession
+of this very Peter that He was neither Elijah nor one of the prophets, but
+the Son of the Living God. So true is it that we may receive a truth into
+our creed, and even apprehend it with such vital faith as makes us
+"blessed," long before it grasps and subdues our nature, and saturates the
+obscure regions where impulse and excitement are controlled. What we all
+need most is not clearer and sounder views, but the bringing of our
+thoughts into subjection to the mind of Jesus.
+
+
+
+
+The Descent From The Mount.
+
+
+    "And as they were coming down from the mountain, He charged them
+    that they should tell no man what things they had seen, save when
+    the Son of man should have risen again from the dead. And they
+    kept the saying, questioning among themselves what the rising
+    again from the dead should mean. And they asked Him, saying, The
+    scribes say that Elijah must first come. And He said unto them,
+    Elijah indeed cometh first, and restoreth all things: and how is
+    it written of the Son of man, that He should suffer many things
+    and be set at nought? But I say unto you, that Elijah is come, and
+    they have also done unto him whatsoever they listed, even as it is
+    written of Him."--MARK ix. 9-13 (R.V.).
+
+
+In what state of mind did the apostles return from beholding the glory of
+the Lord, and His ministers from another world? They seem to have been
+excited, demonstrative, ready to blaze abroad the wonderful event which
+ought to put an end to all men's doubts.
+
+They would have been bitterly disappointed, if they had prematurely
+exposed their experience to ridicule, cross-examination, conjectural
+theories, and all the controversy which reduces facts to logical form, but
+strips them of their freshness and vitality. In the first age as in the
+nineteenth, it was possible to be witnesses for the Lord without exposing
+to coarse and irreverent handling all the delicate and secret experiences
+of the soul with Christ.
+
+Therefore Jesus charged them that they should tell no man. Silence would
+force back the impression upon the depths of their own spirits, and spread
+its roots under the surface there.
+
+Nor was it right to make such a startling demand upon the faith of others
+before public evidence had been given, enough to make scepticism
+blameworthy. His resurrection from the dead would suffice to unseal their
+lips. And the experience of all the Church has justified that decision.
+The resurrection is, in fact, the centre of all the miraculous narratives,
+the sun which keeps them in their orbit. Some of them, as isolated events,
+might have failed to challenge credence. But authority and sanction are
+given to all the rest by this great and publicly attested marvel, which
+has modified history, and the denial of which makes history at once
+untrustworthy and incoherent. When Jesus rose from the dead, the whole
+significance of His life and its events was deepened.
+
+This mention of the resurrection called them away from pleasant
+day-dreams, by reminding them that their Master was to die. For Him there
+was no illusion. Coming back from the light and voices of heaven, the
+cross before Him was as visible as ever to His undazzled eyes, and He was
+still the sober and vigilant friend to warn them against false hopes. They
+however found means of explaining the unwelcome truth away. Various
+theories were discussed among them, what the rising from the dead should
+mean, what should be in fact the limit to their silence. This very
+perplexity, and the chill upon their hopes, aided them to keep the matter
+close.
+
+One hope was too strong not to be at least hinted to Jesus. They had just
+seen Elias. Surely they were right in expecting his interference, as the
+scribes had taught. Instead of a lonely road pursued by the Messiah to a
+painful death, should not that great prophet come as a forerunner and
+restore all things? How then was murderous opposition possible?
+
+And Jesus answered that one day this should come to pass. The herald
+should indeed reconcile all hearts, before the great and notable day of
+the Lord come. But for the present time there was another question. That
+promise to which they clung, was it their only light upon futurity? Was
+not the assertion quite as plain that the Son of Man should suffer many
+things and be set at nought? So far was Jesus from that state of mind in
+which men buoy themselves up with false hope. No apparent prophecy, no
+splendid vision, deceived His unerring insight. And yet no despair
+arrested His energies for one hour.
+
+But, He added, Elias had already been offered to this generation in vain;
+they had done to him as they listed. They had re-enacted what history
+recorded of his life on earth.
+
+Then a veil dropped from the disciples' eyes. They recognised the dweller
+in lonely places, the man of hairy garment and ascetic life, persecuted by
+a feeble tyrant who cowered before his rebuke, and by the deadlier hatred
+of an adulterous queen. They saw how the very name of Elias raised a
+probability that the second prophet should be treated "as it is written
+of" the first.
+
+If then they had so strangely misjudged the preparation of His way, what
+might they not apprehend of the issue? So should also the Son of man
+suffer of them.
+
+Do we wonder that they had not hitherto recognised the prophet? Perhaps,
+when all is made clear at last, we shall wonder more at our own refusals
+of reverence, our blindness to the meaning of noble lives, our moderate
+and qualified respect for men of whom the world is not worthy.
+
+How much solid greatness would some of us overlook, if it went with an
+unpolished and unattractive exterior? Now the Baptist was a rude and
+abrupt person, of little culture, unwelcome in kings' houses. Yet no
+greater had been born of woman.
+
+
+
+
+The Demoniac Boy.
+
+
+    "And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great multitude
+    about them, and scribes questioning with them. And straightway all
+    the multitude, when they saw Him, were greatly amazed, and running
+    to Him saluted Him. And He asked them, What question ye with them?
+    And one of the multitude answered Him, Master, I brought unto Thee
+    my son, which hath a dumb spirit; and wheresoever it taketh him,
+    it dasheth him down: and he foameth, and grindeth his teeth, and
+    pineth away: and I spake to Thy disciples that they should cast it
+    out; and they were not able. And He answered them and saith, O
+    faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall
+    I bear with you? bring him unto Me. And they brought him unto Him:
+    and when He saw him, straightway the spirit tare him grievously;
+    and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. And He asked his
+    father, How long time is it since this hath come unto him? And he
+    said, From a child. And oft-times it hath cast him both into the
+    fire and into the waters, to destroy him: but if Thou canst do
+    anything, have compassion on us, and help us. And Jesus said unto
+    him, If thou canst! All things are possible to him that believeth.
+    Straightway the father of the child cried out, and said, I
+    believe; help Thou mine unbelief. And when Jesus saw that a
+    multitude came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit,
+    saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee, come
+    out of him, and enter no more into him. And having cried out, and
+    torn him much, he came out: and _the child_ became as one dead;
+    insomuch that the more part said, He is dead. But Jesus took Him
+    by the hand, and raised him up; and he arose! And when He was come
+    into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, _saying_, We
+    could not cast it out. And He said unto them, This kind can come
+    out by nothing, save by prayer."--MARK ix. 14-29 (R.V.).
+
+
+Peter soon had striking evidence that it would not have been "good" for
+them to linger too long upon the mountain. And our Lord was recalled with
+painful abruptness from the glories of transfiguration to the scepticism
+of scribes, the failure and shame of disciples, and the triumph of the
+powers of evil.
+
+To the Twelve He had explicitly given authority over devils, and even the
+Seventy, venturing by faith to cast them out, had told Him of their
+success with joy. But now, in the sorrow and fear of these latter days,
+deprived of their Master and of their own foremost three, oppressed with
+gloomy forebodings, and infected with the worldliness which fails to pray,
+the nine had striven in vain. It is the only distinct repulse recorded,
+and the scribes attacked them keenly. Where was their Master at this
+crisis? Did not they profess equally to have the necessary power? Here was
+a test, and some failed, and the others did not present themselves. We can
+imagine the miserable scene, contrasting piteously with what passed on the
+summit of the hill. And in the centre was an agonized father and a
+tortured lad.
+
+At this moment the crowds, profoundly moved, rushed to meet the Lord, and
+on seeing Him, became aware that failure was at an end. Perhaps the
+exceeding brightness lingered still upon His face; perhaps it was but the
+unearthly and victorious calm of His consecration, visible in His mien;
+what is certain is that they were greatly amazed, and ran to Him and did
+homage.
+
+Jesus at once challenged a renewal of the attack which had been too much
+for His apostles. "What question ye with them?" But awe has fallen upon
+the scribes also, and misery is left to tell its own tale. Their attack by
+preference upon the disciples is very natural, and it by no means stands
+alone. They did not ask Him, but His followers, why He ate and drank with
+sinners, nor whether He paid the half-shekel (Mark ii. 16; Matt. xvii.
+24). When they did complain to the Master Himself, it was commonly of some
+fault in His disciples: Why do Thy disciples fast not? Why they do on the
+Sabbath day that which is not lawful? Why do they eat with defiled hands?
+(Mark ii. 18, 24; vii. 5). Their censures of Himself were usually muttered
+or silent murmurings, which He discerned, as when He forgave the sins of
+the palsied man; when the Pharisee marvelled that He had not washed His
+hands; when He accepted the homage of the sinful woman, and again when He
+spoke her pardon (Mark ii. 8; Luke xi. 38; vii. 39-49). When He healed the
+woman whom a spirit of infirmity had bent down for eighteen years, the
+ruler of the synagogue spoke to the people, without venturing to address
+Jesus. (Luke xiii. 14).
+
+It is important to observe such indications, unobtrusive, and related by
+various evangelists, of the majesty and impressiveness which surrounded
+our Lord, and awed even His bitter foes.
+
+The silence is broken by an unhappy father, who had been the centre of the
+group, but whom the abrupt movement to meet Jesus has merged in the crowd
+again. The case of his son is among those which prove that demoniacal
+possession did not imply the exceptional guilt of its victims, for though
+still young, he has suffered long. The demon which afflicts him is dumb;
+it works in the guise of epilepsy, and as a disease it is affected by the
+changes of the moon; a malicious design is visible in frequent falls into
+fire and water, to destroy him. The father had sought Jesus with him, and
+since He was absent had appealed to His followers, but in vain. Some
+consequent injury to his own faith, clearly implied in what follows, may
+possibly be detected already, in the absence of any further petition, and
+in the cold epithet, "Teacher," which he employs.
+
+Even as an evidence the answer of Jesus is remarkable, being such as human
+ingenuity would not have invented, nor the legendary spirit have
+conceived. It would have seemed natural that He should hasten to vindicate
+His claims and expose the folly of the scribes, or else have reproached
+His followers for the failure which had compromised Him.
+
+But the scribes were entirely set aside from the moment when the Good
+Physician was invoked by a bleeding heart. Yet the physical trouble is
+dealt with deliberately, not in haste, as by one whose mastery is assured.
+The passing shadow which has fallen on His cause only concerns Him as a
+part of the heavy spiritual burden which oppresses Him, which this
+terrible scene so vividly exhibits.
+
+For the true importance of His words is this, that they reveal sufferings
+which are too often forgotten, and which few are pure enough even to
+comprehend. The prevalent evil weighed upon Him. And here the visible
+power of Satan, the hostility of the scribes, the failure of His own, the
+suspense and agitation of the crowd, all breathed the spirit of that evil
+age, alien and harsh to Him as an infected atmosphere. He blames none more
+than others; it is the "generation," so faithless and perverse, which
+forces Him to exclaim: "How long shall I be with you? how long shall I
+bear with you?" It is the cry of the pain of Jesus. It bids us to consider
+Him Who endured such contradiction of sinners, who were even sinners
+against Himself. So that the distress of Jesus was not that of a mere
+eye-witness of evil or sufferer by it. His priesthood established a closer
+and more agonizing connection between our Lord and the sins which tortured
+Him.
+
+Do the words startle us, with the suggestion of a limit to the forbearance
+of Jesus, well-nigh reached? There _was_ such a limit. The work of His
+messenger had been required, lest His coming should be to smite the world.
+His mind was the mind of God, and it is written, Kiss the Son, lest He be
+angry.
+
+Now if Jesus looked forward to shame and anguish with natural shrinking,
+we here perceive another aspect in which His coming Baptism of Blood was
+viewed, and we discover why He was straitened until it was accomplished.
+There is an intimate connection between this verse and His saying in St.
+John, "If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I go unto My Father."
+
+But swiftly the mind of Jesus recurs to the misery which awaits help; and
+He bids them bring the child to Him. Now the sweet influence of His
+presence would have soothed and mitigated any mere disease. It is to such
+influence that sceptical writers are wont to turn for an explanation, such
+as it is, of the works He wrought. But it was the reverse in cases of
+possession. There a wild sense of antagonism and revolt was wont to show
+itself. And we might learn that this was something more than epilepsy,
+even were it left doubtful otherwise, by the outburst of Satanic rage.
+When he saw Him, straightway the spirit convulsed him grievously, and he
+fell wallowing and foaming.
+
+Yet Jesus is neither hurried nor agitated. In not one of His miracles does
+precipitation, or mere impulse, mingle with His grave and self-contained
+compassion. He will question the scribes while the man with a withered
+hand awaits His help. He will rebuke the disciples before quelling the
+storm. At Nain He will touch the bier and arrest the bearers. When He
+feeds the multitude, He will first command a search for loaves. He will
+stand still and call Bartimaeus to Him. He will evoke, even by seeming
+harshness, the faith of the woman of Canaan. He will have the stone rolled
+away from the sepulchre of Lazarus. When He Himself rises, the
+grave-clothes are found folded up, and the napkin which bound His head
+laid in a place by itself, the last tribute of mortals to His mortality
+not being flung contemptuously aside. All His miracles are authenticated
+by the stamp of the same character--serene, not in haste nor tardy, since
+He saw the end from the beginning. In this case delay is necessary, to
+arouse the father, if only by interrogation, from his dull disappointment
+and hopelessness. He asks therefore "How long time is it since this came
+upon him?" and the answer shows that he was now at least a stripling, for
+he had suffered ever since he was a child. Then the unhappy man is swept
+away by his emotions: as he tells their sorrows, and thinks what a
+wretched life or miserable death lies before his son, he bursts into a
+passionate appeal. If Thou canst do anything, do this. Let pity for such
+misery, for the misery of father as well as child, evoke all Thy power to
+save. The form is more disrespectful than the substance of his cry; its
+very vehemence is evidence that some hope is working in his breast; and
+there is more real trust in its wild urgency than in many a reverential
+and carefully weighed prayer.
+
+Yet how much rashness, self-assertion, and wilfulness (which is really
+unbelief) were mingled with his germinant faith and needed rebuke.
+Therefore Christ responded with his own word: "If _thou_ canst: thou
+sayest it to Me, but I retort the condition upon thyself: with thee are
+indeed the issues of thine own application, for all things are possible to
+him that believeth."
+
+This answer is in two respects important. There was a time when popular
+religion dealt too much with internal experience and attainment. But
+perhaps there are schools among us now which verge upon the opposite
+extreme. Faith and love are generally strongest when they forget
+themselves, and do not say "I am faithful and loving," but "Christ is
+trustworthy, Christ is adorable." This is true, and these virtues are
+becoming artificial, and so false, as soon as they grow self-complacent.
+Yet we should give at least enough attention to our own attainments to
+warn us of our deficiencies. And wherever we find a want of blessedness,
+we may seek for the reason within ourselves. Many a one is led to doubt
+whether Christ "can do anything" practical for him, since private prayer
+and public ordinances help him little, and his temptations continue to
+prevail, whose true need is to be roused up sharply to the consciousness
+that it is not Christ who has failed; it is he himself: his faith is dim,
+his grasp on his Lord is half hearted, he is straitened in his own
+affections. Our personal experiences should never teach us confidence, but
+they may often serve to humble and warn us.
+
+This answer also impresses upon us the dignity of Him who speaks. Failure
+had already come through the spiritual defects of His disciples, but for
+Him, though "meek and lowly of heart," no such danger is even
+contemplated. No appeal to Him can be frustrated except through fault of
+the suppliant, since all things are possible to him that believeth.
+
+Now faith is in itself nothing, and may even be pernicious; all its effect
+depends upon the object. Trust reposed in a friend avails or misleads
+according to his love and his resources; trust in a traitor is ruinous,
+and ruinous in proportion to its energy. And since trust in Jesus is
+omnipotent, Who and what is He?
+
+The word pierces like a two-edged sword, and reveals to the agitated
+father the conflict, the impurity of his heart. Unbelief is there, and of
+himself he cannot conquer it. Yet is he not entirely unbelieving, else
+what drew him thither? What impulse led to that passionate recital of his
+griefs, that over-daring cry of anguish? And what is now this burning
+sense within him of a great and inspiring Presence, which urges him to a
+bolder appeal for a miracle yet more spiritual and Divine, a cry well
+directed to the Author and Finisher of our faith? Never was medicine
+better justified by its operation upon disease, than the treatment which
+converted a too-importunate clamour for bodily relief into a contrite
+prayer for grace. "I believe, help Thou mine unbelief." The same sense of
+mixed imperfect and yet real trust should exist in every one of us, or
+else our belief being perfect should be irresistible in the moral sphere,
+and in the physical world so resigned, so confident in the Love which
+governs, as never to be conscious of any gnawing importunate desire. And
+from the same sense of need, the same cry for help should spring.
+
+Miraculous legends have gathered around the lives of many good and
+gracious men within Christendom and outside it. But they cannot claim to
+weigh against the history of Jesus, until at least one example can be
+produced of such direct spiritual action, so profound, penetrating and
+effectual, inextricably interwoven in the tissue of any fable.
+
+All this time the agitation of the people had increased. A multitude was
+rushing forward, whose excitement would do more to distract the father's
+mind than further delay to help him. And Jesus, even in the midst of His
+treatment of souls, was not blind to such practical considerations, or to
+the influence of circumstances. Unlike modern dealers in sensation, He can
+never be shown to have aimed at religious excitement, while it was His
+custom to discourage it. Therefore He now rebuked the unclean spirit in
+the lad, addressing it directly speaking as a superior. "Thou deaf and
+dumb spirit, I command thee, come out of him," and adding, with
+explicitness which was due perhaps to the obstinate ferocity of "this
+kind," or perhaps was intended to help the father's lingering unbelief,
+"enter no more into him." The evil being obeys, yet proves his reluctance
+by screaming and convulsing his victim for the last time, so that he,
+though healed, lies utterly prostrate, and "the more part said, He is
+dead." It was a fearful exhibition of the disappointed malice of the pit.
+But it only calls forth another display of the power and love of Jesus,
+Who will not leave the sufferer to a gradual recovery, nor speak, as to
+the fiend, in words of mere authority, but reaches forth His benign hand,
+and raises him, restored. Here we discover the same heart which provided
+that the daughter of Jairus should have food, and delivered her son to the
+widow of Nain, and was first to remind others that Lazarus was encumbered
+by his grave-clothes. The good works of Jesus were not melodramatic
+marvels for stage effect: they were the natural acts of supernatural power
+and love.
+
+
+
+
+Jesus And The Disciples.
+
+
+    "And when He was come into the house, His disciples asked Him
+    privately, _saying_, We could not cast it out. And He said unto
+    them, This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer. And they
+    went forth from thence, and passed through Galilee; and He would
+    not that any man should know it. For He taught His disciples, and
+    said unto them, The Son of man is delivered up into the hands of
+    men, and they shall kill Him; and when He is killed, after three
+    days He shall rise again. But they understood not the saying, and
+    were afraid to ask Him. And they came to Capernaum: and when He
+    was in the house He asked them, What were ye reasoning in the way?
+    But they held their peace: for they had disputed one with another
+    in the way, who was the greatest. And He sat down, and called the
+    twelve; and He saith unto them, If any man would be first, he
+    shall be last of all, and minister of all. And He took a little
+    child, and set him in the midst of them: and taking him in His
+    arms, He said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such
+    little children in My name, receiveth Me; and whosoever receiveth
+    Me, receiveth not Me but Him that sent Me."--MARK ix. 28-37 (R.V.).
+
+
+When the apostles had failed to expel the demon from the child, they gave
+a very natural expression to their disappointment. Waiting until Jesus was
+in private and in the house, they said, "We for our parts were unable to
+cast it out." They take no blame to themselves. The tone is rather of
+perplexity and complaint because the commission formerly received had not
+held good. And it implies the question which is plainly expressed by St.
+Matthew, Why could we not cast it out? Their very unconsciousness of
+personal blame is ominous, and Jesus replies that the fault is entirely
+their own. They ought to have stimulated, as He did afterwards, what was
+flagging but not absent in the father, what their failure must have
+daunted further in him. Want of faith had overcome them, says the fuller
+account: the brief statement in St. Mark is, "This kind (of demon) can
+come out by nothing but by prayer"; to which fasting was added as a second
+condition by ancient copyists, but without authority. What is important is
+to observe the connection between faith and prayer; so that while the
+devil would only have gone out if they had prayed, or even perhaps only if
+they had been men of prayer, yet their failure was through unbelief. It
+plainly follows that prayer is the nurse of faith, and would have
+strengthened it so that it should prevail. Only in habitual communion with
+God can we learn to trust Him aright. There, as we feel His nearness, as
+we are reminded that He bends to hear our cry, as the sense of eternal and
+perfect power blends with that of immeasurable love, and His sympathy
+becomes a realized abiding fact, as our vainglory is rebuked by
+confessions of sin, and of dependence, it is made possible for man to
+wield the forces of the spiritual world and yet not to be intoxicated with
+pride. The nearness of God is inconsistent with boastfulness of man. For
+want of this, it was better that the apostles should fail and be humbled,
+than succeed and be puffed up.
+
+There are promises still unenjoyed, dormant and unexercised powers at the
+disposal of the Church to-day. If in many Christian families the children
+are not practically holy, if purity and consecration are not leavening our
+Christian land, where after so many centuries license is but little
+abashed and the faith of Jesus is still disputed, if the heathen are not
+yet given for our Lord's inheritance nor the uttermost parts of the earth
+for His possession--why are we unable to cast out the devils that afflict
+our race? It is because our efforts are so faithless. And this again is
+because they are not inspired and elevated by sufficient communion with
+our God in prayer.
+
+Further evidences continued to be given of the dangerous state of the mind
+of His followers, weighed down by earthly hopes and fears, wanting in
+faith and prayer, and therefore open to the sinister influences of the
+thief who was soon to become the traitor. They were now moving for the
+last time through Galilee. It was a different procession from those glad
+circuits, not long before, when enthusiasm everywhere rose high, and
+sometimes the people would have crowned Him. Now He would not that any man
+should know it. The word which tells of His journey seems to imply that He
+avoided the main thoroughfares, and went by less frequented by-ways.
+Partly no doubt His motives were prudential, resulting from the treachery
+which He discerned. Partly it was because His own spirit was heavily
+weighed upon, and retirement was what He needed most. And certainly most
+of all because crowds and tumult would have utterly unfitted the apostles
+to learn the hard lesson, how vain their daydreams were, and what a trial
+lay before their Master.
+
+We read that "He taught them" this, which implies more than a single
+utterance, as also perhaps does the remarkable phrase in St. Luke, "Let
+these sayings sink into your ears." When the warning is examined, we find
+it almost a repetition of what they had heard after Peter's great
+confession. Then they had apparently supposed the cross of their Lord to
+be such a figurative one as all His followers have to bear. Even after the
+Transfiguration, the chosen three had searched for a meaning for the
+resurrection from the dead. But now, when the words were repeated with a
+naked, crude, resolute distinctness, marvellous from the lips of Him Who
+should endure the reality, and evidently chosen in order to beat down
+their lingering evasive hopes, when He says "They shall kill Him, and when
+He is killed, after three days He shall rise again," surely they ought to
+have understood.
+
+In fact they comprehended enough to shrink from hearing more. They did not
+dare to lift the veil which covered a mystery so dreadful; they feared to
+ask Him. It is a natural impulse, not to know the worst. Insolvent
+tradesmen leave their books unbalanced. The course of history would have
+run in another channel, if the great Napoleon had looked in the face the
+need to fortify his own capital while plundering others. No wonder that
+these Galileans recoiled from searching what was the calamity which
+weighed so heavily upon the mighty spirit of their Master. Do not men
+stifle the voice of conscience, and refuse to examine themselves whether
+they are in the faith, in the same abject dread of knowing the facts, and
+looking the inevitable in the face? How few there are, who bear to think,
+calmly and well, of the certainties of death and judgment?
+
+But at the appointed time, the inevitable arrived for the disciples. The
+only effect of their moral cowardice was that it found them unready,
+surprised and therefore fearful, and still worse, prepared to forsake
+Jesus by having already in heart drawn away from Him, by having refused to
+comprehend and share His sorrows. It is easy to blame them, to assume that
+in their place we should not have been partakers in their evil deeds, to
+make little of the chosen foundation stones upon which Christ would build
+His New Jerusalem. But in so doing we forfeit the sobering lessons of
+their weakness, who failed, not because they were less than we, but
+because they were not more than mortal. And we who censure them are
+perhaps indolently refusing day by day to reflect, to comprehend the
+meaning of our own lives and of their tendencies, to realize a thousand
+warnings, less terrible only because they continue to be conditional, but
+claiming more attention for that very reason.
+
+Contrast with their hesitation the noble fortitude with which Christ faced
+His agony. It was His, and their concern in it was secondary. Yet for
+their sakes He bore to speak of what they could not bear to hear.
+Therefore to Him there came no surprise, no sudden shock; His arrest found
+Him calm and reassured after the conflict in the Garden, and after all the
+preparation which had already gone forward through all these latter days.
+
+One only ingredient in His cup of bitterness is now added to those which
+had been already mentioned: "The Son of man is delivered up into the hands
+of men." And this is the same which He mentioned in the Garden: "The Son
+of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners."
+
+It was that from which David recoiled when he said, "Let me fall into the
+hands of God, but let me not fall into the hands of men." Suffering has
+not reached its height until conscious malice designs the pang, and says,
+"So would we have it." Especially true was this of the most tender of all
+hearts. Yet this also Jesus foreknew, while He steadfastly set His face to
+go toward Jerusalem.
+
+Faithless inability to grapple with the powers of darkness, faithless
+unreadiness to share the cross of Jesus, what was to be expected next?
+Estrangement, jealousy and ambition, the passions of the world heaving in
+the bosom of the Church. But while they fail to discern the spirit of
+Judas, the Lord discerned theirs, and asked them in the house, What were
+ye reasoning in the way? It was a sweet and gentle prudence, which had not
+corrected them publicly nor while their tempers were still ruffled, nor in
+the language of severe rebuke, for by the way they had not only reasoned
+but disputed one with another, who was the greatest.
+
+Language of especial honour had been addressed to Peter. Three had become
+possessed of a remarkable secret on the Holy Mount, concerning which hints
+on one side, and surmises on the other, may easily have excited jealousy.
+The failure of the nine to cast out the devil would also, as they were not
+humbled, render them irritable and self-asserting.
+
+But they held their peace. No one asserted his right to answer on behalf
+of all. Peter, who was so willingly their spokesman at other times, did
+not vindicate his boasted pre-eminence now. The claim which seemed so
+reasonable while they forgot Jesus, was a thing to blush for in His
+presence. And they, who feared to ask Him of His own sufferings, knew
+enough to feel the contrast between their temper, their thoughts and His.
+Would that we too by prayer and self-examination, more often brought our
+desires and ambitions into the searching light of the presence of the
+lowly King of kings.
+
+The calmness of their Lord was in strange contrast with their confusion.
+He pressed no further His inquiry, but left them to weigh His silence in
+this respect against their own. But importing by His action something
+deliberate and grave, He sat down and called the Twelve, and pronounced
+the great law of Christian rank, which is lowliness and the lowliest
+service. "If any man would be the first, he shall be the least of all, and
+the servant of all." When Kaisers and Popes ostentatiously wash the feet
+of paupers, they do not really serve, and therefore they exhibit no
+genuine lowliness. Christ does not speak of the luxurious nursing of a
+sentiment, but of that genuine humility which effaces itself that it may
+really become a servant of the rest. Nor does He prescribe this as a
+penance, but as the appointed way to eminence. Something similar He had
+already spoken, bidding men sit down in the lowest room, that the Master
+of the house might call them higher. But it is in the next chapter, when
+despite this lesson the sons of Zebedee persisted in claiming the highest
+places, and the indignation of the rest betrayed the very passion it
+resented, that Jesus fully explains how lowly service, that wholesome
+medicine for ambition, is the essence of the very greatness in pursuit of
+which men spurn it.
+
+To the precept, which will then be more conveniently examined, Jesus now
+added a practical lesson of amazing beauty. In the midst of twelve rugged
+and unsympathetic men, the same who, despite this action, presently
+rebuked parents for seeking the blessing of Christ upon their babes, Jesus
+sets a little child. What but the grace and love which shone upon the
+sacred face could have prevented this little one from being utterly
+disconcerted? But children have a strange sensibility for love. Presently
+this happy child was caught up in His arms, and pressed to His bosom, and
+there He seems to have lain while John, possibly conscience-stricken,
+asked a question and received an unexpected answer. And the silent
+pathetic trust of this His lamb found its way to the heart of Jesus, who
+presently spoke of "these little ones who believe in Me" (v. 42).
+
+Meanwhile the child illustrated in a double sense the rule of greatness
+which He had laid down. So great is lowliness that Christ Himself may be
+found in the person of a little child. And again, so great is service,
+that in receiving one, even one, of the multitude of children who claim
+our sympathies, we receive the very Master; and in that lowly Man, who was
+among them as He that serveth, is manifested the very God: whoso receiveth
+Me receiveth not Me but Him that sent me.
+
+
+
+
+Offences.
+
+
+    "John said unto Him, Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy
+    Name: and we forbade him, because he followed not us. But Jesus
+    said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a mighty
+    work in My name, and be able quickly to speak evil of Me. For he
+    that is not against us is for us. For whosoever shall give you a
+    cup of water to drink, because ye are Christ's, verily I say unto
+    you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. And whosoever shall
+    cause one of these little ones that believe on Me to stumble, it
+    were better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his
+    neck, and he were cast into the sea. And if thy hand cause thee to
+    stumble, cut it off: it is good for thee to enter into life
+    maimed, rather than having thy two hands to go into hell, into the
+    unquenchable fire. And if thy foot cause thee to stumble, cut it
+    off: it is good for thee to enter into life halt, rather than
+    having thy two feet to be cast into hell. And if thine eye cause
+    thee to stumble, cast it out: it is good for thee to enter into
+    the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be
+    cast into hell; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
+    quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good:
+    but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season
+    it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with
+    another."--MARK ix. 38-50 (R.V.).
+
+
+When Jesus spoke of the blessedness of receiving in His name even a little
+child, the conscience of St. John became uneasy. They had seen one casting
+out devils in that name, and had forbidden him, "because he followeth not
+us." The spirit of partizanship which these words betray is somewhat
+softer in St. Luke, but it exists. He reports "because he followeth not
+(Jesus) with us."
+
+The behaviour of the disciples all through this period is unsatisfactory.
+From the time when Peter contradicted and rebuked Jesus, down to their
+final desertion, there is weakness at every turn. And this is a curious
+example of it, that immediately after having failed themselves,(12) they
+should rebuke another for doing what their Master had once declared could
+not possibly be an evil work. If Satan cast out Satan his house was
+divided against itself: if the finger of God was there no doubt the
+kingdom of God was come unto them.
+
+It is interesting and natural that St. John should have introduced the
+question. Others were usually more forward, but that was because he was
+more thoughtful. Peter went first into the sepulchre; but he first, seeing
+what was there, believed. And it was he who said "It is the Lord,"
+although Peter thereupon plunged into the lake to reach Him. Discerning
+and grave: such is the character from which his Gospel would naturally
+come, and it belongs to him who first discerned the rebuke to their
+conduct implied in the words of Jesus. He was right. The Lord answered,
+"Forbid him not, for there is no man which shall do a mighty work in My
+name, and be able quickly to speak evil of Me:" his own action would seal
+his lips; he would have committed himself. Now this points out a very
+serious view of human life, too often overlooked. The deed of to-day rules
+to-morrow; one is half enslaved by the consequences of his own free will.
+Let no man, hesitating between two lines of action, ask, What harm in
+this? what use in that? without adding, And what future actions, good or
+evil, may they carry in their train?
+
+The man whom they had rebuked was at least certain to be for a time
+detached from the opponents of truth, silent if not remonstrant when it
+was assailed, diluting and enfeebling the enmity of its opponents. And so
+Christ laid down the principle, "He that is not against us is for us." In
+St. Luke the words are more plainly pointed against this party spirit, "He
+that is not against you is for you."
+
+How shall we reconcile this principle with Christ's declaration elsewhere,
+"He that is not with Me is against Me, and he that gathereth not with Me
+scattereth"?
+
+It is possible to argue that there is no contradiction whatever, for both
+deny the existence of a neutral class, and from this it equally follows
+that he who is not with is against, and he who is not against is with us.
+But this answer only evades the difficulty, which is, that one passage
+reckons seeming neutrality as friendship, while the other denounces it as
+enmity.
+
+A closer examination reveals a more profound reconciliation. In St.
+Matthew, Christ announced His own personal claim; in St. Mark He declares
+that His people must not share it. Towards Christ Himself, indifference is
+practical rejection. The manifestation of God was not made to be
+criticised or set aside: He loves them who love Him; He demands the hearts
+He died for; and to give Him less is to refuse Him the travail of His
+soul. Therefore He that is not with Christ is against Him. The man who
+boasts that he does no harm but makes no pretence of religion, is
+proclaiming that one may innocently refuse Christ. And it is very
+noteworthy that St. Matthew's aphorism was evoked, like this, by a
+question about the casting out of devils. There the Pharisees had said
+that He cast out devils by Beelzebub. And Jesus had warned all who heard,
+that in such a controversy, to be indifferent was to deny him. Here, the
+man had himself appealed to the power of Jesus. He had passed, long ago,
+the stage of cool semi-contemptuous indifference. Whether he was a
+disciple of the Baptist, not yet entirely won, or a later convert who
+shrank from the loss of all things, what is plain is that he had come far
+on the way towards Jesus. It does not follow that he enjoyed a saving
+faith, for Christ will at last profess to many who cast out devils in His
+name, that He never knew them. But intellectual persuasion and some active
+reliance were there. Let them beware of crushing the germs, because they
+were not yet developed. Nor should the disciples suppose that loyalty to
+their organization, although Christ was with them, was the same as loyalty
+to Him. "He that is not against _you_ is for you," according to St. Luke.
+Nay more, "He that is not against us is for us," according to St. Mark.
+But already He had spoken the stronger word, "He that is not for _Me_ is
+against Me."
+
+No verse has been more employed than this in sectarian controversy. And
+sometimes it has been pressed too far. The man whom St. John would have
+silenced was not spreading a rival organization; and we know how the same
+Apostle wrote, long afterwards, of those who did so: "If they had been of
+us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might
+be made manifest how all they are not of us" (1 John ii. 19). This was
+simply a doer of good without ecclesiastical sanction, and the warning of
+the text is against all who would use the name of discipline or of order
+to bridle the zeal, to curb the energies, of any Christian soul. But it is
+at least as often the new movement as the old organization that would
+silence all who follow not with it.
+
+But the energies of Christ and His gospel can never be monopolized by any
+organization whatsoever. Every good gift and every perfect gift, wherever
+we behold it, is from Him.
+
+All help, then, is to be welcomed; not to hinder is to speed the cause.
+And therefore Jesus, repeating a former saying, adds that whosoever, moved
+by the name of Christ, shall give His followers one cup of water, shall be
+rewarded. He may be and continue outside the Church; his after life may be
+sadly inconsistent with this one action: that is not the question; the
+sole condition is the genuine motive--one impulse of true respect, one
+flicker of loyalty, only decided enough to speed the weary ambassador with
+the simplest possible refreshment, should "in no wise lose its reward."
+Does this imply that the giver should assuredly enter heaven? Alas, no.
+But this it says, that every spark of fire in the smoking flax is tended,
+every gracious movement is answered by a gift of further grace, to employ
+or to abuse. Not more surely is the thirsty disciple refreshed, than the
+feverish worldliness of him who just attains to render this service is
+fanned and cooled by breezes from heaven, he becomes aware of a deeper and
+nobler life, he is melted and drawn towards better things. Very blessed,
+or very miserable is he who cannot remember the holy shame, the yearning,
+the sigh because he is not always thus, which followed naturally upon some
+deed, small in itself perhaps, but good enough to be inconsistent with his
+baser self. The deepening of spiritual capacity is one exceeding great
+reward of every act of loyalty to Christ.
+
+This was graciously said of a deed done to the apostles, despite their
+failures, rivalries, and rebukes of those who would fain speed the common
+cause. Not, however, because they were apostles, but "because ye are
+Christ's." And so was the least, so was the child who clung to Him. But if
+the slightest sympathy with these is thus laden with blessing, then to
+hinder, to cause to stumble one such little one, how terrible was that.
+Better to die a violent and shameful death, and never sleep in a peaceful
+grave.
+
+There is a worse peril than from others. We ourselves may cause ourselves
+to stumble. We may pervert beyond recall things innocent, natural, all but
+necessary, things near and dear and useful to our daily life as are our
+very limbs. The loss of them may be so lasting a deprivation that we shall
+enter heaven maimed. But if the moral evil is irrevocably identified with
+the worldly good, we must renounce it.
+
+The hand with its subtle and marvellous power may well stand for harmless
+accomplishments now fraught with evil suggestiveness; for innocent modes
+of livelihood which to relinquish means crippled helplessness, yet which
+have become hopelessly entangled with unjust or at least questionable
+ways; for the great possessions, honestly come by, which the ruler would
+not sell; for all endowments which we can no longer hope to consecrate,
+and which make one resemble the old Chaldeans, whose might was their god,
+who sacrificed to their net and burned incense to their drag.
+
+And the foot, with its swiftness in boyhood, its plodding walk along the
+pavement in maturer age, may well represent the caprices of youth so hard
+to curb, and also the half-mechanical habits which succeed to these, and
+by which manhood is ruled, often to its destruction. If the hand be
+capacity, resource, and possession, the foot is swift perilous impulse,
+and also fixed habitude, monotonous recurrence, the settled ways of the
+world.
+
+Cut off hand and foot, and what is left to the mutilated trunk, the
+ravaged and desolated life? Desire is left; the desire of the eyes. The
+eyes may not touch the external world; all may now be correct in our
+actions and intercourse with men. But yet greed, passion, inflamed
+imagination may desecrate the temple of the soul. The eyes misled Eve when
+she saw that the fruit was good, and David on his palace roof. Before the
+eyes of Jesus, Satan spread his third and worst temptation. And our Lord
+seems to imply that this last sacrifice of the worst because the deepest
+evil must be made with indignant vehemence; hand and foot must be cut off,
+but the eye must be cast out, though life be half darkened in the process.
+
+These latter days have invented a softer gospel, which proclaims that even
+the fallen err if they utterly renounce any good creature of God, which
+ought to be received with thanksgiving; that the duty of moderation and
+self-control can never be replaced by renunciation, and that distrust of
+any lawful enjoyment revives the Manichean heresy. Is the eye a good
+creature of God? May the foot be received with thanksgiving? Is the hand a
+source of lawful enjoyment? Yet Jesus made these the types of what must,
+if it has become an occasion of stumbling, be entirely cast away.
+
+He added that in such cases the choice is between mutilation and the loss
+of all. It is no longer a question of the full improvement of every
+faculty, the doubling of all the talents, but a choice between living a
+life impoverished and half spoiled, and going complete to Gehenna, to the
+charnel valley where the refuse of Jerusalem was burned in a continual
+fire, and the worm of corruption never died. The expression is too
+metaphorical to decide such questions as that of the eternal duration of
+punishment, or of the nature of the suffering of the lost. The metaphors
+of Jesus, however, are not employed to exaggerate His meaning, but only to
+express it. And what He said is this: The man who cherishes one dear and
+excusable occasion of offence, who spares himself the keenest spiritual
+surgery, shall be cast forth with everything that defileth, shall be
+ejected with the offal of the New Jerusalem, shall suffer corruption like
+the transgressors of whom Isaiah first used the tremendous phrase, "their
+worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched," shall endure at
+once internal and external misery, as of decomposition and of burning.
+
+Such is the most terrible menace that ever crossed the lips into which
+grace was poured. And it was not addressed to the outcast or the Pharisee,
+but to His own. They were called to the highest life; on them the
+influences of the world was to be as constant and as disintegrating as
+that of the weather upon a mountain top. Therefore they needed solemn
+warning, and the counter-pressure of those awful issues known to be
+dependent on their stern self-discipline. They could not, He said in an
+obscure passage which has been greatly tampered with, they could not
+escape fiery suffering in some form. But the fire which tried would
+preserve and bless them if they endured it; every one shall be salted with
+fire. But if they who ought to be the salt of the world received the grace
+of God in vain, if the salt have lost its saltness, the case is desperate
+indeed.
+
+And since the need of this solemn warning sprang from their rivalry and
+partizanship, Jesus concludes with an emphatic charge to discipline and
+correct themselves and to beware of impeding others: to be searching in
+the closet, and charitable in the church: to have salt in yourselves, and
+be at peace with one another.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+
+
+Divorce.
+
+
+    "And He arose from thence, and cometh into the borders of Judaea
+    and beyond Jordan: and multitudes come together unto Him again;
+    and, as He was wont, He taught them again. And there came unto Him
+    Pharisees, and asked Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his
+    wife? tempting Him. And He answered and said unto them, What did
+    Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill
+    of divorcement, and to put her away. But Jesus said unto them, For
+    your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the
+    beginning of the creation, Male and female made He them. For this
+    cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to
+    his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh: so that they are
+    no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
+    together, let no man put asunder. And in the house the disciples
+    asked Him again of this matter. And He saith unto them, Whosoever
+    shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery
+    against her: and if she herself shall put away her husband, and
+    marry another, she committeth adultery."--MARK x. 1-12 (R.V.).
+
+
+It is easy to read without emotion that Jesus arose from the scene of His
+last discourse, and came into the borders of Judaea beyond Jordan. But not
+without emotion did Jesus bid farewell to Galilee, to the home of His
+childhood and sequestered youth, the cradle of His Church, the centre of
+nearly all the love and faith He had awakened. When closer still to death,
+His heart reverted to Galilee, and He promised that when He was risen He
+would go thither before His disciples. Now He had to leave it. And we must
+not forget that every step He took towards Jerusalem was a deliberate
+approach to His assured and anticipated cross. He was not like other brave
+men, who endure death when it arrives, but are sustained until the crisis
+by a thousand flattering hopes and undefined possibilities. Jesus knew
+precisely where and how He should suffer. And now, as He arose from
+Galilee, every step said, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.
+
+As soon as He entered Perea beyond Jordan, multitudes came to Him again.
+Nor did His burdened heart repress His zeal: rather He found relief in
+their importunity and in His Father's business, and so, "as He was wont,
+He taught them again." These simple words express the rule He lived by,
+the patient continuance in well-doing which neither hostilities nor
+anxieties could chill.
+
+Not long was He left undisturbed. The Pharisees come to Him with a
+question dangerous in itself, because there is no conceivable answer which
+will not estrange many, and especially dangerous for Jesus, because
+already, on the Mount, He has spoken upon this subject words at seeming
+variance with His free views concerning sabbath observance, fasting, and
+ceremonial purity. Most perilous of all was the decision they expected
+when given by a teacher already under suspicion, and now within reach of
+that Herod who had, during the lifetime of his first wife, married the
+wife of a living man. "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for
+every cause?" It was a decision upon this very subject which had proved
+fatal to the forerunner.
+
+But Jesus spoke out plainly. In a question and answer which are variously
+reported, what is clear is that He carefully distinguished between a
+command and a permission of Moses. Divorce had been allowed; yes, but some
+reason had been exacted, whatever disputes might exist about its needful
+gravity, and deliberation had been enforced by demanding a legal document,
+a writing of divorcement. Thus conscience was bidden to examine its
+motives, and time was gained for natural relentings. But after all, Jesus
+declared that divorce was only a concession to their hardness of heart.
+Thus we learn that Old Testament institutions were not all and of
+necessity an expression of the Divine ideal. They were sometimes a
+temporary concession, meant to lead to better things; an expedient rather
+than a revelation.
+
+These words contain the germ of St. Paul's doctrine that the law itself
+was a schoolmaster, and its function temporary.
+
+To whatever concessions Moses had been driven, the original and unshaken
+design of God was that man and woman should find the permanent completion
+of their lives each in the other. And this is shown by three separate
+considerations. The first is the plan of the creation, making them male
+and female, and such that body and soul alike are only perfect when to
+each its complement is added, when the masculine element and the feminine
+"each fulfils defect in each ... the two-celled heart beating with one
+full stroke life." Thus by anticipation Jesus condemned the tame-spirited
+verdict of His disciples, that since a man cannot relieve himself from a
+union when it proves galling, "it is not good" to marry at all. To this he
+distinctly answered that such an inference could not prove even tolerable,
+except when nature itself, or else some social wrong, or else absorbing
+devotion to the cause of God, virtually cancelled the original design. But
+already he had here shown that such prudential calculation degrades man,
+leaves him incomplete, traverses the design of God Who from the beginning
+of the creation made them male and female. In our own days, the relation
+between the sexes is undergoing a social and legislative revolution. Now
+Christ says not a word against the equal rights of the sexes, and in more
+than one passage St. Paul goes near to assert it. But equality is not
+identity, either of vocation or capacity. This text asserts the separate
+and reciprocal vocation of each, and it is worthy of consideration, how
+far the special vocation of womanhood is consistent with loud assertion of
+her "separate rights."
+
+Christ's second proof that marriage cannot be dissolved without sin is
+that glow of heart, that noble abandonment, in which a man leaves even
+father and mother for the joy of his youth and the love of his espousals.
+In that sacred hour, how hideous and base a wanton divorce would be felt
+to be. Now man is not free to live by the mean, calculating, selfish
+afterthought, which breathes like a frost on the bloom of his noblest
+impulses and aspirations. He should guide himself by the light of his
+highest and most generous intuitions.
+
+And the third reason is that no man, by any possibility, can undo what
+marriage does. They two are one flesh; each has become part of the very
+existence of the other; and it is simply incredible that a union so
+profound, so interwoven with the very tissue of their being, should lie at
+the mercy of the caprice or the calculations of one or other, or of both.
+Such a union arises from the profoundest depths of the nature God created,
+not from mean cravings of that nature in its degradation; and like waters
+springing up from the granite underneath the soil, it may suffer stain,
+but it is in itself free from the contamination of the fall. Despite of
+monkish and of Manichean slanders, impure dreams pretending to especial
+purity, God is He Who joins together man and woman in a bond which "no
+man," king or prelate, may without guilt dissolve.
+
+Of what followed, St. Mark is content to tell us that in the house, the
+disciples pressed the question further. How far did the relaxation which
+Moses granted over-rule the original design? To what extent was every
+individual bound in actual life? And the answer, given by Jesus to guide
+His own people through all time, is clear and unmistakeable. The tie
+cannot be torn asunder without sin. The first marriage holds, until actual
+adultery poisons the pure life in it, and man or woman who breaks through
+its barriers commits adultery. The Baptist's judgment of Herod was
+confirmed.
+
+So Jesus taught. Ponder well that honest unshrinking grasp of solid
+detail, which did not overlook the physical union whereof is one flesh,
+that sympathy with high and chivalrous devotion forsaking all else for its
+beloved one, that still more spiritual penetration which discerned a
+Divine purpose and a destiny in the correlation of masculine and feminine
+gifts, of strength and grace, of energy and gentleness, of courage and
+long-suffering--observe with how easy and yet firm a grasp He combines all
+these into one overmastering argument--remember that when He spoke, the
+marriage tie was being relaxed all over the ancient world, even as godless
+legislation is to-day relaxing it--reflect that with such relaxation came
+inevitably a blight upon the family, resulting in degeneracy and ruin for
+the nation, while every race which learned the lesson of Jesus grew strong
+and pure and happy--and then say whether this was only a Judaean peasant, or
+the Light of the World indeed.
+
+
+
+
+Christ And Little Children.
+
+
+    "And they brought unto Him little children, that He should touch
+    them: and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, He
+    was moved with indignation, and said unto them, Suffer the little
+    children to come unto Me; forbid them not: for of such is the
+    kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive
+    the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter
+    therein. And He took them in His arms, and blessed them, laying
+    His hands upon them."--MARK x. 13-16 (R.V.).
+
+
+This beautiful story gains new loveliness from its context. The disciples
+had weighed the advantages and disadvantages of marriage, and decided in
+their calculating selfishness, that the prohibition of divorce made it
+"not good for a man to marry." But Jesus had regarded the matter from
+quite a different position; and their saying could only be received by
+those to whom special reasons forbade the marriage tie. It was then that
+the fair blossom and opening flower of domestic life, the tenderness and
+winning grace of childhood, appealed to them for a softer judgment. Little
+children (St. Luke says "babes") were brought to Him to bless, to touch
+them. It was a remarkable sight. He was just departing from Perea on His
+last journey to Jerusalem. The nation was about to abjure its King and
+perish, after having invoked His blood to be not on them only, but on
+their children. But here were some at least of the next generation led by
+parents who revered Jesus, to receive His blessing. And who shall dare to
+limit the influence exerted by that benediction on their future lives? Is
+it forgotten that this very Perea was the haven of refuge for Jewish
+believers when the wrath fell upon their nation? Meanwhile the fresh smile
+of their unconscious, unstained, unforeboding infancy met the grave smile
+of the all-conscious, death-boding Man of Sorrows, as much purer as it was
+more profound.
+
+But the disciples were not melted. They were occupied with grave
+questions. Babes could understand nothing, and therefore could receive no
+conscious intelligent enlightenment. What then could Jesus do for them?
+Many wise persons are still of quite the same opinion. No spiritual
+influences, they tell us, can reach the soul until the brain is capable of
+drawing logical distinctions. A gentle mother may breathe softness and
+love into a child's nature, or a harsh nurse may jar and disturb its
+temper, until the effects are as visible on the plastic face as is the
+sunshine or storm upon the bosom of a lake; but for the grace of God there
+is no opening yet. As if soft and loving influences are not themselves a
+grace of God. As if the world were given certain odds in the race, and the
+powers of heaven were handicapped. As if the young heart of every child
+were a place where sin abounds (since he is a fallen creature, with an
+original tendency towards evil), but where grace doth not at all abound.
+Such is the unlovely theory. And as long as it prevails in the Church we
+need not wonder at the compensating error of rationalism, denying evil
+where so many of us deny grace. It is the more amiable error of the two.
+Since then the disciples could not believe that edification was for babes,
+they naturally rebuked those that brought them. Alas, how often still does
+the beauty and innocence of childhood appeal to men in vain. And this is
+so, because we see not the Divine grace, "the kingdom of heaven," in
+these. Their weakness chafes our impatience, their simplicity irritates
+our worldliness, and their touching helplessness and trustfulness do not
+find in us heart enough for any glad response.
+
+In ancient times they had to pass through the fire to Moloch, and since
+then through other fires: to fashion when mothers leave them to the hired
+kindness of a nurse, to selfishness when their want appeals to our
+charities in vain, and to cold dogmatism, which would banish them from the
+baptismal font, as the disciples repelled them from the embrace of Jesus.
+But He was moved with indignation, and reiterated, as men do when they
+feel deeply, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me; forbid them
+not." And He added this conclusive reason, "for of such," of children and
+childlike men, "is the kingdom of God."
+
+What is the meaning of this remarkable assertion? To answer aright, let us
+return in fancy to the morning of our days; let our flesh, and all our
+primitive being, come back to us as those of a little child.
+
+We were not faultless then. The theological dogma of original sin, however
+unwelcome to many, is in harmony with all experience. Impatience is there,
+and many a childish fault; and graver evils develop as surely as life
+unfolds, just as weeds show themselves in summer, the germs of which were
+already mingled with the better seed in spring. It is plain to all
+observers that the weeds of human nature are latent in the early soil,
+that this is not pure at the beginning of each individual life. Does not
+our new-fangled science explain this fact by telling us that we have still
+in our blood the transmitted influences of our ancestors the brutes?
+
+But Christ never meant to say that the kingdom of heaven was only for the
+immaculate and stainless. If converted men receive it, in spite of many a
+haunting appetite and recurring lust, then the frailties of our babes
+shall not forbid us to believe the blessed assurance that the kingdom is
+also theirs.
+
+How many hindrances to the Divine life fall away from us, as our fancy
+recalls our childhood. What weary and shameful memories, base hopes,
+tawdry splendours, envenomed pleasures, entangling associations vanish,
+what sins need to be confessed no longer, how much evil knowledge fades
+out that we never now shall quite unlearn, which haunts the memory even
+though the conscience be absolved from it. The days of our youth are not
+those evil days, when anything within us saith, My soul hath no pleasure
+in the ways of God.
+
+When we ask to what especial qualities of childhood did Jesus attach so
+great value, two kindred attributes are distinctly indicated in Scripture.
+
+One is humility. The previous chapter showed us a little child set in the
+midst of the emulous disciples, whom Christ instructed that the way to be
+greatest was to become like this little child, the least.
+
+A child is not humble through affectation, it never professes nor thinks
+about humility. But it understands, however imperfectly, that it is beset
+by mysterious and perilous forces, which it neither comprehends nor can
+grapple with. And so are we. Therefore all its instincts and experiences
+teach it to submit, to seek guidance, not to put its own judgment in
+competition with those of its appointed guides. To them, therefore, it
+clings and is obedient.
+
+Why is it not so with us? Sadly we also know the peril of self-will, the
+misleading power of appetite and passion, the humiliating failures which
+track the steps of self-assertion, the distortion of our judgments, the
+feebleness of our wills, the mysteries of life and death amid which we
+grope in vain. Milton anticipated Sir Isaac Newton in describing the
+wisest
+
+
+    "As children gathering pebbles on the shore."
+
+    _Par. Reg._, iv. 330.
+
+
+And if this be so true in the natural world that its sages become as
+little children, how much more in those spiritual realms for which our
+faculties are still so infantile, and of which our experience is so
+rudimentary. We should all be nearer to the kingdom, or greater in it, if
+we felt our dependence, and like the child were content to obey our Guide
+and cling to Him.
+
+The second childlike quality to which Christ attached value was readiness
+to receive simply. Dependence naturally results from humility. Man is
+proud of his independence only because he relies on his own powers; when
+these are paralysed, as in the sickroom or before the judge, he is willing
+again to become a child in the hands of a nurse or of an advocate. In the
+realm of the spirit these natural powers are paralysed. Learning cannot
+resist temptation, nor wealth expiate a sin. And therefore, in the
+spiritual world, we are meant to be dependent and receptive.
+
+Christ taught, in the Sermon on the Mount, that to those who asked Him,
+God would give His Spirit as earthly parents give good things to their
+children. Here also we are taught to accept, to receive the kingdom as
+little children, not flattering ourselves that our own exertions can
+dispense with the free gift, not unwilling to become pensioners of heaven,
+not distrustful of the heart which grants, not finding the bounties
+irksome which are prompted by a Fathers' love. What can be more charming
+in its gracefulness than the reception of a favour by an affectionate
+child. His glad and confident enjoyment are a picture of what ours might
+be.
+
+Since children receive the kingdom, and are a pattern for us in doing so,
+it is clear that they do not possess the kingdom as a natural right, but
+as a gift. But since they do receive it, they must surely be capable of
+receiving also that sacrament which is the sign and seal of it. It is a
+startling position indeed which denies admission into the visible Church
+to those of whom is the kingdom of God. It is a position taken up only
+because many, who would shrink from any such avowal, half-unconsciously
+believe that God becomes gracious to us only when His grace is attracted
+by skilful movements upon our part, by conscious and well-instructed
+efforts, by penitence, faith and orthodoxy. But whatever soul is capable
+of any taint of sin must be capable of compensating influences of the
+Spirit, by Whom Jeremiah was sanctified, and the Baptist was filled, even
+before their birth into this world (Jer. i. 5; Luke i. 15). Christ
+Himself, in Whom dwelt bodily all the fulness of the Godhead, was not
+therefore incapable of the simplicity and dependence of infancy.
+
+Having taught His disciples this great lesson, Jesus let His affections
+loose. He folded the children in His tender and pure embrace, and blessed
+them much, laying His hands on them, instead of merely touching them. He
+blessed them not because they were baptized. But we baptize our children,
+because all such have received the blessing, and are clasped in the arms
+of the Founder of the Church.
+
+
+
+
+The Rich Inquirer.
+
+
+    "And as He was going forth into the way, there ran one to Him, and
+    kneeled to Him, and asked Him, Good Master, what shall I do that I
+    may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest
+    thou Me good? none is good save one, even God. Thou knowest the
+    commandments, Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal,
+    Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour thy father and
+    mother. And He said unto him, Master, all these things have I
+    observed from my youth. And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and
+    said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou
+    hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
+    heaven: and come, follow Me. But his countenance fell at the
+    saying, and he went away sorrowful: for he was one that had great
+    possessions."--MARK x. 17-22 (R.V.).
+
+
+The excitement stirred by our Lord's teaching must often have shown itself
+in a scene of eagerness like this which St. Mark describes so well. The
+Saviour is just "going forth" when one rushes to overtake Him, and kneels
+down to Him, full of the hope of a great discovery. He is so frank, so
+innocent and earnest, as to win the love of Jesus. And yet he presently
+goes away, not as he came, but with a gloomy forehead and a heavy heart,
+and doubtless with slow reluctance.
+
+The authorities were now in such avowed opposition that to be Christ's
+disciple was disgraceful if not dangerous to a man of mark. Yet no fear
+withheld this young ruler who had so much to lose; he would not come by
+night, like Nicodemus before the storm had gathered which was now so dark;
+he openly avowed his belief in the goodness of the Master, and his own
+ignorance of some great secret which Jesus could reveal.
+
+There is indeed a charming frankness in his bearing, so that we admire
+even his childlike assertion of his own virtues, while the heights of a
+nobility yet unattained are clearly possible for one so dissatisfied, so
+anxious for a higher life, so urgent in his questioning, What shall I do?
+What lack I yet? That is what makes the difference between the Pharisee
+who thanks God that he is not as other men, and this youth who has kept
+all the commandments, yet would fain be other than he is, and readily
+confesses that all is not enough, that some unknown act still awaits
+achievement. The goodness which thinks itself upon the summit will never
+toil much farther. The conscience that is really awake cannot be
+satisfied, but is perplexed rather and baffled by the virtues of a dutiful
+and well-ordered life. For a chasm ever yawns between the actual and the
+ideal, what we have done and what we fain would do. And a spiritual glory,
+undefined and perhaps undefinable, floats ever before the eyes of all men
+whom the god of this world has not blinded. This inquirer honestly thinks
+himself not far from the great attainment; he expects to reach it by some
+transcendant act, some great deed done, and for this he has no doubt of
+his own prowess, if only he were well directed. What shall I do that I may
+have eternal life, not of grace, but as a debt--that I may inherit it? Thus
+he awaits direction upon the road where heathenism and semi-heathen
+Christianity are still toiling, and all who would purchase the gift of God
+with money or toil or merit or bitterness of remorseful tears.
+
+One easily foresees that the reply of Jesus will disappoint and humble
+him, but it startles us to see him pointed back to works and to the law of
+Moses.
+
+Again, we observe that what this inquirer seeks he very earnestly believes
+Jesus to have attained. And it is no mean tribute to the spiritual
+elevation of our Lord, no doubtful indication that amid perils and
+contradictions and on His road to the cross the peace of God sat visibly
+upon His brow, that one so pure and yet so keenly aware that his own
+virtue sufficed not, and that the kingdom of God was yet unattained,
+should kneel in the dust before the Nazarene, and beseech this good Master
+to reveal to him all his questioning. It was a strange request, and it was
+granted in an unlooked for way. The demand of the Chaldean tyrant that his
+forgotten dream should be interpreted was not so extravagant as this, that
+the defect in an unknown career should be discovered. It was upon a lofty
+pedestal indeed that this ruler placed our Lord.
+
+And yet his question supplies the clue to that answer of Christ which has
+perplexed so many. The youth is seeking for himself a purely human merit,
+indigenous and underived. And the same, of course, is what he ascribes to
+Jesus, to Him who is so far from claiming independent human attainment, or
+professing to be what this youth would fain become, that He said, "The Son
+can do nothing of Himself ... I can of Mine own self do nothing." The
+secret of His human perfection is the absolute dependence of His humanity
+upon God, with Whom He is one. No wonder then that He repudiates any such
+goodness as the ruler had in view.
+
+The Socinian finds quite another meaning in His reply, and urges that by
+these words Jesus denied His Deity. There is none good but one, That is
+God, was a reason why He should not be called so. Jesus however does not
+remonstrate absolutely against being called good, but against being thus
+addressed from this ruler's point of view, by one who regards Him as a
+mere teacher and expects to earn the same title for himself. And indeed
+the Socinian who appeals to this text grasps a sword by the blade. For if
+it denied Christ's divinity it must exactly to the same extent deny also
+Christ's goodness, which he admits. Now it is beyond question that Jesus
+differed from all the saints in the serene confidence with which He
+regarded the moral law, from the time when He received the baptism of
+repentance only that He might fulfil all righteousness, to the hour when
+He cried, "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and although deserted, claimed God
+as still His God. The saints of to-day were the penitents of yesterday.
+But He has finished the work that was given Him to do. He knows that God
+hears Him always, and in Him the Prince of this world hath nothing. And
+yet there is none good but God. Who then is He? If this saying does not
+confess what is intolerable to a reverential Socinian, what Strauss and
+Renan shrank from insinuating, what is alien to the whole spirit of the
+Gospels, and assuredly far from the mind of the evangelists, then it
+claims all that His Church rejoices to ascribe to Christ.
+
+Moreover Jesus does not deny even to ordinary men the possibility of being
+"good."
+
+A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good
+things. Some shall hear at last the words, Well done, good and faithful
+servant. The children of the kingdom are good seed among the tares.
+Clearly His repugnance is not to the epithet, but to the spirit in which
+it is bestowed, to the notion that goodness can spring spontaneously from
+the soil of our humanity. But there is nothing here to discourage the
+highest aspirations of the trustful and dependent soul, who looks for more
+grace.
+
+The doctrinal importance of this remarkable utterance is what most affects
+us, who look back through the dust of a hundred controversies. But it was
+very secondary at the time, and what the ruler doubtless felt most was a
+chill sense of repression and perhaps despair. It was indeed the
+death-knell of his false hopes. For if only God is good, how can any
+mortal inherit eternal life by a good deed? And Jesus goes on to deepen
+this conviction by words which find a wonderful commentary in St. Paul's
+doctrine of the function of the law. It was to prepare men for the gospel
+by a challenge, by revealing the standard of true righteousness, by saying
+to all who seek to earn heaven, "The man that doeth these things shall
+live by them." The attempt was sure to end in failure, for, "by the law is
+the knowledge of sin." It was exactly upon this principle that Jesus said
+"Keep the commandments," spiritualizing them, as St. Matthew tells us, by
+adding to the injunctions of the second table, "Thou shalt love thy
+neighbour as thyself," which saying, we know, briefly comprehends them
+all.
+
+But the ruler knew not how much he loved himself: his easy life had met no
+searching and stern demand until now, and his answer has a tone of relief,
+after the ominous words he had first heard. "Master," and he now drops the
+questionable adjective, "all these have I kept from my youth;" these never
+were so burdensome that he should despair; not these, he thinks, inspired
+that unsatisfied longing for some good thing yet undone. We pity and
+perhaps blame the shallow answer, and the dull perception which it
+betrayed. But Jesus looked on him and loved him. And well it is for us
+that no eyes fully discern our weakness but those which were so often
+filled with sympathetic tears. He sees error more keenly than the sharpest
+critic, but he sees earnestness too. And the love which desired all souls
+was attracted especially by one who had felt from his youth up the
+obligation of the moral law, and had not consciously transgressed it.
+
+This is not the teaching of those vile proverbs which declare that wild
+oats must be sown if one would reap good corn, and that the greater the
+sinner the greater will be the saint.
+
+Nay, even religionists of the sensational school delight in the past
+iniquities of those they honour, not only to glorify God for their
+recovery, nor with the joy which is in the presence of the angels over one
+sinner that repenteth, but as if these possess through their former
+wickedness some passport to special service now. Yet neither in Scripture
+nor in the history of the Church will it appear that men of licentious
+revolt against known laws have attained to usefulness of the highest
+order. The Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb.
+The Apostle of the Gentiles was blameless as touching the righteousness of
+the law. And each Testament has a special promise for those who seek the
+Lord early, who seek His kingdom and righteousness first. The undefiled
+are nearest to the throne.
+
+Now mark how endearing, how unlike the stern zeal of a propagandist, was
+Christ's tender and loving gaze; and hear the encouraging promise of
+heavenly treasure, and offer of His own companionship, which presently
+softened the severity of His demand; and again, when all failed, when His
+followers doubtless scorned the deserter, ponder the truthful and
+compassionate words, How hard it is!
+
+Yet will Christ teach him how far the spirit of the law pierces, since the
+letter has not wrought the knowledge of sin. If he loves his neighbour as
+himself, let his needier neighbour receive what he most values. If he
+loves God supremely, let him be content with treasure in the hands of God,
+and with a discipleship which shall ever reveal to him, more and more
+profoundly, the will of God, the true nobility of man, and the way to that
+eternal life he seeks.
+
+The socialist would justify by this verse a universal confiscation. But he
+forgets that the spirit which seizes all is widely different from that
+which gives all freely: that Zacchaeus retained half his goods; that Joseph
+of Arimathea was rich; that the property of Ananias was his own, and when
+he sold it the price was in his own power; that St. James warned the rich
+in this world only against trusting in riches instead of trusting God, who
+gave them all richly, for enjoyment, although not to be confided in. Soon
+after this Jesus accepted a feast from his friends in Bethany, and rebuked
+Judas who complained that a costly luxury had not been sold for the
+benefit of the poor. Why then is his demand now so absolute? It is simply
+an application of his bold universal rule, that every cause of stumbling
+must be sacrificed, be it innocent as hand or foot or eye. And affluent
+indeed would be all the charities and missions of the Church in these
+latter days, if the demand were obeyed in cases where it really applies,
+if every luxury which enervates and all pomp which intoxicates were
+sacrificed, if all who know that wealth is a snare to them corrected their
+weakness by rigorous discipline, their unfruitfulness by a sharp pruning
+of superfluous frondage.
+
+The rich man neither remonstrated nor defended himself. His
+self-confidence gave way. He felt that what he could not persuade himself
+to do was a "good thing." And he who came running went away sorrowful, and
+with a face "lowering" like the sky which forebodes "foul weather." That
+is too often the issue of such vaunting offers. Yet feeling his weakness,
+and neither resisting nor upbraiding the faithfulness which exposes him,
+doubtless he was long disquieted by new desires, a strange sense of
+failure and unworthiness, a clearer vision of that higher life which had
+already haunted his reveries. Henceforward he had no choice but to sink to
+a baser contentment, or else rise to a higher self-devotion. Who shall
+say, because he failed to decide then, that he persisted for ever in the
+great refusal? Yet was it a perilous and hardening experience, and it was
+easier henceforward to live below his ideal, when once he had turned away
+from Christ. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the inner circle of our
+Lord's immediate followers was then for ever closed against him.
+
+
+
+
+Who Then Can Be Saved?
+
+
+    "And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto His disciples, How
+    hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
+    And the disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answereth
+    again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that
+    trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for
+    a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter
+    into the kingdom of God. And they were astonished exceedingly,
+    saying unto Him, Then who can be saved? Jesus looking upon them
+    saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for all things
+    are possible with God. Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have
+    left all, and have followed thee. Jesus said, Verily I say unto
+    you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or
+    sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake,
+    and for the gospel's sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now
+    in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and
+    children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come
+    eternal life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last
+    first."--MARK x. 23-31 (R.V.).
+
+
+As the rich man turned away with the arrow in his breast, Jesus looked
+round about on His disciples. The Gospels, and especially St. Mark, often
+mention the gaze of Jesus, and all who know the power of an intense and
+pure nature silently searching others, the piercing intuition, the calm
+judgment which sometimes looks out of holy eyes, can well understand the
+reason. Disappointed love was in His look, and that compassionate protest
+against harsh judgments which presently went on to admit that the
+necessary demand was hard. Some, perhaps, who had begun to scorn the ruler
+in his defeat, were reminded of frailties of their own, and had to ask,
+Shall I next be judged? And one was among them, pilfering from the bag
+what was intended for the poor, to whom that look of Christ must have been
+very terrible. Unless we remember Judas, we shall not comprehend all the
+fitness of the repeated and earnest warnings of Jesus against
+covetousness. Never was secret sin dealt with so faithfully as his.
+
+And now Jesus, as He looks around, says, "How hardly shall they that have
+riches enter into the kingdom of God." But the disciples were amazed. To
+the ancient Jew, from Abraham to Solomon, riches appeared to be a sign of
+the Divine favour, and if the pathetic figure of Job reminded him how much
+sorrow might befall the just, yet the story showed even him at the end
+more prosperous than at the beginning. In the time of Jesus, the chiefs of
+their religion were greedily using their position as a means of amassing
+enormous fortunes. To be told that wealth was a positive hindrance on the
+way to God was wonderful indeed.
+
+When Jesus modified His utterance, it was not to correct Himself, like one
+who had heedlessly gone beyond His meaning. His third speech reiterated
+the first, declaring that a manifest and proverbial physical impossibility
+was not so hard as for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, here or
+hereafter. But He interposed a saying which both explained the first one
+and enlarged its scope. "Children" He begins, like one who pitied their
+inexperience and dealt gently with their perplexities, "Children, how hard
+is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God." And
+therefore is it hard for all the rich, since they must wrestle against
+this temptation to trust in their possessions. It is exactly in this
+spirit that St. James, who quoted Jesus more than any of the later writers
+of Scripture, charges the rich that they be not high-minded, nor trust in
+uncertain riches, but in the living God. Immediately before, Jesus had
+told them how alone the kingdom might be entered, even by becoming as
+little children; lowly, dependent, willing to receive all at the hands of
+a superior. Would riches help them to do this? Is it easier to pray for
+daily bread when one has much goods laid up for many years? Is it easier
+to feel that God alone can make us drink of true pleasures as of a river,
+when a hundred luxuries and indulgences lull us in sloth or allure us into
+excess? Hereupon the disciples perceived what was more alarming still,
+that not alone do rich men trust in riches, but all who confound
+possessions with satisfaction, all who dream that to have much is to be
+blessed, as if property were character. They were right. We may follow the
+guidance of Mammon beckoning from afar, with a trust as idolatrous as if
+we held his hand. But who could abide a principle so exacting? It was the
+revelation of a new danger, and they were astonished exceedingly, saying,
+Then who can be saved? Again Jesus looked upon them, with solemn but
+reassuring gaze. They had learned the secret of the new life, the natural
+impossibility throwing us back in helpless appeal to the powers of the
+world to come. "With men it is impossible, but not with God, for all
+things are possible with God."
+
+Peter, not easily nor long to be discouraged, now saw ground for hope. If
+the same danger existed for rich and poor, then either might be encouraged
+by having surmounted it, and the apostles had done what the rich man
+failed to do--they had left all and followed Jesus. The claim has provoked
+undue censure, as if too much were made out of a very trifling sacrifice,
+a couple of boats and a paltry trade. But the objectors have missed the
+point; the apostles really broke away from the service of the world when
+they left their nets and followed Jesus. Their world was perhaps a narrow
+one, but He Who reckoned two mites a greater offering than the total of
+the gifts of many rich casting in much, was unlikely to despise a
+fisherman or a publican who laid all his living upon the altar. The fault,
+if fault there were, lay rather in the satisfaction with which Peter
+contemplates their decision as now irrevocable and secure, so that nothing
+remained except to claim the reward, which St. Matthew tells us he very
+distinctly did. The young man should have had treasure in heaven: what
+then should they have?
+
+But in truth, their hardest battles with worldliness lay still before
+them, and he who thought he stood might well take heed lest he fell. They
+would presently unite in censuring a woman's costly gift to Him, for Whom
+they professed to have surrendered all. Peter himself would shrink from
+his Master's side. And what a satire upon this confident claim would it
+have been, could the heart of Judas then and there have been revealed to
+them.
+
+The answer of our Lord is sufficiently remarkable. St. Matthew tells how
+frankly and fully He acknowledged their collective services, and what a
+large reward He promised, when they should sit with Him on thrones,
+judging their nation. So far was that generous heart from weighing their
+losses in a worldly scale, or criticizing the form of a demand which was
+not all unreasonable.
+
+But St. Mark lays exclusive stress upon other and sobering considerations,
+which also St. Matthew has recorded.
+
+There is a certain tone of egoism in the words, "Lo, we ... what shall we
+have?" And Jesus corrects this in the gentlest way, by laying down such a
+general rule as implies that many others will do the same, "there is no
+man" whose self sacrifice shall go without its reward.
+
+Secondary and lower motives begin to mingle with the generous ardour of
+self-sacrifice as soon as it is careful to record its losses, and inquire
+about its wages. Such motives are not absolutely forbidden, but they must
+never push into the foremost place. The crown of glory animated and
+sustained St. Paul, but it was for Christ, and not for this that he
+suffered the loss of all things.
+
+Jesus accordingly demands purity of motive. The sacrifice must not be for
+ambition, even with aspirations prolonged across the frontiers of
+eternity: it must be altogether "for My sake and for the gospel's sake."
+And here we observe once more the portentous demand of Christ's person
+upon His followers. They are servants of no ethical or theological system,
+however lofty. Christ does not regard Himself and them, as alike devoted
+to some cause above and external to them all. To Him they are to be
+consecrated, and to the gospel, which, as we have seen, is the story of
+His Life, Death and Resurrection. For Him they are to break the dearest
+and strongest of earthly ties. He had just proclaimed how indissoluble was
+the marriage bond. No man should sever those whom God had joined. But St.
+Luke informs us that to forsake even a wife for Christ's sake, was a deed
+worthy of being rewarded an hundredfold. Nor does He mention any higher
+being in whose name the sacrifice is demanded. Now this is at least
+implicitly the view of His own personality, which some profess to find
+only in St. John.
+
+Again, there was perhaps an undertone of complaint in Peter's question, as
+if no compensation for all their sacrifices were hitherto bestowed. What
+should their compensation be? But Christ declares that losses endured for
+Him are abundantly repaid on earth, in this present time, and even amid
+the fires of persecution. Houses and lands are replaced by the
+consciousness of inviolable shelter and inexhaustible provision. "Whither
+wilt thou betake thyself to find covert?" asks the menacing cardinal; but
+Luther answers, "Under the heaven of God." And if dearest friends be
+estranged, or of necessity abandoned, then, in such times of high
+attainment and strong spiritual insight, membership in the Divine family
+is felt to be no unreal tie, and earthly relationships are well recovered
+in the vast fraternity of souls. Brethren, and sisters, and mothers, are
+thus restored an hundredfold; but although a father is also lost, we do
+not hear that a hundred fathers shall be given back, for in the spiritual
+family that place is reserved for One.
+
+Lastly, Jesus reminded them that the race was not yet over; that many
+first shall be last and the last first. We know how Judas by transgression
+fell, and how the persecuting Saul became not a whit behind the very
+chiefest apostle. But this word remains for the warning and incitement of
+all Christians, even unto the end of the world. There are "many" such.
+
+Next after this warning, comes yet another prediction of His own
+suffering, with added circumstances of horror. Would they who were now
+first remain faithful? or should another take their bishopric?
+
+With a darkening heart Judas heard, and made his choice.
+
+
+
+
+[MARK x. 32-34. See MARK viii. 31, p. 219.]
+
+
+
+
+Christ's Cup And Baptism.
+
+
+    "And there came near unto him James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
+    saying unto him, Master, we would that Thou shouldst do for us
+    whatsoever we shall ask of Thee. And He said unto them, What would
+    ye I should do for you? And they said unto Him, Grant unto us that
+    we may sit, one on Thy right hand, and one on _Thy_ left hand, in
+    Thy glory. But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are
+    ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the
+    baptism that I am baptized with? And they said unto Him, We are
+    able. And Jesus said unto them, The cup that I drink ye shall
+    drink; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be
+    baptized: but to sit on My right hand or on My left hand is not
+    Mine to give: but _it is for them_ for whom it hath been
+    prepared."--MARK x. 35-40 (R.V.).
+
+
+We learn from St. Matthew that Salome was associated with her sons, and
+was indeed the chief speaker in the earlier part of this incident.
+
+And her request has commonly been regarded as the mean and shortsighted
+intrigue of an ambitious woman, recklessly snatching at an advantage for
+her family, and unconscious of the stern and steep road to honour in the
+kingdom of Jesus.
+
+Nor can we deny that her prayer was somewhat presumptuous, or that it was
+especially unbecoming to aim at entangling her Lord in a blindfold
+promise, desiring Him to do something undefined, "whatsoever we shall ask
+of Thee." Jesus was too discreet to answer otherwise than, "What would ye
+that I should do for you?" And when they asked for the chief seats in the
+glory that was yet to be their Master's, no wonder that the Ten hearing of
+it, had indignation. But Christ's answer, and the gentle manner in which
+He explains His refusal, when a sharp rebuke is what we would expect to
+read, alike suggest that there may have been some softening,
+half-justifying circumstance. And this we find in the period at which the
+daring request was made.
+
+It was on the road, during the last journey, when a panic had seized the
+company; and our Lord, apparently out of the strong craving for sympathy
+which possesses the noblest souls, had once more told the Twelve what
+insults and cruel sufferings lay before Him. It was a time for deep
+searching of hearts, for the craven to go back and walk no more with Him,
+and for the traitor to think of making His own peace, at any price, with
+His Master's foes.
+
+But this dauntless woman could see the clear sky beyond the storm. Her
+sons shall be loyal, and win the prize, whatever be the hazard, and
+however long the struggle.
+
+Ignorant and rash she may have been, but it was no base ambition which
+chose such a moment to declare its unshaken ardour, and claim distinction
+in the kingdom for which so much must be endured.
+
+And when the stern price was plainly stated, she and her children were not
+startled, they conceived themselves able for the baptism and the cup; and
+little as they dreamed of the coldness of the waters, and the bitterness
+of the draught, yet Jesus did not declare them to be deceived. He said, Ye
+shall indeed share these.
+
+Nor can we doubt that their faith and loyalty refreshed His soul amid so
+much that was sad and selfish. He knew indeed on what a dreadful seat He
+was soon to claim His kingdom, and who should sit upon His right hand and
+His left. These could not follow Him now, but they should follow Him
+hereafter--one by the brief pang of the earliest apostolic martyrdom, and
+the other by the longest and sorest experience of that faithless and
+perverse generation.
+
+1. Very significant is the test of worth which Jesus propounds to them:
+not successful service but endurance; not the active but the passive
+graces. It is not our test, except in a few brilliant and conspicuous
+martyrdoms. The Church, like the world, has crowns for learning,
+eloquence, energy; it applauds the force by which great things are done.
+The reformer who abolishes an abuse, the scholar who defends a doctrine,
+the orator who sways a multitude, and the missionary who adds a new tribe
+to Christendom,--all these are sure of honour. Our loudest plaudits are not
+for simple men and women, but for high station, genius, and success. But
+the Lord looketh upon the heart, not the brain or the hand; He values the
+worker, not the work; the love, not the achievement. And, therefore, one
+of the tests He constantly applied was this, the capability for noble
+endurance. We ourselves, in our saner moments, can judge whether it
+demands more grace to refute a heretic, or to sustain the long inglorious
+agonies of some disease which slowly gnaws away the heart of life. And
+doubtless among the heroes for whom Christ is twining immortal garlands,
+there is many a pale and shattered creature, nerveless and unstrung,
+tossing on a mean bed, breathing in imperfect English loftier praises than
+many an anthem which resounds through cathedral arches, and laying on the
+altar of burnt sacrifice all he has, even his poor frame itself, to be
+racked and tortured without a murmur. Culture has never heightened his
+forehead nor refined his face: we look at him, but little dream what the
+angels see, or how perhaps because of such an one the great places which
+Salome sought were not Christ's to give away except only to them for whom
+it was prepared. For these, at last, the reward shall be His to give, as
+He said, "To him that overcometh will I give to sit down with Me upon My
+throne."
+
+2. Significant also are the phrases by which Christ expressed the
+sufferings of His people. Some, which it is possible to escape, are
+voluntarily accepted for Christ's sake, as when the Virgin mother bowed
+her head to slander and scorn, and said, "Behold the servant of the Lord,
+be it unto me according to Thy word." Such sufferings are a cup
+deliberately raised by one's own hand to the reluctant lips. Into other
+sufferings we are plunged: they are inevitable. Malice, ill-health, or
+bereavement plies the scourge; they come on us like the rush of billows in
+a storm; they are a deep and dreadful baptism. Or we may say that some
+woes are external, visible, we are seen to be submerged in them; but
+others are like the secret ingredients of a bitter draught, which the lips
+know, but the eye of the bystander cannot analyze. But there is One Who
+knows and rewards; even the Man of Sorrows Who said, The cup which My
+heavenly Father giveth, shall I not drink it?
+
+Now it is this standard of excellence, announced by Jesus, which shall
+give high place to many of the poor and ignorant and weak, when rank shall
+perish, when tongues shall cease, and when our knowledge, in the blaze of
+new revelations, shall utterly vanish away, not quenched, but absorbed
+like the starlight at noon.
+
+3. We observe again that men are not said to drink of another cup as
+bitter, or to be baptized in other waters as chill, as tried their Master;
+but to share His very baptism and His cup. Not that we can add anything to
+His all-sufficient sacrifice. Our goodness extendeth not to God. But
+Christ's work availed not only to reconcile us to the Father, but also to
+elevate and consecrate sufferings which would otherwise have been penal
+and degrading. Accepting our sorrows in the grace of Christ, and receiving
+Him into our hearts, then our sufferings fill up that which is lacking of
+the afflictions of Christ (Col. i. 24), and at the last He will say, when
+the glories of heaven are as a robe around Him, "I was hungry, naked,
+sick, and in prison in the person of the least of these."
+
+Hence it is that a special nearness to God has ever been felt in holy
+sorrow, and in the pain of hearts which, amid all clamours and tumults of
+the world, are hushed and calmed by the example of Him Who was led as a
+lamb to the slaughter.
+
+And thus they are not wrong who speak of the Sacrament of Sorrow, for
+Jesus, in this passage, applies to it the language of both sacraments.
+
+It is a harmless superstition even at the worst which brings to the
+baptism of many noble houses water from the stream where Jesus was
+baptized by John. But here we read of another and a dread baptism,
+consecrated by the fellowship of Christ, in depths which plummet never
+sounded, and into which the neophyte goes down sustained by no mortal
+hand.
+
+Here is also the communion of an awful cup. No human minister sets it in
+our trembling hand; no human voice asks, "Are ye able to drink the cup
+that I drink?" Our lips grow pale, and our blood is chill; but faith
+responds, "We are able." And the tender and pitying voice of our Master,
+too loving to spare one necessary pang, responds with the word of doom:
+"The cup that I drink ye shall drink; and with the baptism that I am
+baptized withal shall ye be baptized." Even so: it is enough for the
+servant that he be as his Master.
+
+
+
+
+The Law Of Greatness.
+
+
+    "And when the ten heard it, they began to be moved with
+    indignation concerning James and John. And Jesus called them to
+    Him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to
+    rule over the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great ones
+    exercise authority over them. But it is not so among you; but
+    whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister:
+    and whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all.
+    For verily the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
+    minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."--MARK x. 41-45
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+When the Ten heard that James and John had asked for the chief places in
+the kingdom, they proved, by their indignation, that they also nourished
+the same ambitious desires which they condemned. But Jesus called them to
+Him, for it was not there that angry passions had broken out. And happy
+are they who hear and obey His summons to approach, when, removed from His
+purifying gaze by carelessness or wilfulness, ambition and anger begin to
+excite their hearts.
+
+Now Jesus addressed them as being aware of their hidden emulation. And His
+treatment of it is remarkable. He neither condemns, nor praises it, but
+simply teaches them what Christian greatness means, and the conditions on
+which it may be won.
+
+The greatness of the world is measured by authority and lordliness. Even
+there it is an uncertain test; for the most real power is often wielded by
+some anonymous thinker, or by some crafty intriguer, content with the
+substance of authority while his puppet enjoys the trappings. Something of
+this may perhaps be detected in the words, "They which are accounted to
+rule over the Gentiles lord it over them." And it is certain that "their
+great ones exercise authority over them." But the Divine greatness is a
+meek and gentle influence. To minister to the Church is better than to
+command it, and whoever desires to be the chief must become the servant of
+all. Thus shall whatever is vainglorious and egoistic in our ambition
+defeat itself; the more one struggles to be great the more he is
+disqualified: even benefits rendered to others with this object will not
+really be service done for them but for self; nor will any calculated
+assumption of humility help one to become indeed the least, being but a
+subtle assertion that he is great, and like the last place in an
+ecclesiastical procession, when occupied in a self-conscious spirit. And
+thus it comes to pass that the Church knows very indistinctly who are its
+greatest sons. As the gift of two mites by the widow was greater than that
+of large sums by the rich, so a small service done in the spirit of
+perfect self-effacement,--a service which thought neither of its merit nor
+of its reward, but only of a brother's need, shall be more in the day of
+reckoning than sacrifices which are celebrated by the historians and sung
+by the poets of the Church. For it may avail nothing to give all my goods
+to feed the poor, and my body to be burned; while a cup of cold water,
+rendered by a loyal hand, shall in no wise lose its reward.
+
+Thus Jesus throws open to all men a competition which has no charms for
+flesh and blood. And as He spoke of the entry upon His service, bearing a
+cross, as being the following of Himself, so He teaches us, that the
+greatness of lowliness, to which we are called, is His own greatness. "For
+verily the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister." Not
+here, not in this tarnished and faded world, would He Who was from
+everlasting with the Father have sought His own ease or honour. But the
+physician came to them that were sick, and the good Shepherd followed His
+lost sheep until He found it. Now this comparison proves that we also are
+to carry forward the same restoring work, or else we might infer that,
+because He came to minister to us, we may accept ministration with a good
+heart. It is not so. We are the light and the salt of the earth, and must
+suffer with Him that we may also be glorified together.
+
+But He added another memorable phrase. He came "to give His life a ransom
+in exchange for many." It is not a question, therefore, of the inspiring
+example of His life. Something has been forfeited which must be redeemed,
+and Christ has paid the price. Nor is this done only on behalf of many,
+but in exchange for them.
+
+So then the crucifixion is not a sad incident in a great career; it is the
+mark towards which Jesus moved, the power by which He redeemed the world.
+
+Surely, we recognise here the echo of the prophet's words, "Thou shalt
+make His soul an offering for sin ... by His knowledge shall My righteous
+servant justify many, and He shall bear their iniquities" (Isa. liii. 10,
+11).
+
+The elaborated doctrine of the atonement may not perhaps be here, much
+less the subtleties of theologians who have, to their own satisfaction,
+known the mind of the Almighty to perfection. But it is beyond reasonable
+controversy that in this verse Jesus declared that His sufferings were
+vicarious, and endured in the sinners' stead.
+
+
+
+
+Bartimaeus.
+
+
+    "And they come to Jericho: and as He went out from Jericho, with
+    His disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus,
+    a blind beggar, was sitting by the way side. And when he heard
+    that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say,
+    Jesus, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him,
+    that he should hold his peace: but he cried out the more a great
+    deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still,
+    and said, Call ye him. And they called the blind man, saying unto
+    him, Be of good cheer; rise, He calleth thee. And he, casting away
+    his garment, sprang up, and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered him,
+    and said, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? And the blind
+    man said unto Him, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus
+    said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And
+    straightway he received his sight, and followed Him in the
+    way."--MARK x. 46-52 (R.V.).
+
+
+There is no miracle in the Gospels of which the accounts are so hard to
+reconcile as those of the healing of the blind at Jericho.
+
+It is a small thing that St. Matthew mentions two blind men, while St.
+Mark and St. Luke are only aware of one. The same is true of the demoniacs
+at Gadara, and it is easily understood that only an eyewitness should
+remember the obscure comrade of a remarkable and energetic man, who would
+have spread far and wide the particulars of his own cure. The fierce and
+dangerous demoniac of Gadara was just such a man, and there is ample
+evidence of energy and vehemence in the brief account of Bartimaeus. What
+is really perplexing is that St. Luke places the miracle at the entrance
+to Jericho, but St. Matthew and St. Mark, as Jesus came out of it. It is
+too forced and violent a theory which speaks of an old and a new town, so
+close together that one was entered and the other left at the same time.
+
+It is possible that there were two events, and the success of one sufferer
+at the entrance to the town led others to use the same importunities at
+the exit. And this would not be much more remarkable than the two miracles
+of the loaves, or the two miraculous draughts of fish. It is also
+possible, though unlikely, that the same supplicant who began his appeals
+without success when Jesus entered, resumed His entreaties, with a
+comrade, at the gate by which He left.
+
+Such difficulties exist in all the best authenticated histories:
+discrepancies of the kind arise continually between the evidence of the
+most trustworthy witnesses in courts of justice. And the student who is
+humble as well as devout will not shut his eyes against facts, merely
+because they are perplexing, but will remember that they do nothing to
+shake the solid narrative itself.
+
+As we read St. Mark's account, we are struck by the vividness of the whole
+picture, and especially by the robust personality of the blind man. The
+scene is neither Jerusalem, the city of the Pharisees nor Galilee, where
+they have persistently sapped the popularity of Jesus. Eastward of the
+Jordan, He has spent the last peaceful and successful weeks of His brief
+and stormy career, and Jericho lies upon the borders of that friendly
+district. Accordingly something is here of the old enthusiasm: a great
+multitude moves along with His disciples to the gates, and the rushing
+concourse excites the curiosity of the blind son of Timaeus. So does many a
+religious movement lead to inquiry and explanation far and wide. But when
+he, sitting by the way, and unable to follow, knows that the great Healer
+is at hand, but only in passing, and for a moment, his interest suddenly
+becomes personal and ardent, and "he began to cry out" (the expression
+implies that his supplication, beginning as the crowd drew near, was not
+one utterance but a prolonged appeal), "and to say, Jesus, Thou Son of
+David, have mercy on me." To the crowd his outcry seemed to be only an
+intrusion upon One Who was too rapt, too heavenly, to be disturbed by the
+sorrows of a blind beggar. But that was not the view of Bartimaeus, whose
+personal affliction gave him the keenest interest in those verses of the
+Old Testament which spoke of opening the blind eyes. If he did not
+understand their exact force as prophecies, at least they satisfied him
+that his petition could not be an insult to the great Prophet of Whom just
+such actions were told, for Whose visit he had often sighed, and Who was
+now fast going by, perhaps for ever. The picture is one of great
+eagerness, bearing up against great discouragement. We catch the spirit of
+the man as he inquires what the multitude means, as the epithet of his
+informants, Jesus of Nazareth, changes on his lips into Jesus, Thou Son of
+David, as he persists, without any vision of Christ to encourage him, and
+amid the rebukes of many, in crying out the more a great deal, although
+pain is deepening every moment in his accents, and he will presently need
+cheering. The ear of Jesus is quick for such a call, and He stops. He does
+not raise His own voice to summon him, but teaches a lesson of humanity to
+those who would fain have silenced the appeal of anguish, and says, Call
+ye him. And they obey with a courtier-like change of tone, saying, Be of
+good cheer, rise, He calleth thee. And Bartimaeus cannot endure even the
+slight hindrance of his loose garment, but flings it aside, and rises and
+comes to Jesus, a pattern of the importunity which prays and never faints,
+which perseveres amid all discouragement, which adverse public opinion
+cannot hinder. And the Lord asks of him almost exactly the same question
+as recently of James and John, What wilt thou that I should do for thee?
+But in his reply there is no aspiring pride: misery knows how precious are
+the common gifts, the every-day blessings which we hardly pause to think
+about; and he replies, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight. It is a glad
+and eager answer. Many a petition he had urged in vain; and many a small
+favour had been discourteously bestowed; but Jesus, Whose tenderness loves
+to commend while He blesses, shares with him, so to speak, the glory of
+his healing, as He answers, Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. By
+thus fixing his attention upon his own part in the miracle, so utterly
+worthless as a contribution, but so indispensable as a condition, Jesus
+taught him to exercise hereafter the same gift of faith.
+
+"Go thy way," He said. And Bartimaeus "followed Him on the road." Happy is
+that man whose eyes are open to discern, and his heart prompt to follow,
+the print of those holy feet.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+
+
+The Triumphant Entry.
+
+
+    "And when they draw nigh unto Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and
+    Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, He sendeth two of His disciples,
+    and saith unto them, Go your way into the village that is over
+    against you: and straightway as ye enter into it, ye shall find a
+    colt tied, whereon no man ever yet sat; loose him, and bring him.
+    And if any one say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye, The Lord hath
+    need of him; and straightway He will send him back hither. And
+    they went away, and found a colt tied at the door without in the
+    open street; and they loose him. And certain of them that stood
+    there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt? And they said
+    unto them even as Jesus had said: and they let them go. And they
+    bring the colt unto Jesus, and cast on him their garments; and He
+    sat upon him. And many spread their garments upon the way; and
+    others branches, which they had cut from the fields. And they that
+    went before, and they that followed, cried, Hosanna: Blessed _is_
+    He that cometh in the name of the Lord: Blessed is the kingdom
+    that cometh, _the kingdom_ of our father David: Hosanna in the
+    highest. And He entered into Jerusalem, into the temple; and when
+    He had looked round about upon all things, it being now eventide,
+    He went out unto Bethany with the twelve."--MARK xi. 1-11 (R.V.).
+
+
+Jesus had now come near to Jerusalem, into what was possibly the sacred
+district of Bethphage, of which, in that case, Bethany was the border
+village. Not without pausing here (as we learn from the fourth Gospel),
+yet as the next step forward, He sent two of His disciples to untie and
+bring back an ass, which was fastened with her colt at a spot which He
+minutely described. Unless they were challenged they should simply bring
+the animals away; but if any one remonstrated, they should answer, "The
+Lord hath need of them," and thereupon the owner would not only acquiesce,
+but send them. In fact they are to make a requisition, such as the State
+often institutes for horses and cattle during a campaign, when private
+rights must give way to a national exigency. And this masterful demand,
+this abrupt and decisive rejoinder to a natural objection, not arguing nor
+requesting, but demanding, this title which they are bidden to give to
+Jesus, by which, standing thus alone, He is rarely described in Scripture
+(chiefly in the later Epistles, when the remembrance of His earthly style
+gave place to the influence of habitual adoration), all this preliminary
+arrangement makes us conscious of a change of tone, of royalty issuing its
+mandates, and claiming its rights. But what a claim, what a requisition,
+when He takes the title of Jehovah, and yet announces His need of the colt
+of an ass. It is indeed the lowliest of all memorable processions which He
+plans, and yet, in its very humility, it appeals to ancient prophecy, and
+says unto Zion that her King cometh unto her. The monarchs of the East and
+the captains of the West might ride upon horses as for war, but the King
+of Sion should come unto her meek, and sitting upon an ass, upon a colt,
+the foal of an ass. Yet there is fitness and dignity in the use of "a colt
+whereon never man sat," and it reminds us of other facts, such as that He
+was the firstborn of a virgin mother, and rested in a tomb which
+corruption had never soiled.
+
+Thus He comes forth, the gentlest of the mighty, with no swords gleaming
+around to guard Him, or to smite the foreigner who tramples Israel, or the
+worse foes of her own household. Men who will follow such a King must lay
+aside their vain and earthly ambitions, and awake to the truth that
+spiritual powers are grander than any which violence ever grasped. But men
+who will not follow Him shall some day learn the same lesson, perhaps in
+the crash of their reeling commonwealth, perhaps not until the armies of
+heaven follow Him, as He goes forth, riding now upon a white horse,
+crowned with many diadems, smiting the nations with a sharp sword, and
+ruling them with an iron rod.
+
+Lowly though His procession was, yet it was palpably a royal one. When
+Jehu was proclaimed king at Ramoth-Gilead, the captains hastened to make
+him sit upon the garments of every one of them, expressing by this
+national symbol their subjection. Somewhat the same feeling is in the
+famous anecdote of Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth. And thus the
+disciples who brought the ass cast on him their garments, and Jesus sat
+thereon, and many spread their garments in the way. Others strewed the
+road with branches; and as they went they cried aloud certain verses of
+that great song of triumph, which told how the nations, swarming like
+bees, were quenched like the light fire of thorns, how the right hand of
+the Lord did valiantly, how the gates of righteousness should be thrown
+open for the righteous, and, more significant still, how the stone which
+the builders rejected should become the headstone of the corner. Often had
+Jesus quoted this saying when reproached by the unbelief of the rulers,
+and now the people rejoiced and were glad in it, as they sang of His
+salvation, saying, "Hosanna, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the
+Lord, Blessed is the kingdom that cometh, the Kingdom of our father David,
+Hosanna in the highest."
+
+Such is the narrative as it impressed St. Mark. For his purpose it
+mattered nothing that Jerusalem took no part in the rejoicings, but was
+perplexed, and said, Who is this? or that, when confronted by this
+somewhat scornful and affected ignorance of the capital, the voice of
+Galilee grew weak, and proclaimed no longer the advent of the kingdom of
+David, but only Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth; or that the Pharisees in
+the temple avowed their disapproval, while contemptuously ignoring the
+Galilean multitude, by inviting Him to reprove some children. What
+concerned St. Mark was that now, at last, Jesus openly and practically
+assumed rank as a monarch, allowed men to proclaim the advent of His
+kingdom, and proceeded to exercise its rights by calling for the surrender
+of property, and by cleansing the temple with a scourge. The same avowal
+of kingship is almost all that he has cared to record of the remarkable
+scene before His Roman judge.
+
+After this heroic fashion did Jesus present Himself to die. Without a
+misleading hope, conscious of the hollowness of His seeming popularity,
+weeping for the impending ruin of the glorious city whose walls were
+ringing with His praise, and predicting the murderous triumph of the
+crafty faction which appears so helpless, He not only refuses to recede or
+compromise, but does not hesitate to advance His claims in a manner
+entirely new, and to defy the utmost animosity of those who still rejected
+Him.
+
+After such a scene there could be no middle course between crushing Him,
+and bowing to Him. He was no longer a Teacher of doctrines, however
+revolutionary, but an Aspirant to practical authority, Who must be dealt
+with practically.
+
+There was evidence also of His intention to proceed upon this new line,
+when He entered into the temple, investigated its glaring abuses, and only
+left it for the moment because it was now eventide. To-morrow would show
+more of His designs.
+
+Jesus is still, and in this world, King. And it will hereafter avail us
+nothing to have received His doctrine, unless we have taken His yoke.
+
+
+
+
+The Barren Fig-Tree.
+
+
+    "And on the morrow, when they were come out from Bethany, He
+    hungered. And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, He came,
+    if haply He might find anything thereon: and when He came to it,
+    He found nothing but leaves; for it was not the season of figs.
+    And He answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit from thee
+    henceforward for ever. And His disciples heard it."
+
+    "And as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig-tree
+    withered away from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance
+    saith unto Him, Rabbi, behold, the fig-tree which Thou cursedst is
+    withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in
+    God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this
+    mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not
+    doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to
+    pass; he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, All things
+    whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received
+    them, and ye shall have them. And whensoever ye stand praying,
+    forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your Father also
+    which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses."--MARK xi.
+    12-14, 20-25 (R.V.).
+
+
+No sooner has Jesus claimed His kingdom, than He performs His first and
+only miracle of judgment. And it is certain that no mortal, informed that
+such a miracle was impending, could have guessed where the blow would
+fall. In this miracle an element is predominant which exists in all, since
+it is wrought as an acted dramatized parable, not for any physical
+advantage, but wholly for the instruction which it conveys. Jesus hungered
+at the very outset of a day of toil, as He came out from Bethany. And this
+was not due to poverty, since the disciples there had recently made Him a
+great feast, but to His own absorbing ardour. The zeal of God's house,
+which He had seen polluted and was about to cleanse, had either left Him
+indifferent to food until the keen air of morning aroused the sense of
+need, or else it had detained Him, all night long, in prayer and
+meditation out of doors. As He walks, He sees afar off a lonely fig-tree
+covered with leaves, and comes if haply He might find anything thereon. It
+is true that figs would not be in season for two months, but yet they
+ought to present themselves before the leaves did; and since the tree was
+precocious in the show and profusion of luxuriance, it ought to bear early
+figs. If it failed, it would at least point a powerful moral; and,
+therefore, when only leaves appeared upon it, Jesus cursed it with
+perpetual barrenness, and passed on. Not in the dusk of that evening as
+they returned, but when they passed by again in the morning the blight was
+manifest, the tree was withered from its very roots.
+
+It is complained that by this act Jesus deprived some one of his property.
+But the same retributive justice of which this was an expression was
+preparing to blight, presently, all the possessions of all the nation. Was
+this unjust? And of the numberless trees that are blasted year by year,
+why should the loss of this one only be resented? Every physical injury
+must be intended to further some spiritual end; but it is not often that
+the purpose is so clear, and the lesson so distinctly learned.
+
+Others blame our Lord's word of sentence, because a tree, not being a
+moral agent, ought not to be punished. It is an obvious rejoinder that
+neither could it suffer pain; that the whole action is symbolic; and that
+we ourselves justify the Saviour's method of expression as often as we
+call one tree "good" and another "bad," and say that a third "ought" to
+bear fruit, while not much could be "expected of" a fourth. It should
+rather be observed that in this word of sentence Jesus revealed His
+tenderness. It would have been a false and cruel kindness never to work
+any miracle except of compassion, and thus to suggest the inference that
+He could never strike, whereas indeed, before that generation passed away,
+He would break His enemies in pieces like a potter's vessel.
+
+Yet He came not to destroy men's lives but to save them. And, therefore,
+while showing Himself neither indifferent nor powerless against barren and
+false pretensions, He did this only once, and then only by a sign wrought
+upon an unsentient tree.
+
+Retribution fell upon it not for its lack of fruit, since at that season
+it shared this with all its tribe, but for ostentatious, much-professing
+fruitlessness. And thus it pointed with dread significance to the
+condition of God's own people, differing from Greece and Rome and Syria,
+not in the want of fruit, but in the show of luxuriant frondage, in the
+expectation it excited and mocked. When the season of the world's
+fruitfulness was yet remote, only Israel put forth leaves, and made
+professions which were not fulfilled. And the permanent warning of the
+miracle is not for heathen men and races, but for Christians who have a
+name to live, and who are called to bear fruit unto God.
+
+While the disciples marvelled at the sudden fulfilment of its sentence,
+they could not have forgotten the parable of a fig-tree in the vineyard,
+on which care and labour were lavished, but which must be destroyed after
+one year of respite if it continued to be a cumberer of the ground.
+
+And Jesus drove the lesson home. He pointed to "this mountain" full in
+front, with the gold and marble of the temple sparkling like a diadem upon
+its brow, and declared that faith is not only able to smite barrenness
+with death, but to remove into the midst of the sea, to plant among the
+wild and stormswept races of the immeasurable pagan world, the glory and
+privilege of the realized presence of the Lord. To do this was the purpose
+of God, hinted by many a prophet, and clearly announced by Christ Himself.
+But its accomplishment was left to His followers, who should succeed in
+exact proportion to the union of their will and that of God, so that the
+condition of that moral miracle, transcending all others in marvel and in
+efficacy, was simple faith.
+
+And the same rule covers all the exigencies of life. One who truly relies
+on God, whose mind and will are attuned to those of the Eternal, cannot be
+selfish, or vindictive, or presumptuous. As far as we rise to the grandeur
+of this condition we enter into the Omnipotence of God, and no limit need
+be imposed upon the prevalence of really and utterly believing prayer. The
+wishes that ought to be refused will vanish as we attain that eminence,
+like the hoar frost of morning as the sun grows strong.
+
+To this promise Jesus added a precept, the admirable suitability of which
+is not at first apparent. Most sins are made evident to the conscience in
+the act of prayer. Drawing nigh to God, we feel our unfitness to be there,
+we are made conscious of what He frowns upon, and if we have such faith as
+Jesus spoke of, we at once resign what would grieve the Spirit of
+adoption. No saint is ignorant of the convicting power of prayer. But it
+is not of necessity so with resentment for real grievances. We may think
+we do well to be angry. We may confound our selfish fire with the pure
+flame of holy zeal, and begin, with confidence enough, yet not with the
+mind of Christ, to remove mountains, not because they impede a holy cause,
+but because they throw a shadow upon our own field. And, therefore, Jesus
+reminds us that not only wonder-working faith, but even the forgiveness of
+our sins requires from us the forgiveness of our brother. This saying is
+the clearest proof of how much is implied in a truly undoubting heart. And
+this promise is the sternest rebuke of the Church, endorsed with such
+ample powers, and yet after nineteen centuries confronted by an
+unconverted world.
+
+
+
+
+The Second Cleansing Of The Temple.
+
+
+    "And they come to Jerusalem: and He entered into the temple, and
+    began to cast out them that sold and them that bought in the
+    temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the
+    seats of them that sold the doves; and He would not suffer that
+    any man should carry a vessel through the temple. And He taught,
+    and said unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a
+    house of prayer for all the nations? but ye have made it a den of
+    robbers. And the chief priests and the scribes heard it, and
+    sought how they might destroy Him: for they feared Him, for all
+    the multitude was astonished at His teaching. And every evening He
+    went forth out of the city."--MARK xi. 15-19. (R.V.).
+
+
+With the authority of yesterday's triumph still about Him, Jesus returned
+to the temple, which He had then inspected. There at least the priesthood
+were not thwarted by popular indifference or ignorance: they had power to
+carry out fully their own views; they were solely responsible for whatever
+abuses could be discovered. In fact, the iniquities which moved the
+indignation of Jesus were of their own contrivance, and they enriched
+themselves by a vile trade which robbed the worshippers and profaned the
+holy house.
+
+Pilgrims from a distance needed the sacred money, the half-shekel of the
+sanctuary, still coined for this one purpose, to offer for a ransom of
+their souls (Exod. xxx. 13). And the priests had sanctioned a trade in the
+exchange of money under the temple roof, so fraudulent that the dealers'
+evidence was refused in the courts of justice.
+
+Doves were necessary for the purification of the poor, who could not
+afford more costly sacrifices, and sheep and oxen were also in great
+demand. And since the unblemished quality of the sacrifices should be
+attested by the priests, they had been able to put a fictitious value upon
+these animals, by which the family of Annas in particular had accumulated
+enormous wealth.
+
+To facilitate this trade, they had dared to bring the defilement of the
+cattle market within the precincts of the House of God. Not indeed into
+the place where the Pharisee stood in his pride and "prayed with himself,"
+for that was holy; but the court of the Gentiles was profane; the din
+which distracted and the foulness which revolted Gentile worship was of no
+account to the average Jew. But Jesus regarded the scene with different
+eyes. How could the sanctity of that holy place not extend to the court of
+the stranger and the proselyte, when it was written, Thy house shall be
+called a house of prayer for all the nations? Therefore Jesus had already,
+at the outset of His ministry, cleansed His Father's house. Now, in the
+fulness of His newly asserted royalty, He calls it My House: He denounces
+the iniquity of their traffic by branding it as a den of robbers; He casts
+out the traders themselves, as well as the implements of their traffic;
+and in so doing He fanned to a mortal heat the hatred of the chief priests
+and the scribes, who saw at once their revenues threatened and their
+reputation tarnished, and yet dared not strike, because all the multitude
+was astonished at His teaching.
+
+But the wisdom of Jesus did not leave Him within their reach at night;
+every evening He went forth out of the city.
+
+From this narrative we learn the blinding force of self-interest, for
+doubtless they were no more sensible of their iniquity than many a modern
+slavedealer. And we must never rest content because our own conscience
+acquits us, unless we have by thought and prayer supplied it with light
+and guiding.
+
+We learn reverence for sacred places, since the one exercise of His royal
+authority which Jesus publicly displayed was to cleanse the temple, even
+though upon the morrow He would relinquish it for ever, to be "your
+house"--and desolate.
+
+We learn also how much apparent sanctity, what dignity of worship,
+splendour of offerings, and pomp of architecture may go along with
+corruption and unreality.
+
+And yet again, by their overawed and abject helplessness we learn the
+might of holy indignation, and the awakening power of a bold appeal to
+conscience. "The people hung upon Him, listening," and if all seemed vain
+and wasted effort on the following Friday, what fruit of the teaching of
+Jesus did not His followers gather in, as soon as He poured down on them
+the gifts of Pentecost.
+
+Did they now recall their own reflections after the earlier cleansing of
+the temple? and their Master's ominous words? They had then remembered how
+it was written, The zeal of thine house shall eat Me up. And He had said,
+Destroy this temple, and in three days I shall raise it up, speaking of
+the temple of His Body, which was now about to be thrown down.
+
+
+
+
+The Baptism Of John, Whence Was It?
+
+
+    "And they come again to Jerusalem: and as He was walking in the
+    temple, there come to Him the chief priests, and the scribes, and
+    the elders; and they said unto Him, By what authority doest Thou
+    these things? or who gave Thee this authority to do these things?
+    And Jesus said unto them, I will ask of you one question, and
+    answer Me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these
+    things. The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men?
+    answer Me. And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall
+    say, From heaven: He will say, Why then did ye not believe him?
+    But should we say, From men--they feared the people: for all verily
+    held John to be a prophet. And they answered Jesus and say, We
+    know not. And Jesus saith unto them, Neither tell I you by what
+    authority I do these things."--MARK xi. 27-33 (R.V.).
+
+
+The question put to Jesus by the hierarchy of Jerusalem is recorded in all
+the synoptic Gospels. But in some respects the story is most pointed in
+the narrative of St. Mark. And it is natural that he, the historian
+especially of the energies of Christ, should lay stress upon a challenge
+addressed to Him, by reason of His masterful words and deeds. At the
+outset, he had recorded the astonishment of the people because Jesus
+taught with authority, because "Verily I say" replaced the childish and
+servile methods by which the scribe and the Pharisee sustained their most
+wilful innovations.
+
+When first he relates a miracle, he tells how their wonder increased,
+because with authority Jesus commanded the unclean spirits and they
+obeyed, respecting His self-reliant word "I command thee to come out,"
+more than the most elaborate incantations and exorcisms. St. Mark's first
+record of collision with the priests was when Jesus carried His claim
+still farther, and said "The Son of man hath authority" (it is the same
+word) "on earth to forgive sins." Thus we find the Gospel quite conscious
+of what so forcibly strikes a careful modern reader, the assured and
+independent tone of Jesus; His bearing, so unlike that of a disciple or a
+commentator; His consciousness that the Scriptures themselves are they
+which testify of Him, and that only He can give the life which men think
+they possess in these. In the very teaching of lowliness Jesus exempts
+Himself, and forbids others to be Master and Lord, because these titles
+belong to Him.
+
+Impressive as such claims appear when we awake to them, it is even more
+suggestive to reflect that we can easily read the Gospels and not be
+struck by them. We do not start when He bids all the weary to come to Him,
+and offers them rest, and yet declares Himself to be meek and lowly. He is
+meek and lowly while He makes such claims. His bearing is that of the
+highest rank, joined with the most perfect graciousness; His great claims
+never irritate us, because they are palpably His due, and we readily
+concede the astonishing elevation whence He so graciously bends down so
+low. And this is one evidence of the truth and power of the character
+which the Apostles drew.
+
+How natural is this also, that immediately after Palm Sunday, when the
+people have hailed their Messiah, royal and a Saviour, and when He has
+accepted their homage, we find new indications of authority in His bearing
+and His actions. He promptly took them at their word. It was now that He
+wrought His only miracle of judgment, and although it was but the
+withering of a tree (since He came not to destroy men's lives but to save
+them), yet was there a dread symbolical sentence involved upon all barren
+and unfruitful men and Churches. In the very act of triumphal entry, He
+solemnly pronounced judgment upon the guilty city which would not accept
+her King.
+
+Arrived at the temple, He surveyed its abuses and defilements, and
+returned on the morrow (and so not spurred by sudden impulse, but of
+deliberate purpose), to drive out them that sold and bought. Two years ago
+He had needed to scourge the intruders forth, but now they are overawed by
+His majesty, and obey His word. Then, too, they were rebuked for making
+His Father's house a house of merchandise, but now it is His own--"My
+House," but degraded yet farther into a den of thieves.
+
+But while traffic and pollution shrank away, misery and privation were
+attracted to Him; the blind and the lame came and were healed in the very
+temple; and the centre and rallying-place of the priests and scribes
+beheld His power to save. This drove them to extremities. He was carrying
+the war into the heart of their territories, establishing Himself in their
+stronghold, and making it very plain that since the people had hailed Him
+King, and He had responded to their acclaims, He would not shrink from
+whatever His view of that great office might involve.
+
+While they watched, full of bitterness and envy, they were again
+impressed, as at the beginning, by the strange, autocratic, spontaneous
+manner in which He worked, making Himself the source of His blessings, as
+no prophet had ever done since Moses expiated so dearly the offence of
+saying, Must we fetch you water out of the rock? Jesus acted after the
+fashion of Him Who openeth His hands and satisfieth the desire of every
+living thing. Why did He not give the glory to One above? Why did He not
+supplicate, nor invoke, but simply bestow? Where were the accustomed words
+of supplication, "Hear me, O Lord God, hear me," or, "Where is the Lord
+God of Israel?"
+
+Here they discerned a flaw, a heresy; and they would force Him either to
+make a fatal claim, or else to moderate His pretensions at their bidding,
+which would promptly restore their lost influence and leadership.
+
+Nor need we shrink from confessing that our Lord was justly open to such
+reproach, unless He was indeed Divine, unless He was deliberately
+preparing His followers for that astonishing revelation, soon to come,
+which threw the Church upon her knees in adoration of her God manifest in
+flesh. It is hard to understand how the Socinian can defend his Master
+against the charge of encroaching on the rights and honours of Deity, and
+(to borrow a phrase from a different connection) sitting down at the right
+hand of the Majesty of God, whereas every priest standeth ministering. If
+He were a creature, He culpably failed to tell us the conditions upon
+which He received a delegated authority, and the omission has made His
+Church ever since idolatrous. It is one great and remarkable lesson
+suggested by this verse: if Jesus were not Divine, what was He?
+
+Thus it came to pass, in direct consequence upon the events which opened
+the great week of the triumph and the cross of Jesus, that the whole rank
+and authority of the temple system confronted Him with a stern question.
+They sat in Moses' seat. They were entitled to examine the pretensions of
+a new and aspiring teacher. They had a perfect right to demand "Tell us by
+what authority thou doest these things." The works are not denied, but the
+source whence they flow is questioned.
+
+After so many centuries, the question is fresh to-day. For still the
+spirit of Christ is working in His world, openly, palpably, spreading
+blessings far and wide. It is exalting multitudes of ignoble lives by
+hopes that are profound, far-reaching, and sublime. When savage realms are
+explored, it is Christ Who hastens thither with His gospel, before the
+trader in rum and gunpowder can exhibit the charms of a civilization
+without a creed. In the gloomiest haunts of disease and misery, madness,
+idiotcy, orphanage, and vice, there is Christ at work, the good Samaritan,
+pouring oil and wine into the gaping wounds of human nature, acting quite
+upon His own authority, careless who looks askance, not asking political
+economy whether genuine charity is pauperisation, nor questioning the
+doctrine of development, whether the progress of the race demands the
+pitiless rejection of the unfit, and selection only of the strongest
+specimens for survival. That iron creed may be natural; but if so, ours is
+supernatural, it is a law of spirit and life, setting us free from that
+base and selfish law of sin and death. The existence and energy of
+Christian forces in our modern world is indisputable: never was Jesus a
+more popular and formidable claimant of its crown; never did more Hosannas
+follow Him into the temple. But now as formerly His credentials are
+demanded: what is His authority and how has He come by it?
+
+Now we say of modern as of ancient inquiries, that they are right;
+investigation is inevitable and a duty.
+
+But see how Jesus dealt with those men of old.
+
+Let us not misunderstand Him. He did not merely set one difficulty against
+another, as if we should start some scientific problem, and absolve
+ourselves from the duty of answering any inquiry until science had
+disposed of this. Doubtless it is logical enough to point out that all
+creeds, scientific and religious alike, have their unsolved problems. But
+the reply of Jesus was not a dexterous evasion, it went to the root of
+things, and, therefore, it stands good for time and for eternity. He
+refused to surrender the advantage of a witness to whom He was entitled:
+He demanded that all the facts and not some alone should be investigated.
+In truth their position bound His interrogators to examine His
+credentials; to do so was not only their privilege but their duty. But
+then they must begin at the beginning. Had they performed this duty for
+the Baptist? Who or what was that mysterious, lonely, stern preacher of
+righteousness who had stirred the national heart so profoundly, and whom
+all men still revered? They themselves had sent to question him, and his
+answer was notorious: he had said that he was sent before the Christ; he
+was only a voice, but a voice which demanded the preparation of a way
+before the Lord Himself, Who was approaching, and a highway for our God.
+What was the verdict of these investigators upon that great movement? What
+would they make of the decisive testimony of the Baptist?
+
+As the perilous significance of this consummate rejoinder bursts on their
+crafty intelligence, as they recoil confounded from the exposure they have
+brought upon themselves, St. Mark tells how the question was pressed home,
+"Answer Me!" But they dared not call John an impostor, and yet to confess
+him was to authenticate the seal upon our Lord's credentials. And Jesus is
+palpably within His rights in refusing to be questioned of such
+authorities as these. Yet immediately afterwards, with equal skill and
+boldness, He declared Himself, and yet defied their malice, in the story
+of the lord of a vineyard, who had vainly sent many servants to claim its
+fruit, and at the last sent his beloved son.
+
+Now apply the same process to the modern opponents of the faith, and it
+will be found that multitudes of their assaults on Christianity imply the
+negation of what they will not and dare not deny. Some will not believe in
+miracles because the laws of nature work uniformly. But their uniformity
+is undisturbed by human operations; the will of man wields, without
+cancelling, these mighty forces which surround us. And why may not the
+will of God do the same, if there be a God? Ask them whether they deny His
+existence, and they will probably declare themselves Agnostics, which is
+exactly the ancient answer, "We cannot tell." Now as long as men avow
+their ignorance of the existence or non-existence of a Deity, they cannot
+assert the impossibility of miracles, for miracles are simply actions
+which reveal God, as men's actions reveal their presence.
+
+Again, a demand is made for such evidence, to establish the faith, as
+cannot be had for any fact beyond the range of the exact sciences. We are
+asked, Why should we stake eternity upon anything short of demonstration?
+Yet it will be found that the objector is absolutely persuaded, and acts
+on his persuasion of many "truths which never can be proved"--of the
+fidelity of his wife and children, and above all, of the difference
+between right and wrong. That is a fundamental principle: deny it, and
+society becomes impossible. And yet sceptical theories are widely diffused
+which really, though unconsciously, sap the very foundations of morality,
+or assert that it is not from heaven but of men, a mere expediency, a
+prudential arrangement of society.
+
+Such arguments may well "fear the people," for the instincts of mankind
+know well that all such explanations of conscience do really explain it
+away.
+
+And it is quite necessary in our days, when religion is impugned, to see
+whether the assumptions of its assailants would not compromise time as
+well as eternity, and to ask, What think ye of all those fundamental
+principles which sustain the family, society, and the state, while they
+bear testimony to the Church of Christ.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+
+
+The Husbandmen.
+
+
+    "And He began to speak unto them in parables. A man planted a
+    vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the
+    wine-press, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and
+    went into another country. And at the season he sent to the
+    husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of
+    the fruits of the vineyard. And they took him, and beat him, and
+    sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another servant:
+    and him they wounded in the head, and handled shamefully. And he
+    sent another; and him they killed: and many others; beating some,
+    and killing some. He had yet one, a beloved son: he sent him last
+    unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those
+    husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us
+    kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him,
+    and killed him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard. What,
+    therefore, will the Lord of the vineyard do? He will come and
+    destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.
+    Have ye not read even this Scripture:
+
+    The stone which the builders rejected,
+    The same was made the head of the corner:
+    This was from the Lord,
+    And it is marvellous in our eyes?
+
+    And they sought to lay hold on Him; and they feared the multitude;
+    for they perceived that He spake the parable against them: and
+    they left Him, and went away."--MARK xii. 1-12 (R.V.).
+
+
+The rulers of His people have failed to make Jesus responsible to their
+inquisition. He has exposed the hollowness of their claim to investigate
+His commission, and formally refused to tell them by what authority He did
+these things. But what He would not say for an unjust cross-examination,
+He proclaimed to all docile hearts; and the skill which disarmed His
+enemies is not more wonderful than that which in their hearing answered
+their question, yet left them no room for accusation. This was achieved by
+speaking to them in parables. The indifferent might hear and not perceive:
+the keenness of malice would surely understand but could not easily
+impeach a simple story; but to His own followers it would be given to know
+the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
+
+His first words would be enough to arouse attention. The psalmist had told
+how God brought a vine out of Egypt, and cast out the heathen and planted
+it. Isaiah had carried the image farther, and sung of a vineyard in a very
+fruitful hill. The Well-beloved, Whose it was, cleared the ground for it,
+and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower, and hewed out a
+wine-press, and looked that it should bring forth grapes, but it had
+brought forth wild grapes. Therefore He would lay it waste. This
+well-known and recognized type the Lord now adopted, but modified it to
+suit His purpose. As in a former parable the sower slept and rose, and
+left the earth to bring forth fruit of itself, so in this, the Lord of the
+vineyard let it out to husbandmen and went into a far country. This is our
+Lord's own explanation of that silent time in which no special
+interpositions asserted that God was nigh, no prophecies were heard, no
+miracles startled the careless. It was the time when grace already granted
+should have been peacefully ripening. Now we live in such a period.
+Unbelievers desire a sign. Impatient believers argue that if our Master is
+as near us as ever, the same portents must attest His presence; and,
+therefore, they recognise the gift of tongues in hysterical clamour, and
+stake the honour of religion upon faith-healing, and those various obscure
+phenomena which the annals of every fanaticism can rival. But the sober
+Christian understands that, even as the Lord of the vineyard went into
+another country, so Christ His Son (Who in spiritual communion is ever
+with His people) in another sense has gone into a far country to receive a
+kingdom and to return. In the interval, marvels would be simply an
+anachronism. The best present evidence of the faith lies in the superior
+fruitfulness of the vineyard He has planted, in the steady advance to rich
+maturity of the vine He has imported from another clime.
+
+At this point Jesus begins to add a new significance to the ancient
+metaphor. The husbandmen are mentioned. Men there were in the ancient
+Church, who were specially responsible for the culture of the vineyard. As
+He spoke, the symbol explained itself. The imposing array of chief priests
+and scribes and elders stood by, who had just claimed as their prerogative
+that He should make good His commission to their scrutiny; and none would
+be less likely to mistake His meaning than these self-conscious lovers of
+chief seats in the synagogues. The structure of the parable, therefore,
+admits their official rank, as frankly as when Jesus bade His disciples
+submit to their ordinances because they sit in Moses' seat. But He passes
+on, easily and as if unconsciously, to record that special messengers from
+heaven had, at times, interrupted the self-indulgent quietude of the
+husbandmen. Because the fruit of the vineyard had not been freely
+rendered, a bondservant was sent to demand it. The epithet implies that
+the messenger was lower in rank, although his direct mission gave him
+authority even over the keepers of the vineyard. It expresses exactly the
+position of the prophets, few of them of priestly rank, some of them very
+humble in extraction, and very rustic in expression, but all sent in evil
+days to faithless husbandmen, to remind them that the vineyard was not
+their own, and to receive the fruits of righteousness. Again and again the
+demand is heard, for He sent "many others;" and always it is rejected with
+violence, which sometimes rises to murder. As they listened, they must
+have felt that all this was true, that while prophet after prophet had
+come to a violent end, not one had seen the official hierarchy making
+common cause with him. And they must also have felt how ruinous was this
+rejoinder to their own demand that the people should forsake a teacher
+when they rejected him. Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees
+believed on Him? was their scornful question. But the answer was plain, As
+long as they built the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnished the tombs
+of the righteous, and said, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we
+would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets, they
+confessed that men could not blindly follow a hierarchy merely as such,
+since they were not the official successors of the prophets but of those
+who slew them. The worst charge brought against them was only that they
+acted according to analogy, and filled up the deeds of their fathers. It
+had always been the same.
+
+The last argument of Stephen, which filled his judges with madness, was
+but the echo of this great impeachment. Which of the prophets did not your
+fathers persecute? and they killed them which showed before of the coming
+of the Righteous One, of Whom ye have now become the betrayers and
+murderers.
+
+That last defiance of heaven, which Stephen thus denounced, his Master
+distinctly foretold. And He added the appalling circumstance, that however
+they might deceive themselves and sophisticate their conscience, they
+really knew Him Who He was. They felt, at the very least, that into His
+hands should pass all the authority and power they had so long
+monopolized: "This is the Heir; come let us kill Him and the inheritance
+shall be ours." If there were no more, the utterance of these words put
+forth an extraordinary claim.
+
+All that should have been rendered up to heaven and was withheld, all that
+previous messengers had demanded on behalf of God without avail, all "the
+inheritance" which these wicked husbandmen were intercepting, all this
+Jesus announces to be His own, while reprehending the dishonesty of any
+other claim upon it. And as a matter of fact, if Jesus be not Divine, He
+has intercepted more of the worship due to the Eternal, has attracted to
+Himself more of the homage of the loftiest and profoundest minds, than any
+false teacher within the pale of monotheism has ever done. It is the
+bounden duty of all who revere Jesus even as a teacher, of all who have
+eyes to see that His coming was the greatest upward step in the progress
+of humanity, to consider well what was implied, when, in the act of
+blaming the usurpers of the heritage of God, Jesus declared that
+inheritance to be His own. But this is not all, though it is what He
+declares that the husbandmen were conscious of. The parable states, not
+only that He is heir, but heir by virtue of His special relationship to
+the Supreme. Others are bondservants or husbandmen, but He is the Son. He
+does not inherit as the worthiest and most obedient, but by right of
+birth; and His Father, in the act of sending Him, expects even these
+bloodstained outlaws to reverence His Son. In such a phrase, applied to
+such criminals, we are made to feel the lofty rank alike of the Father and
+His Son, which ought to have overawed even them. And when we read that "He
+had yet one, a beloved Son," it seems as if the veil of eternity were
+uplifted, to reveal a secret and awful intimacy, of which, nevertheless,
+some glimmering consciousness should have controlled the most desperate
+heart.
+
+But they only reckoned that if they killed the Heir, the inheritance would
+become their own. It seems the wildest madness, that men should know and
+feel Who He was, and yet expect to profit by desecrating His rights. And
+yet so it was from the beginning. If Herod were not fearful that the
+predicted King of the Jews was indeed born, the massacre of the Innocents
+was idle. If the rulers were not fearful that this counsel and work was of
+God, they would not, at Gamaliel's bidding, have refrained from the
+Apostles. And it comes still closer to the point to observe that, if they
+had attached no importance, even in their moment of triumph, to the
+prediction of His rising from the dead, they would not have required a
+guard, nor betrayed the secret recognition which Jesus here exposes. The
+same blind miscalculation is in every attempt to obtain profit or pleasure
+by means which are known to transgress the laws of the all-beholding Judge
+of all. It is committed every day, under the pressure of strong
+temptation, by men who know clearly that nothing but misery can result. So
+true is it that action is decided, not by a course of logic in the brain,
+but by the temperament and bias of our nature as a whole. We need not
+suppose that the rulers roundly spoke such words as these, even to
+themselves. The infamous motive lurked in ambush, too far in the back
+ground of the mind perhaps even for consciousness. But it was there, and
+it affected their decision, as lurking passions and self-interests always
+will, as surely as iron deflects the compass. "They caught Him and killed
+Him," said the unfaltering lips of their victim. And He added a
+circumstance of pain which we often overlook, but to which the great
+minister of the circumcision was keenly sensitive, and often reverted, the
+giving Him up to the Gentiles, to a death accursed among the Jews; "they
+cast Him forth out of the vineyard."
+
+All evil acts are based upon an overestimate of the tolerance of God. He
+had seemed to remain passive while messenger after messenger was beaten,
+stoned, or slain. But now that they had filled up the iniquity of their
+fathers, the Lord of the vineyard would come in person to destroy them,
+and give the vineyard to others. This last phrase is strangely at variance
+with the notion that the days of a commissioned ministry are over, as, on
+the other hand, the whole parable is at variance with the notion that a
+priesthood can be trusted to sit in exclusive judgment upon doctrine for
+the Church.
+
+At this point St. Mark omits an incident so striking, although small, that
+its absence is significant. The by-standers said, "God forbid!" and when
+the horrified exclamation betrayed their consciousness of the position,
+Jesus was content, without a word, to mark their self-conviction by His
+searching gaze. "He looked upon them." The omission would be unaccountable
+if St. Mark were simply a powerful narrator of graphic incidents; but it
+is explained when we think that for him the manifestation of a mighty
+Personage was all in all, and the most characteristic and damaging
+admissions of the hierarchy were as nothing compared with a word of his
+Lord. Thereupon he goes straight on to record that, besides refuting their
+claim by the history of the past, and asserting His own supremacy in a
+phrase at once guarded in form and decisive in import, Jesus also appealed
+to Scripture. It was written that by special and marvellous interposition
+of the Lord a stone which the recognized builders had rejected should
+crown the building. And the quotation was not only decisive as showing
+that their rejection could not close the controversy; it also compensated,
+with a promise of final victory, the ominous words in which their malice
+had seemed to do its worst. Jesus often predicted His death, but He never
+despaired of His kingdom.
+
+No wonder that the rulers sought to arrest Him, and perceived that He
+penetrated and despised their schemes. And their next device is a natural
+outcome from the fact that they feared the people, but did not discontinue
+their intrigues; for this was a crafty and dangerous attempt to estrange
+from Him the admiring multitude.
+
+
+
+
+The Tribute Money.
+
+
+    "And they send unto Him certain of the Pharisees and of the
+    Herodians, that they might catch Him in talk. And when they were
+    come, they say unto Him, Master, we know that Thou art true, and
+    carest not for any one: for Thou regardest not the person of men,
+    but of a truth teachest the way of God: Is it lawful to give
+    tribute unto Caesar, or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give?
+    But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye Me?
+    bring Me a penny, that I may see it. And they brought it. And He
+    saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they
+    said unto Him, Caesar's. And Jesus said unto them, Render unto
+    Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that
+    are God's. And they marvelled greatly at Him."--MARK xii. 13-17
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+The contrast is very striking between this incident and the last. Instead
+of a challenge, Jesus is respectfully consulted; and instead of a formal
+concourse of the authorities of His religion, He is Himself the authority
+to Whom a few perplexed people profess to submit their difficulty.
+Nevertheless, it is a new and subtle effort of the enmity of His defeated
+foes. They have sent to Him certain Pharisees who will excite the popular
+indignation if He yields anything to the foreigner, and Herodians who
+will, if He refuses, bring upon Him the colder and deadlier vengeance of
+Rome. They flatter, in order to stimulate, that fearless utterance which
+must often have seemed to them so rash: "We know that Thou art true, and
+carest not for any one, for Thou regardest not the person of men, but of a
+truth teachest the way of God." And they appeal to a higher motive by
+representing the case to be one of practical and personal urgency, "Shall
+we give, or shall we not give?"
+
+Never was it more necessary to join the wisdom of the serpent to the
+innocence of the dove, for it would seem that He must needs answer
+directly, and that no direct answer can fail to have the gravest
+consequences. But in their eagerness to secure this menacing position,
+they have left one weak point in the attack. They have made the question
+altogether a practical one. The abstract doctrine of the right to drive
+out a foreign power, of the limits of authority and freedom, they have not
+raised. It is simply a question of the hour, Shall we give or shall we not
+give?
+
+And Jesus baffled them by treating it as such. There was no longer a
+national coinage, except only of the half shekel for the temple tax. When
+He asked them for a smaller coin, they produced a Roman penny stamped with
+the effigy of Caesar. Thus they confessed the use of the Roman currency.
+Now since they accepted the advantages of subjugation, they ought also to
+endure its burdens: since they traded as Roman subjects, they ought to pay
+the Roman tribute. Not He had preached submission, but they had avowed it;
+and any consequent unpopularity would fall not upon Him but them. They had
+answered their own question. And Jesus laid down the broad and simple
+rule, "Render (pay back) unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto
+God the things that are God's. And they marvelled greatly at Him." No
+wonder they marvelled, for it would be hard to find in all the records of
+philosophy so ready and practical a device to baffle such cunning
+intriguers, such keenness in One Whose life was so far removed from the
+schools of worldly wisdom, joined with so firm a grasp on principle, in an
+utterance so brief, yet going down so far to the roots of action.
+
+Now the words of Jesus are words for all time; even when He deals with a
+question of the hour, He treats it from the point of view of eternal
+fitness and duty; and this command to render unto Caesar the things which
+are Caesar's has become the charter of the state against all usurpations of
+tyrannous ecclesiastics. A sphere is recognized in which obedience to the
+law is a duty to God. But it is absurd to pretend that Christ taught blind
+and servile obedience to all tyrants in all circumstances, for this would
+often make it impossible to obey the second injunction, and to render unto
+God the things which are God's,--a clause which asserts in turn the right
+of conscience and the Church against all secular encroachments. The point
+to observe is, that the decision of Jesus is simply an inference, a
+deduction. St. Matthew has inserted the word "therefore," and it is
+certainly implied: render unto Caesar the things which you confess to be
+his own, which bear his image upon their face.
+
+Can we suppose that no such inference gives point to the second clause? It
+would then become, like too many of our pious sayings, a mere supplement,
+inappropriate, however excellent, a make weight, and a platitude. No
+example of such irrelevance can be found in the story of our Lord. When,
+finding the likeness of Caesar on the coin, He said, Render, therefore,
+unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are
+God's, He at least suggested that the reason for both precepts ran
+parallel, and the image of the higher and heavenlier Monarch could be
+found on what He claims of us. And it is so. He claims all we have and all
+we are. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof:" and "I have
+made thee, thou art Mine." And for us and ours alike the argument holds
+good. All the visible universe bears deeply stamped into its substance His
+image and superscription. The grandeur of mountains and stars, the
+fairness of violet and harebell, are alike revelations of the Creator. The
+heavens declare His glory: the firmament showeth His handiwork: the earth
+is full of His riches: all the discoveries which expand our mastery over
+nature and disease, over time and space, are proofs of His wisdom and
+goodness, Who laid the amazing plan which we grow wise by tracing out.
+Find a corner on which contrivance and benevolence have not stamped the
+royal image, and we may doubt whether that bleak spot owes Him tribute.
+But no desert is so blighted, no solitude so forlorn.
+
+And we should render unto God the things which are God's, seeing His
+likeness in His world. "For the invisible things of Him since the creation
+of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things which
+are made, even His everlasting power and divinity."
+
+And if most of all He demands the love, the heart of man, here also He can
+ask, "Whose image and superscription is this?" For in the image of God
+made He man. It is sometimes urged that this image was quite effaced when
+Adam fell. But it was not to protect the unfallen that the edict was
+spoken "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in
+the image of God made He man." He was not an unfallen man of whom St. Paul
+said that he "ought not to have his head veiled, forasmuch as he is the
+image and glory of God;" neither were they unfallen, of whom St. James
+said, "We curse men which are made after the likeness of God" (Gen. ix. 6;
+1 Cor. xi. 7; James iii. 9). Common men, for whom the assassin lurks, who
+need instruction how to behave in church, and whom others scorn and curse,
+these bear upon them an awful likeness; and even when they refuse tribute
+to their king, He can ask them, Whose is this image?
+
+We see it in the intellect, ever demanding new worlds to conquer,
+overwhelming us with its victories over time and space. "In apprehension
+how like a God." Alas for us! if we forget that the Spirit of knowledge
+and wisdom is no other than the Spirit of the Lord God.
+
+We see this likeness far more in our moral nature. It is true that sin has
+spoiled and wasted this, yet there survives in man's heart, as nowhere
+else in our world, a strange sympathy with the holiness and love of God.
+No other of His attributes has the same power to thrill us. Tell me that
+He lit the stars and can quench them with a word, and I reverence, perhaps
+I fear Him; yet such power is outside and beyond my sphere; it fails to
+touch me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Even the rarer human gifts,
+the power of a Czar, the wisdom of Bacon, are thus beyond me, I am
+unkindled, they do not find me out. But speak of holiness, even the
+stainless holiness of God, undefiled through all eternity, and you shake
+the foundations of my being. And why does the reflection that God is pure
+humble me more than the knowledge that God is omnipotent? Because it is my
+spiritual nature which is most conscious of the Divine image, blurred and
+defaced indeed, but not obliterated yet. Because while I listen I am dimly
+conscious of my birthright, my destiny, that I was born to resemble this,
+and all is lost if I come short of it. Because every child and every
+sinner feels that it is more possible for him to be like his God than like
+Newton, or Shakespere, or Napoleon. Because the work of grace is to call
+in the worn and degraded coinage of humanity, and, as the mint restamps
+and reissues the pieces which have grown thin and worn, so to renew us
+after the image of Him that created us.
+
+
+
+
+Christ And The Sadducees.
+
+
+    "And there come unto Him Sadducees, which say that there is no
+    resurrection: and they asked Him, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto
+    us, If a man's brother die, and leave a wife behind him, and leave
+    no child, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed
+    unto his brother. There were seven brethren: and the first took a
+    wife, and dying left no seed; and the second took her, and died,
+    leaving no seed behind him; and the third likewise: and the seven
+    left no seed. Last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection
+    whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.
+    Jesus said unto them, Is it not for this cause that ye err, that
+    ye know not the Scriptures, nor the power of God? For when they
+    shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in
+    marriage; but are as angels in heaven. But as touching the dead,
+    that they are raised; have ye not read in the book of Moses, in
+    _the place concerning_ the Bush, how God spake unto him, saying, I
+    _am_ the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
+    Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: ye do
+    greatly err."--MARK xii. 18-27 (R.V.).
+
+
+Christ came that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed. And so it
+was, that when He had silenced the examination of the hierarchy, and
+baffled their craft, the Sadducees were tempted to assail Him. Like the
+rationalists of every age, they stood coldly aloof from popular movements,
+and we seldom find them interfering with Christ or His followers, until
+their energies were roused by the preaching of His Resurrection, so
+directly opposed to their fundamental doctrines.
+
+Their appearance now is extremely natural. The repulse of every other
+party left them the only champions of orthodoxy against the new movement,
+with everything to win by success, and little to lose by failure. There is
+a tone of quiet and confident irony in their interrogation, well befitting
+an upper-class group, a secluded party of refined critics, rather than
+practical teachers with a mission to their fellow-men. They break utterly
+new ground by raising an abstract and subtle question, a purely
+intellectual problem, but one which reduced the doctrine of a resurrection
+to an absurdity, if only their premises can be made good. And this
+peculiarity is often overlooked in criticism upon our Lord's answer. Its
+intellectual subtlety was only the adoption by Christ of the weapons of
+his adversaries. But at the same time, He lays great and special stress
+upon the authority of Scripture, in this encounter with the party which
+least acknowledged it.
+
+Their objection, stated in its simplest form, is the complication which
+would result if the successive ties for which death makes room must all
+revive together when death is abolished. If a woman has married a second
+time, whose wife shall she be? But their statement of the case is
+ingenious, not only because they push the difficulty to an absurd and
+ludicrous extent, but much more so because they base it upon a Divine
+ordinance. If there be a Resurrection, Moses must answer for all the
+confusion that will ensue, for Moses gave the commandment, by virtue of
+which a woman married seven times. No offspring of any union gave it a
+special claim upon her future life. "In the Resurrection, whose wife shall
+she be of them?" they ask, conceding with a quiet sarcasm that this absurd
+event must needs occur.
+
+For these controversialists the question was solely of the physical tie,
+which had made of twain one flesh. They had no conception that the body
+can be raised otherwise than as it perished, and they rightly enough felt
+certain that on such a resurrection woeful complications must ensue.
+
+Now Jesus does not rebuke their question with such stern words as He had
+just employed to others, "Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?" They were
+doubtless sincere in their conviction, and at least they had not come in
+the disguise of perplexed inquirers and almost disciples. He blames them,
+but more gently: "Is it not for this cause that ye err, because ye know
+not the Scriptures, nor the power of God?" They could not know one and not
+the other, but the boastful wisdom of this world, so ready to point a jibe
+by quoting Moses, had never truly grasped the meaning of the writer it
+appealed to.
+
+Jesus, it is plain, does not quote Scripture only as having authority with
+His opponents: He accepts it heartily: He declares that human error is due
+to ignorance of its depth and range of teaching; and He recognizes the
+full roll of the sacred books "the Scriptures."
+
+It has rightly been said, that none of the explicit statements, commonly
+relied upon, do more to vindicate for Holy Writ the authority of our Lord,
+than this simple incidental question.
+
+Jesus proceeded to restate the doctrine of the Resurrection and then to
+prove it; and the more His brief words are pondered, the more they will
+expand and deepen.
+
+St. Paul has taught us that the dead in Christ shall rise first (1 Thess.
+iv. 16). Of such attainment it is written, Blessed and holy is he that
+hath part in the first Resurrection (Rev. xx. 6).
+
+Now since among the lost there could be no question of family ties, and
+consequent embarrassments, Jesus confines His statement to these happy
+ones, of whom the Sadducee could think no better than that their new life
+should be a reproduction of their existence here,--a theory which they did
+wisely in rejecting. He uses the very language taken up afterwards by His
+apostle, and says, "When they shall rise from the dead." And He asserts
+that marriage is at an end, and they are as the angels in heaven. Here is
+no question of the duration of pure and tender human affection, nor do
+these words compromise in any degree the hopes of faithful hearts, which
+cling to one another. Surely we may believe that in a life which is the
+outcome and resultant of this life, as truly as the grain is of the seed,
+in a life also where nothing shall be forgotten, but on the contrary we
+shall know what we know not now, there, tracing back the flood of their
+immortal energies to obscure fountains upon earth, and seeing all that
+each has owed half unconsciously to the fidelity and wisdom of the other,
+the true partners and genuine helpmeets of this world shall for ever drink
+some peculiar gladness, each from the other's joy. There is no reason why
+the close of formal unions which include the highest and most perfect
+friendships, should forbid such friendships to survive and flourish in the
+more kindly atmosphere of heaven.
+
+What Christ asserts is simply the dissolution of the tie, as an inevitable
+consequence of such a change in the very nature of the blessed ones as
+makes the tie incongruous and impossible. In point of fact, marriage as
+the Sadducee thought of it, is but the counterpoise of death, renewing the
+face which otherwise would disappear, and when death is swallowed up, it
+vanishes as an anachronism. In heaven "they are as the angels," the body
+itself being made "a spiritual body," set free from the appetites of the
+flesh, and in harmony with the glowing aspirations of the Spirit, which
+now it weighs upon and retards. If any would object that to be as the
+angels is to be without a body, rather than to possess a spiritual body,
+it is answer enough that the context implies the existence of a body,
+since no person ever spoke of a resurrection of the soul. Moreover it is
+an utterly unwarrantable assumption that angels are wholly without
+substance. Many verses appear to imply the opposite, and the cubits of
+measurement of the New Jerusalem were "according to the measure of a man,
+that is of an angel" (Rev. xxi. 17), which seems to assert a very curious
+similarity indeed.
+
+The objection of the Sadducees was entirely obviated, therefore by the
+broader, bolder, and more spiritual view of a resurrection which Jesus
+taught. And by far the greater part of the cavils against this same
+doctrine which delight the infidel lecturer and popular essayist of to-day
+would also die a natural death, if the free and spiritual teaching of
+Jesus, and its expansion by St. Paul, were understood. But we breathe a
+wholly different air when we read the speculations even of so great a
+thinker as St. Augustine, who supposed that we should rise with bodies
+somewhat greater than our present ones, because all the hair and nails we
+ever trimmed away must be diffused throughout the mass, lest they should
+produce deformity by their excessive proportions (_De Civitate Dei_, xxii.
+19). To all such speculation, he who said, To every seed his own body,
+says, Thou fool, thou sowest not that body that shall be. But though Jesus
+had met these questions, it did not follow that His doctrine was true,
+merely because a certain difficulty did not apply. And, therefore, He
+proceeded to prove it by the same Moses to whom they had appealed, and
+whom Jesus distinctly asserts to be the author of the book of Exodus. God
+said, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
+Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: ye do greatly
+err."
+
+The argument is not based upon the present tense of the verb _to be_ in
+this assertion, for in the Greek the verb is not expressed. In fact the
+argument is not a verbal one at all; or else it would be satisfied by the
+doctrine of the immortality of the spirit, and would not establish any
+resurrection of the body. It is based upon the immutability of God, and,
+therefore, the imperishability of all that ever entered into vital and
+real relationship with Him. To cancel such a relationship would introduce
+a change into the Eternal. And Moses, to whom they appealed, had heard God
+expressly proclaim Himself the God of those who had long since passed out
+of time. It was, therefore, clear that His relationship with them lived
+on, and this guaranteed that no portion, even the humblest, of their true
+personality should perish. Now the body is as real a part of humanity, as
+the soul and spirit are, although a much lowlier part. And, therefore, it
+must not really die.
+
+It is solemn to observe how Jesus, in this second part of His argument,
+passes from the consideration of the future of the blessed to that of all
+mankind; "as touching the dead that they are raised." With others than the
+blessed, therefore, God has a real though a dread relationship. And it
+will prove hard to reconcile this argument of Christ with the existence of
+any time when any soul shall be extinguished.
+
+"The body is for the Lord," said St. Paul, arguing against the vices of
+the flesh, "and the Lord for the body." From these words of Christ he may
+well have learned that profound and far-reaching doctrine, which will
+never have done its work in the Church and in the world, until whatever
+defiles, degrades, or weakens that which the Lord has consecrated is felt
+to blaspheme by implication the God of our manhood, unto Whom all our life
+ought to be lived; until men are no longer dwarfed in mines, nor poisoned
+in foul air, nor massacred in battle, men whose intimate relationship with
+God the Eternal is of such a kind as to guarantee the resurrection of the
+poor frames which we destroy.
+
+How much more does this great proclamation frown upon the sins by which
+men dishonour their own flesh. "Know ye not," asked the apostle, carrying
+the same doctrine to its utmost limit, "that your bodies are the temples
+of the Holy Ghost?" So truly is God our God.
+
+
+
+
+The Discerning Scribe.
+
+
+    "And one of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together,
+    and knowing that He had answered them well, asked Him, What
+    commandment is the first of all? Jesus answered, The first is,
+    Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt
+    love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
+    and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. The second is
+    this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none
+    other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto
+    Him, Of a truth, Master, Thou hast well said that He is one; and
+    there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart,
+    and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to
+    love his neighbour as himself, is much more than all whole burnt
+    offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered
+    discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of
+    God. And no man after that durst ask Him any question."--MARK xii.
+    28-34 (R.V.).
+
+
+The praise which Jesus bestowed upon this lawyer is best understood when
+we take into account the circumstances, the pressure of assailants with
+ensnaring questions, the sullen disappointment or palpable exasperation of
+the party to which the scribe belonged. He had probably sympathized in
+their hostility; and had come expecting and desiring the discomfiture of
+Jesus. But if so, he was a candid enemy; and as each new attempt revealed
+more clearly the spiritual insight, the self-possession and balanced
+wisdom of Him Who had been represented as a dangerous fanatic, his
+unfriendly opinion began to waver. For he too was at issue with popular
+views: he had learned in the Scriptures that God desireth not sacrifice,
+that incense might be an abomination to Him, and new moons and sabbaths
+things to do away with. And so, perceiving that He had answered them well,
+the scribe asked, upon his own account, a very different question, not
+rarely debated in their schools, and often answered with grotesque
+frivolity, but which he felt to go down to the very root of things.
+Instead of challenging Christ's authority, he tries His wisdom. Instead of
+striving to entangle Him in dangerous politics, or to assail with shallow
+ridicule the problems of the life to come, he asks, What commandment is
+the first of all? And if we may accept as complete this abrupt statement
+of his interrogation, it would seem to have been drawn from him by a
+sudden impulse, or wrenched by an over-mastering desire, despite of
+reluctance and false shame.
+
+The Lord answered him with great solemnity and emphasis. He might have
+quoted the commandment only. But He at once supported the precept itself
+and also His own view of its importance by including the majestic
+prologue, "Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and thou
+shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
+with all thy mind, and with all thy strength."
+
+The unity of God, what a massive and reassuring thought! Amid the
+debasements of idolatry, with its deification of every impulse and every
+force, amid the distractions of chance and change, seemingly so capricious
+and even discordant, amid the complexities of the universe and its
+phenomena, there is wonderful strength and wisdom in the reflection that
+God is one. All changes obey His hand which holds the rein; by Him the
+worlds were made. The exiled patriarch was overwhelmed by the majesty of
+the revelation that his fathers' God was God in Bethel even as in
+Beer-sheba: it charmed away the bitter sense of isolation, it unsealed in
+him the fountains of worship and trust, and sent him forward with a new
+hope of protection and prosperity. The unity of God, really apprehended,
+is a basis for the human will to repose upon, and to become
+self-consistent and at peace. It was the parent of the fruitful doctrine
+of the unity of nature which underlies all the scientific victories of the
+modern world. In religion, St. Paul felt that it implies the equal
+treatment of all the human race, when he asked, "Is He the God of Jews
+only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also, if so be
+that God is one" (Rom iii. 29 R.V.). To be one, he seems to say, implies
+being universal also. And if it thus excludes the reprobation of races, it
+disproves equally that of individual souls, and all thought of such
+unequal and partial treatment as should inspire one with hope of
+indulgence in guilt, or with fear that his way is hid from the Lord.
+
+But if this be true, if there be one fountain of all life and loveliness
+and joy, of all human tenderness and all moral glory, how are we bound to
+love Him. Every other affection should only deepen our adoring loyalty to
+Him Who gives it. No cold or formal service can meet His claim, Who gives
+us the power to serve. No, we must love Him. And as all our nature comes
+from Him, so must all be consecrated: that love must embrace all the
+affections of "heart and soul" panting after Him, as the hart after the
+waterbrooks; and all the deep and steady convictions of the "mind," musing
+on the work of His hand, able to give a reason for its faith; and all the
+practical homage of the "strength," living and dying to the Lord. How
+easy, then, would be the fulfilment of His commandments in detail, and how
+surely it would follow. All the precepts of the first table are clearly
+implied in this.
+
+In such another commandment were summed up also the precepts which
+concerned our neighbour. When we love him as ourselves (neither
+exaggerating his claims beyond our own, nor allowing our own to trample
+upon his), then we shall work no ill to our neighbour, and so love shall
+fulfil the law. There is none other commandment greater than these.
+
+The questioner saw all the nobility of this reply; and the disdain, the
+anger, and perhaps the persecution of his associates could not prevent him
+from an admiring and reverent repetition of the Saviour's words, and an
+avowal that all the ceremonial observances of Judaism were as nothing
+compared with this.
+
+While he was thus judging, he was being judged. As he knew that Jesus had
+answered well, so Jesus saw that he answered discreetly; and in view of
+his unprejudiced judgment, his spiritual insight, and his frank approval
+of One Who was then despised and rejected, He said, Thou art not far from
+the kingdom of God. But he was not yet within it, and no man knows his
+fate.
+
+Sad yet instructive it is to think that he may have won the approval of
+Christ, and heard His words, so full of discernment and of desire for his
+adherence, and yet never crossed the invisible and mysterious boundary
+which he then approached so nearly. But we also may know, and admire, and
+confess the greatness and goodness of Jesus, without forsaking all to
+follow Him.
+
+His enemies had been defeated and put to shame, their murderous hate had
+been denounced, and the nets of their cunning had been rent like cobwebs;
+they had seen the heart of one of their own order kindled into open
+admiration, and they henceforth renounced as hopeless the attempt to
+conquer Jesus in debate. No man after that durst ask Him any questions.
+
+He will now carry the war into their own country. It will be for them to
+answer Jesus.
+
+
+
+
+David's Lord.
+
+
+    "And Jesus answered and said, as He taught in the temple, How say
+    the scribes that the Christ is the Son of David? David himself
+    said in the Holy Spirit,--
+
+    The Lord said unto my Lord,
+    Sit Thou on my right hand,
+    Till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet.
+
+    David himself calleth Him Lord; and whence is He His son? And the
+    common people heard Him gladly. And in His teaching He said,
+    Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and _to
+    have_ salutations in the marketplaces, and chief seats in the
+    synagogues, and chief places at feasts: they which devour widows'
+    houses, and for a pretence make long prayers; these shall receive
+    greater condemnation."--MARK xii. 35-40 (R.V.).
+
+
+Jesus, having silenced in turn His official interrogators and the
+Sadducees, and won the heart of His honest questioner, proceeded to submit
+a searching problem to His assailants. Whose son was the Messiah? And when
+they gave Him an obvious and shallow answer, He covered them with
+confusion publicly. The event is full of that dramatic interest which St.
+Mark is so well able to discern and reproduce. How is it then that he
+passes over all this aspect of it, leaves us ignorant of the defeat and
+even of the presence of the scribes, and free to suppose that Jesus stated
+the whole problem in one long question, possibly without an opponent at
+hand to feel its force?
+
+This is a remarkable proof that his concern was not really for the
+pictorial element in the story, but for the manifestation of the power of
+his Master, the "authority" which resounds through his opening chapters,
+the royalty which he exhibits at the close. To him the vital point is that
+Jesus, upon openly claiming to be the Christ, and repelling the vehement
+attacks which were made upon Him as such, proceeded to unfold the
+astonishing greatness which this implied; and that after asserting the
+unity of God and His claim upon all hearts, He demonstrated that the
+Christ was sharer of His throne.
+
+The Christ, they said, was the Son of David, and this was not false: Jesus
+had wrought many miracles for suppliants who addressed Him by that title.
+But was it all the truth? How then did David call Him Lord? A greater than
+David might spring from among his descendants, and hold rule by an
+original and not merely an ancestral claim: He might not reign as a son of
+David. Yet this would not explain the fact that David, who died ages
+before His coming, was inspired to call Him _My_ Lord. Still less would it
+satisfy the assertion that God had bidden Him sit beside Him on His
+throne. For the scribes there was a serious warning in the promise that
+His enemies should be made His footstool, and for all the people a
+startling revelation in the words which follow, and which the Epistle to
+the Hebrews has unfolded, making this Son of David a priest for ever,
+after another order than that of Aaron.
+
+No wonder that the multitude heard with gladness teaching at once so
+original, so profound, and so clearly justified by Scripture.
+
+But it must be observed how remarkably this question of Jesus follows up
+His conversation with the scribe. Then He had based the supreme duty of
+love to God upon the supreme doctrine of the Divine Unity. He now proceeds
+to show that the throne of Deity is not a lonely throne, and to demand,
+Whose Son is He Who shares it, and Whom David in Spirit accosts by the
+same title as his God?
+
+St. Mark is now content to give the merest indication of the final
+denunciation with which the Lord turned His back upon the scribes of
+Jerusalem, as He previously broke with those of Galilee. But it is enough
+to show how utterly beyond compromise was the rupture. The people were to
+beware of them: their selfish objects were betrayed in their very dress,
+and their desire for respectful salutations and seats of honour. Their
+prayers were a pretence, and they devoured widows' houses, acquiring under
+the cloke of religion what should have maintained the friendless. But
+their affected piety would only bring upon them a darker doom.
+
+It is a tremendous impeachment. None is entitled to speak as Jesus did,
+who is unable to read hearts as He did. And yet we may learn from it that
+mere softness is not the meekness He demands, and that, when sinister
+motives are beyond doubt, the spirit of Jesus is the spirit of burning.
+
+There is an indulgence for the wrongdoer which is mere feebleness and half
+compliance, and which shares in the guilt of Eli. And there is a dreadful
+anger which sins not, the wrath of the Lamb.
+
+
+
+
+The Widow's Mite.
+
+
+    "And He sat down over against the treasury, and beheld how the
+    multitude cast money into the treasury: and how many that were
+    rich cast in much. And there came a poor widow, and she cast in
+    two mites, which make a farthing. And He called unto Him His
+    disciples, and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, This poor
+    widow cast in more than all they which are casting into the
+    treasury; for they all did cast in of their superfluity; but she
+    of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her
+    living."--MARK xii. 41-44 (R.V.).
+
+
+With words of stern denunciation Jesus for ever left the temple. Yet He
+lingered, as if reluctant, in the outer court; and while the storm of His
+wrath was still resounding in all hearts, observed and pointed out an
+action of the lowliest beauty, a modest flower of Hebrew piety in the vast
+desert of formality. It was not too modest, however, to catch, even in
+that agitating hour, the eye of Jesus; and while the scribes were
+devouring widows' houses, a poor widow could still, with two mites which
+make a farthing, win honourable mention from the Son of God. Thus He ever
+observes realities among pretences, the pure flame of love amid the sour
+smoke which wreathes around it. What He saw was the last pittance, cast to
+a service which in reality was no longer God's, yet given with a noble
+earnestness, a sacrifice pure from the heart.
+
+1. His praise suggests to us the unknown observation, the unsuspected
+influences which surround us. She little guessed herself to be the one
+figure, amid a glittering group and where many were rich, who really
+interested the all-seeing Eye. She went away again, quite unconscious that
+the Lord had converted her two mites into a perennial wealth of
+contentment for lowly hearts, and instruction for the Church, quite
+ignorant that she was approved of Messiah, and that her little gift was
+the greatest event of all her story. So are we watched and judged in our
+least conscious and our most secluded hours.
+
+2. We learn St. Paul's lesson, that, "if the readiness is there, it is
+acceptable according as a man hath, and not according as he hath not."
+
+In war, in commerce, in the senate, how often does an accident at the
+outset blight a career for ever. One is taken in the net of circumstances,
+and his dipped wings can never soar again. But there is no such disabling
+accident in religion. God seeth the heart. The world was redeemed by the
+blighted and thwarted career of One Who would fain have gathered His own
+city under His wing, but was refused and frustrated. And whether we cast
+in much, or only possess two mites, an offering for the rich to mock, He
+marks, understands, and estimates aright.
+
+And while the world only sees the quantity, He weighs the motive of our
+actions. This is the true reason why we can judge nothing before the time,
+why the great benefactor is not really pointed out by the splendid
+benefaction, and why many that are last shall yet be first, and the first
+last.
+
+3. The poor widow gave not a greater proportion of her goods, she gave
+all; and it has been often remarked that she had still, in her poverty,
+the opportunity of keeping back one half. But her heart went with her two
+mites. And, therefore, she was blessed. We may picture her return to her
+sordid drudgery, unaware of the meaning of the new light and peace which
+followed her, and why her heart sang for joy. We may think of the Spirit
+of Christ which was in her, leading her afterwards into the Church of
+Christ, an obscure and perhaps illiterate convert, undistinguished by any
+special gift, and only loved as the first Christians all loved each other.
+And we may think of her now, where the secrets of all hearts are made
+known, followed by myriads of the obscure and undistinguished whom her
+story has sustained and cheered, and by some who knew her upon earth, and
+were astonished to learn that this was she. Then let us ask ourselves, Is
+there any such secret of unobtrusive lowly service, born of love, which
+the future will associate with me?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+
+
+Things Perishing And Things Stable.
+
+
+    "And as He went forth out of the temple, one of His disciples
+    saith unto Him, Master, behold, what manner of stones and what
+    manner of buildings! And Jesus said unto him, Seest thou these
+    great buildings? there shall not be left here one stone upon
+    another, which shall not be thrown down. And as He sat on the
+    Mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John
+    and Andrew asked Him privately, Tell us, when shall these things
+    be? and what _shall be_ the sign when these things are all about
+    to be accomplished? And Jesus began to say unto them, Take heed
+    that no man lead you astray. Many shall come in My name, saying, I
+    am _He;_ and shall lead many astray. And when ye shall hear of
+    wars and rumours of wars, be not troubled: _these things_ must
+    needs come to pass: but the end is not yet."--MARK xiii. 1-7
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+Nothing is more impressive than to stand before one of the great buildings
+of the world, and mark how the toil of man has rivalled the stability of
+nature, and his thought its grandeur. It stands up like a crag, and the
+wind whistles through its pinnacles as in a grove, and the rooks float and
+soar about its towers as they do among the granite peaks. Face to face
+with one of these mighty structures, man feels his own pettiness,
+shivering in the wind, or seeking a shadow from the sun, and thinking how
+even this breeze may blight or this heat fever him, and how at the longest
+he shall have crumbled into dust for ages, and his name, and possibly his
+race, have perished, while this same pile shall stretch the same long
+shadow across the plain.
+
+No wonder that the great masters of nations have all delighted in
+building, for thus they saw their power, and the immortality for which
+they hoped, made solid, embodied and substantial, and it almost seemed as
+if they had blended their memory with the enduring fabric of the world.
+
+Such a building, solid, and vast, and splendid, white with marble, and
+blazing with gold, was the temple which Jesus now forsook. A little
+afterwards, we read that its Roman conqueror, whose race were the great
+builders of the world, in spite of the rules of war, and the certainty
+that the Jews would never remain quietly in subjection while it stood,
+"was reluctant to burn down so vast a work as this, since this would be a
+mischief to the Romans themselves, as it would be an ornament to their
+government while it lasted."
+
+No wonder, then, that one of the disciples, who had seen Jesus weep for
+its approaching ruin, and who now followed His steps as He left it
+desolate, lingered, and spoke as if in longing and appeal, "Master, see
+what manner of stones, and what manner of buildings."
+
+But to the eyes of Jesus all was evanescent as a bubble, doomed and about
+to perish: "Seest thou these great buildings, there shall not be left here
+one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down."
+
+The words were appropriate to His solemn mood, for He had just denounced
+its guilt and flung its splendour from Him, calling it no longer "My
+house," nor "My Father's house," but saying, "Your house is left unto you
+desolate." Little could all the solid strength of the very foundations of
+the world itself avail against the thunderbolt of God. Moreover, it was a
+time when He felt most keenly the consecration, the approaching surrender
+of His own life. In such an hour no splendours distract the penetrating
+vision; all the world is brief and frail and hollow to the man who has
+consciously given himself to God. It was the fitting moment at which to
+utter such a prophecy.
+
+But, as He sat on the opposite slope, and gazed back upon the towers that
+were to fall, His three favoured disciples and Andrew came to ask Him
+privately when should these things be, and what would be the sign of their
+approach.
+
+It is the common assertion of all unbelievers that the prophecy which
+followed has been composed since what passes for its fulfilment. When
+Jesus was murdered, and a terrible fate befel the guilty city, what more
+natural than to connect the two events? And how easily would a legend
+spring up that the sufferer foretold the penalty? But there is an obvious
+and complete reply. The prediction is too mysterious, its outlines are too
+obscure; and the ruin of Jerusalem is too inexplicably complicated with
+the final visitation of the whole earth, to be the issue of any vindictive
+imagination working with the history in view.
+
+We are sometimes tempted to complain of this obscurity. But in truth it is
+wholesome and designed. We need not ask whether the original discourse was
+thus ambiguous, or they are right who suppose that a veil has since been
+drawn between us and a portion of the answer given by Jesus to His
+disciples. We know as much as it is meant that we should know. And this at
+least is plain, that any process of conscious or unconscious invention,
+working backwards after Jerusalem fell, would have given us far more
+explicit predictions than we possess. And, moreover, that what we lose in
+gratification of our curiosity, we gain in personal warning to walk warily
+and vigilantly.
+
+Jesus did not answer the question, When shall these things be? But He
+declared, to men who wondered at the overthrow of their splendid temple,
+that all earthly splendours must perish. And He revealed to them where
+true permanence may be discovered. These are two of the central thoughts
+of the discourse, and they are worthy of much more attention from its
+students than they commonly receive, being overlooked in the universal
+eagerness "to know the times and the seasons." They come to the surface in
+the distinct words, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall
+not pass away."
+
+Now, if we are to think of this great prophecy as a lurid reflection
+thrown back by later superstition on the storm-clouds of the nation's
+fall, how shall we account for its solemn and pensive mood, utterly free
+from vindictiveness, entirely suited to Jesus as we think of Him, when
+leaving for ever the dishonoured shrine, and moving forward, as His
+meditations would surely do, beyond the occasion which evoked them? Not
+such is the manner of resentful controversialists, eagerly tracing
+imaginary judgments. They are narrow, and sharp, and sour.
+
+1. The fall of Jerusalem blended itself, in the thought of Jesus, with the
+catastrophe which awaits all that appears to be great and stable. Nation
+shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, so that, although
+armies set their bodies in the gap for these, and heroes shed their blood
+like water, yet they are divided among themselves and cannot stand. This
+prediction, we must remember, was made when the iron yoke of Rome imposed
+quiet upon as much of the world as a Galilean was likely to take into
+account, and, therefore, was by no means so easy as it may now appear to
+us.
+
+Nature itself should be convulsed. Earthquakes should rend the earth,
+blight and famine should disturb the regular course of seed-time and
+harvest. And these perturbations should be the working out of a stern law,
+and the sure token of sorer woes to come, the beginning of pangs which
+should usher in another dispensation, the birth-agony of a new time. A
+little later, and the sun should be darkened, and the moon should withdraw
+her light, and the stars should "be falling" from heaven, and the powers
+that are in the heavens should be darkened. Lastly, the course of history
+should close, and the affairs of earth should come to an end, when the
+elect should be gathered together to the glorified Son of Man.
+
+2. It was in sight of the ruin of all these things that He dared to add,
+My word shall not pass away.
+
+Heresy should assail it, for many should come in the name of Christ,
+saying, I am He, and should lead many astray. Fierce persecutions should
+try His followers, and they should be led to judgment and delivered up.
+The worse afflictions of the heart would wring them, for brother should
+deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children should
+rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. But all should
+be too little to quench the immortality bestowed upon His elect. In their
+sore need, the Holy Ghost should speak in them: when they were caused to
+be put to death, he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.
+
+Now these words were treasured up as the utterances of One Who had just
+foretold His own approaching murder, and Who died accordingly amid
+circumstances full of horror and shame. Yet His followers rejoiced to
+think that when the sun grew dark, and the stars were falling, He should
+be seen in the clouds coming with great glory.
+
+It is the reversal of human judgment: the announcement that all is stable
+which appears unsubstantial, and all which appears solid is about to melt
+like snow.
+
+And yet the world itself has since grown old enough to know that
+convictions are stronger than empires, and truths than armed hosts. And
+this is the King of Truth. He was born and came into the world to bear
+witness to the truth, and every one that is of the truth heareth His
+voice. He is the Truth become vital, the Word which was with God in the
+beginning.
+
+
+
+
+The Impending Judgment.
+
+
+    "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
+    kingdom; there shall be earthquakes in divers places; there shall
+    be famines: these things are the beginning of travail. But take ye
+    heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and
+    in synagogues shall ye be beaten; and before governors and kings
+    shall ye stand for My sake, for a testimony unto them. And the
+    gospel must first be preached unto all the nations. And when they
+    lead you _to judgment_, and deliver you up, be not anxious
+    beforehand what ye shall speak: but whatsoever shall be given you
+    in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the
+    Holy Ghost. And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the
+    father his child; and children shall rise up against parents, and
+    cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men
+    for My name's sake; but he that endureth to the end, the same
+    shall be saved. But when ye see the abomination of desolation
+    standing where he ought not (let him that readeth understand),
+    then let them that are in Judaea flee unto the mountains: and let
+    him that is on the housetop not go down, nor enter in, to take
+    anything out of his house: and let him that is in the field not
+    return back to take his cloke."--MARK xiii. 8-16 (R.V.).
+
+
+When we perceive that one central thought in our Lord's discourse about
+the last things is the contrast between material things which are
+fleeting, and spiritual realities which abide, a question naturally
+arises, which ought not to be overlooked. Was the prediction itself
+anything more than a result of profound spiritual insight? Are we certain
+that prophecy in general was more than keenness of vision? There are
+flourishing empires now which perhaps a keen politician, and certainly a
+firm believer in retributive justice governing the world, must consider to
+be doomed. And one who felt the transitory nature of earthly resources
+might expect a time when the docks of London will resemble the lagoons of
+Venice, and the State which now predominates in Europe shall become
+partaker of the decrepitude Spain. But no such presage is a prophecy in
+the Christian sense. Even when suggested by religion, it does not claim
+any greater certainty than that of sagacious inference.
+
+The general question is best met by pointing to such specific and detailed
+prophecies, especially concerning the Messiah, as the twenty-second Psalm,
+the fifty-third of Isaiah, and the ninth of Daniel.
+
+But the prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, while we have seen that it
+has none of the minuteness and sharpness of an after-thought, is also too
+definite for a presentiment. The abomination which defiled the Holy Place,
+and yet left one last brief opportunity for hasty flight, the persecutions
+by which that catastrophe would be heralded, and the precipitating of the
+crisis for the elect's sake, were details not to be conjectured. So was
+the coming of the great retribution, the beginning of His kingdom within
+that generation, a limit which was foretold at least twice besides (Mark
+ix. 1 and xiv. 62), with which the "henceforth" in Matthew xxvi. 64 must
+be compared. And so was another circumstance which is not enough
+considered: the fact that between the fall of Jerusalem and the Second
+Coming, however long or short the interval, no second event of a similar
+character, so universal in its effect upon Christianity, so epoch-making,
+should intervene. The coming of the Son of man should be "in those days
+after that tribulation."
+
+The intervening centuries lay out like a plain country between two
+mountain tops, and did not break the vista, as the eye passed from the
+judgment of the ancient Church, straight on to the judgment of the world.
+Shall we say then that Jesus foretold that His coming would follow
+speedily? and that He erred? Men have been very willing to bring this
+charge, even in the face of His explicit assertions. "After a long time
+the Lord of that servant cometh.... While the bridegroom tarried they all
+slumbered and slept.... If that wicked servant shall say in his heart, My
+Lord delayeth His coming."
+
+It is true that these expressions are not found in St Mark. But instead of
+them stands a sentence so startling, so unique, that it has caused to
+ill-instructed orthodoxy great searchings of heart. At least, however, the
+flippant pretence that Jesus fixed an early date for His return, ought to
+be silenced when we read, "Of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not
+even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father."
+
+These words are not more surprising than that He increased in wisdom; and
+marvelled at the faith of some, and the unbelief of others (Luke ii. 52;
+Matt. viii. 10; Mark vi. 6). They are involved in the great assertion,
+that He not only took the form of a servant, but emptied Himself (Phil.
+ii. 7). But they decide the question of the genuineness of the discourse;
+for when could they have been invented? And they are to be taken in
+connection with others, which speak of Him not in His low estate, but as
+by nature and inherently, the Word and the Wisdom of God; aware of all
+that the Father doeth; and Him in Whom dwelleth all the fulness of the
+Godhead bodily (John i. 1; Luke xi. 49; John v. 20; Col. ii. 9).
+
+But these were "the days of His flesh;" and that expression is not meant
+to convey that He has since laid aside His body, for He says, "A spirit
+hath not flesh ... as ye see Me have" (Heb. v. 7; Luke xxiv. 39). It must
+therefore express the limitations, now removed, by which He once
+condescended to be trammelled. What forbids us, then, to believe that His
+knowledge, like His power, was limited by a lowliness not enforced, but
+for our sakes chosen; and that as He could have asked for twelve legions
+of angels, yet chose to be bound and buffeted, so He could have known that
+day and hour, yet submitted to ignorance, that He might be made like in
+all points to His brethren? Souls there are for whom this wonderful
+saying, "the Son knoweth not," is even more affecting than the words, "The
+Son of man hath not where to lay His head."
+
+But now the climax must be observed which made His ignorance more
+astonishing than that of the angels in heaven. The recent discourse must
+be remembered, which had asked His enemies to explain the fact that David
+called Him Lord, and spoke of God as occupying no lonely throne. And we
+must observe His emphatic expression, that His return shall be that of the
+Lord of the House (ver. 35), so unlike the temper which He impressed on
+every servant, and clearly teaching the Epistle to the Hebrews to speak of
+His fidelity as that of a Son over His house, and to contrast it sharply
+with that of the most honourable servant (iii. 6).
+
+It is plain, however, that Jesus did not fix, and renounced the power to
+fix, a speedy date for His second coming. He checked the impatience of the
+early Church by insisting that none knew the time.
+
+But He drew the closest analogy between that event and the destruction of
+Jerusalem, and required a like spirit in those who looked for each.
+
+Persecution should go before them. Signs would indicate their approach as
+surely as the budding of the fig tree told of summer. And in each case the
+disciples of Jesus must be ready. When the siege came, they should not
+turn back from the field into the city, nor escape from the housetop by
+the inner staircase. When the Son of man comes, their loins should be
+girt, and their lights already burning. But if the end has been so long
+delayed, and if there were signs by which its approach might be known, how
+could it be the practical duty of all men, in all the ages, to expect it?
+What is the meaning of bidding us to learn from the fig tree her parable,
+which is the approach of summer when her branch becomes tender, and yet
+asserting that we know not when the time is, that it shall come upon us as
+a snare, that the Master will surely surprise us, but need not find us
+unprepared, because all the Church ought to be always ready?
+
+What does it mean, especially when we observe, beneath the surface, that
+our Lord was conscious of addressing more than that generation, since He
+declared to the first hearers, "What I say unto you I say unto all,
+Watch?" It is a strange paradox. But yet the history of the Church
+supplies abundant proof that in no age has the expectation of the Second
+Advent disappeared, and the faithful have always been mocked by the
+illusion, or else keen to discern the fact, that He is near, even at the
+doors. It is not enough to reflect that, for each soul, dissolution has
+been the preliminary advent of Him who has promised to come again and
+receive us unto Himself, and the Angel of Death is indeed the Angel of the
+Covenant. It must be asserted that for the universal Church, the feet of
+the Lord have been always upon the threshold, and the time has been
+prolonged only because the Judge _standeth_ at the door. The "birth pangs"
+of which Jesus spoke have never been entirely stilled. And the march of
+time has not been towards a far-off eternity, but along the margin of that
+mysterious ocean, by which it must be engulfed at last, and into which,
+fragment by fragment, the beach it treads is crumbling.
+
+Now this necessity, almost avowed, for giving signs which should only make
+the Church aware of her Lord's continual nearness, without ever enabling
+her to assign the date of His actual arrival, is the probable explanation
+of what has been already remarked, the manner in which the judgment of
+Jerusalem is made to symbolize the final judgment. But this symbolism
+makes the warning spoken to that age for ever fruitful. As they were not
+to linger in the guilty city, so we are to let no earthly interests arrest
+our flight,--not to turn back, but promptly and resolutely to flee unto the
+everlasting hills. As they should pray that their flight through the
+mountains should not be in the winter, so should we beware of needing to
+seek salvation in the winter of the soul, when the storms of passion and
+appetite are wildest, when evil habits have made the road slippery under
+foot, and sophistry and selfwill have hidden the gulfs in a treacherous
+wreath of snow.
+
+Heedfulness, a sense of surrounding peril and of the danger of the times,
+is meant to inspire us while we read. The discourse opens with a caution
+against heresy: "Take heed that no man deceive you." It goes on to caution
+them against the weakness of their own flesh: "Take heed to yourselves,
+for they shall deliver you up." It bids them watch, because they know not
+when the time is. And the way to watchfulness is prayerfulness; so that
+presently, in the Garden, when they could not watch with Him one hour,
+they were bidden to watch and pray, that they enter not into temptation.
+
+So is the expectant Church to watch and pray. Nor must her mood be one of
+passive idle expectation, dreamful desire of the promised change, neglect
+of duties in the interval. The progress of all art and science, and even
+the culture of the ground, is said to have been arrested by the universal
+persuasion that the year One Thousand should see the return of Christ. The
+luxury of millennarian expectation seems even now to relieve some
+consciences from the active duties of religion. But Jesus taught His
+followers that on leaving His house, to sojourn in a far country, He
+regarded them as His servants still, and gave them every one his work. And
+it is the companion of that disciple to whom Jesus gave the keys, and to
+whom especially He said, "What, couldest thou not watch with Me one hour?"
+St. Mark it is who specifies the command to the porter that he should
+watch. To watch is not to gaze from the roof across the distant roads. It
+is to have girded loins and a kindled lamp; it is not measured by excited
+expectation, but by readiness. Does it seem to us that the world is no
+longer hostile, because persecution and torture are at an end? That the
+need is over for a clear distinction between her and us? This very belief
+may prove that we are falling asleep. Never was there an age to which
+Jesus did not say Watch. Never one in which His return would be other than
+a snare to all whose life is on the level of the world.
+
+Now looking back over the whole discourse, we come to ask ourselves, What
+is the spirit which it sought to breathe into His Church? Clearly it is
+that of loyal expectation of the Absent One. There is in it no hint, that
+because we cannot fail to be deceived without Him, therefore His
+infallibility and His Vicar shall for ever be left on earth. His place is
+empty until He returns. Whoever says, Lo, here is Christ, is a deceiver,
+and it proves nothing that he shall deceive many. When Christ is
+manifested again, it shall be as the blaze of lightning across the sky.
+There is perhaps no text in this discourse which directly assails the
+Papacy; but the atmosphere which pervades it is deadly alike to her
+claims, and to the instincts and desires on which those claims rely.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+
+
+The Cruse Of Ointment.
+
+
+    "Now after two days was _the feast of_ the passover and the
+    unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how
+    they might take Him with subtilty, and kill Him: for they said,
+    Not during the feast, lest haply there shall be a tumult of the
+    people. And while He was in Bethany in the house of Simon the
+    leper, as He sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster
+    cruse of ointment of spikenard very costly; _and_ she brake the
+    cruse, and poured it over His head. But there were some that had
+    indignation among themselves, _saying_, To what purpose hath this
+    waste of the ointment been made? For this ointment might have been
+    sold for above three hundred pence, and given to the poor. And
+    they murmured against her. But Jesus said, Let her alone; why
+    trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on Me. For ye have
+    the poor always with you, and whensoever ye will ye can do them
+    good: but Me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she
+    hath anointed My body aforehand for the burying. And verily I say
+    unto you, Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached throughout the
+    whole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken
+    of for a memorial of her."--MARK xiv. 1-9 (R.V.).
+
+
+Perfection implies not only the absence of blemishes, but the presence, in
+equal proportions, of every virtue and every grace. And so the perfect
+life is full of the most striking, and yet the easiest transitions. We
+have just read predictions of trial more startling and intense than any in
+the ancient Scripture. If we knew of Jesus only by the various reports of
+that discourse, we should think of a recluse like Elijah or the Baptist,
+and imagine that His disciples, with girded loins, should be more ascetic
+than St. Anthony. We are next shown Jesus at a supper gracefully accepting
+the graceful homage of a woman.
+
+From St. John we learn that this feast was given six days before the
+passover. The other accounts postponed the mention of it, plainly because
+of an incident which occurred then, but is vitally connected with a
+decision arrived at somewhat later by the priests. Two days before the
+passover, the council finally determined that Jesus must be destroyed.
+They recognised all the dangers of that course. It must be done with
+subtlety; the people must not be aroused; and therefore they said, Not on
+the feast-day. It is remarkable, however, that at the very time when they
+so determined, Jesus clearly and calmly made to His disciples exactly the
+opposite announcement. "After two days the passover cometh, and the Son of
+man is delivered up to be crucified" (Matt. xxvi. 2). Thus we find at
+every turn of the narrative that their plans are over-ruled, and they are
+unconscious agents of a mysterious design, which their Victim comprehends
+and accepts. On one side, perplexity snatches at all base expedients; the
+traitor is welcomed, false witnesses are sought after, and the guards of
+the sepulchre bribed. On the other side is clear foresight, the deliberate
+unmasking of Judas, and at the trial a circumspect composure, a lofty
+silence, and speech more majestic still.
+
+Meanwhile there is a heart no longer light (for He foresees His burial),
+yet not so burdened that He should decline the entertainment offered Him
+at Bethany.
+
+This was in the house of Simon the leper, but St. John tells us that
+Martha served, Lazarus sat at meat, and the woman who anointed Jesus was
+Mary. We naturally infer some relationship between Simon and this favoured
+family; but the nature of the tie we know not, and no purpose can be
+served by guessing. Better far to let the mind rest upon the sweet picture
+of Jesus, at home among those who loved Him; upon the eager service of
+Martha; upon the man who had known death, somewhat silent, one fancies, a
+remarkable sight for Jesus, as He sat at meat, and perhaps suggestive of
+the thought which found utterance a few days afterwards, that a banquet
+was yet to come, when He also, risen from the grave, should drink new wine
+among His friends in the kingdom of God. And there the adoring face of her
+who had chosen the better part was turned to her Lord with a love which
+comprehended His sorrow and His danger, while even the Twelve were
+blind--an insight which knew the awful presence of One upon his way to the
+sepulchre, as well as one who had returned thence. Therefore she produced
+a cruse of very precious ointment, which had been "kept" for Him, perhaps
+since her brother was embalmed. And as such alabaster flasks were commonly
+sealed in making, and only to be opened by breaking off the neck, she
+crushed the cruse between her hands and poured it on His head. On His feet
+also, according to St. John, who is chiefly thinking of the embalming of
+the body, as the others of the anointing of the head. The discovery of
+contradiction here is worthy of the abject "criticism" which detects in
+this account a variation upon the story of her who was a sinner. As if two
+women who loved much might not both express their loyalty, which could not
+speak, by so fair and feminine a device; or as if it were inconceivable
+that the blameless Mary should consciously imitate the gentle penitent.
+
+But even as this unworthy controversy breaks in upon the tender story, so
+did indignation and murmuring spoil that peaceful scene. "Why was not this
+ointment sold for much, and given to the poor?" It was not common that
+others should be more thoughtful of the poor than Jesus.
+
+He fed the multitudes they would have sent away; He gave sight to
+Bartimaeus whom they rebuked. But it is still true, that whenever generous
+impulses express themselves with lavish hands, some heartless calculator
+reckons up the value of what is spent, and especially its value to "the
+poor;" the poor, who would be worse off if the instincts of love were
+arrested and the human heart frozen. Almshouses are not usually built by
+those who declaim against church architecture; nor is utilitarianism
+famous for its charities. And so we are not surprised when St. John tells
+us how the quarrel was fomented. Iscariot, the dishonest pursebearer, was
+exasperated at the loss of a chance of theft, perhaps of absconding
+without being so great a loser at the end of his three unrequited years.
+True that the chance was gone, and speech would only betray his
+estrangement from Jesus, upon Whom so much good property was wasted. But
+evil tempers must express themselves at times, and Judas had craft enough
+to involve the rest in his misconduct. It is the only indication in the
+Gospels of intrigue among the Twelve which even indirectly struck at their
+Master's honour.
+
+Thus, while the fragrance of the ointment filled the house, their
+parsimony grudged the homage which soothed His heart, and condemned the
+spontaneous impulse of Mary's love.
+
+It was for her that Jesus interfered, and His words went home.
+
+The poor were always with them: opportunities would never fail those who
+were so zealous; and whensoever they would they could do them
+good,--whensoever Judas, for example, would. As for her, she had wrought a
+good work (a high-minded and lofty work is implied rather than a useful
+one) upon Him, Whom they should not always have. Soon His body would be in
+the hands of sinners, desecrated, outraged. And she only had comprehended,
+however dimly, the silent sorrow of her Master; she only had laid to heart
+His warnings; and, unable to save Him, or even to watch with Him one hour,
+she (and through all that week none other) had done what she could. She
+had anointed His body beforehand for the burial, and indeed with clear
+intention "to prepare Him for burial" (Matt. xxvi. 12).
+
+It was for this that His followers had chidden her. Alas, how often do our
+shrewd calculations and harsh judgments miss the very essence of some
+problem which only the heart can solve, the silent intention of some deed
+which is too fine, too sensitive, to explain itself except only to that
+sympathy which understands us all. Men thought of Jesus as lacking
+nothing, and would fain divert His honour to the poor; but this woman
+comprehended the lonely heart, and saw the last inexorable need before
+Him. Love read the secret in the eyes of love, and this which Mary did
+shall be told while the world stands, as being among the few human actions
+which refreshed the lonely One, the purest, the most graceful, and perhaps
+the last.
+
+
+
+
+The Traitor.
+
+
+    "And Judas Iscariot, he that was one of the twelve, went away unto
+    the chief priests, that he might deliver Him _unto them_. And
+    they, when they heard it, were glad, and promised to give him
+    money. And he sought how he might conveniently deliver Him unto
+    them. And on the first day of unleavened bread, when they
+    sacrificed the passover, His disciples say unto Him, Where wilt
+    Thou that we go and make ready that Thou mayest eat the passover?
+    And He sendeth two of His disciples, and saith unto them, Go into
+    the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of
+    water: follow him; and wheresoever he shall enter in, say to the
+    goodman of the house, the Master saith, Where is My guest-chamber,
+    where I shall eat the passover with My disciples? And he will
+    himself shew you a large upper room furnished and ready: and there
+    make ready for us. And the disciples went forth, and came into the
+    city, and found as He had said unto them: and they made ready the
+    passover."--MARK xiv. 10-16 (R.V.).
+
+
+It was when Jesus rebuked the Twelve for censuring Mary, that the patience
+of Judas, chafing in a service which had grown hateful, finally gave way.
+He offered a treacherous and odious help to the chiefs of his religion,
+and these pious men, too scrupulous to cast blood-money into the treasury
+or to defile themselves by entering a pagan judgment hall, shuddered not
+at the contact of such infamy, warned him not that perfidy will pollute
+the holiest cause, cared as little then for his ruin as when they asked
+what to them was his remorseful agony; but were glad, and promised to give
+him money. By so doing, they became accomplices in the only crime by which
+it is quite certain that a soul was lost. The supreme "offence" was
+planned and perpetrated by no desperate criminal. It was the work of an
+apostle, and his accomplices were the heads of a divinely given religion.
+What an awful example of the deadening power, palsying the conscience,
+petrifying the heart, of religious observances devoid of real trust and
+love.
+
+The narrative, as we saw, somewhat displaced the story of Simon's feast,
+to connect this incident more closely with the betrayal. And it now
+proceeds at once to the passover, and the final crisis. In so doing, it
+pauses at a curious example of circumspection, intimately linked also with
+the treason of Judas. The disciples, unconscious of treachery, asked where
+they should prepare the paschal supper. And Jesus gave them a sign by
+which to recognise one who had a large upper room prepared for that
+purpose, to which he would make them welcome. It is not quite impossible
+that the pitcher of water was a signal preconcerted with some disciple in
+Jerusalem, although secret understandings are not found elsewhere in the
+life of Jesus. What concerns us to observe is that the owner of the house
+which the bearer entered was a believer. To him Jesus is "the Master," and
+can say "Where is My guest-chamber?"
+
+So obscure a disciple was he, that Peter and John required a sign to guide
+them to his house. Yet his upper room would now receive such a
+consecration as the Temple never knew. With strange feelings would he
+henceforth enter the scene of the last supper of his Lord. But now, what
+if he had only admitted Jesus with hesitation and after long delay? We
+should wonder; yet there are lowlier doors at which the same Jesus stands
+and knocks, and would fain come in and sup. And cold is His welcome to
+many a chamber which is neither furnished nor made ready.
+
+The mysterious and reticent indication of the place is easily understood.
+Jesus would not enable His enemies to lay hands upon Him before the time.
+His nights had hitherto been spent at Bethany; now first it was possible
+to arrest Him in the darkness, and hurry on the trial before the Galileans
+at the feast, strangers and comparatively isolated, could learn the danger
+of their "prophet of Galilee." It was only too certain that when the blow
+was struck, the light and fickle adhesion of the populace would transfer
+itself to the successful party. Meanwhile, the prudence of Jesus gave Him
+time for the Last Supper, and the wonderful discourse recorded by St.
+John, and the conflict and victory in the Garden. When the priests
+learned, at a late hour, that Jesus might yet be arrested before morning,
+but that Judas could never watch Him any more, the necessity for prompt
+action came with such surprise upon them, that the arrest was accomplished
+while they still had to seek false witnesses, and to consult how a
+sentence might best be extorted from the Governor. It is right to observe
+at every point, the mastery of Jesus, the perplexity and confusion of His
+foes.
+
+And it is also right that we should learn to include, among the woes
+endured for us by the Man of Sorrows, this haunting consciousness that a
+base vigilance was to be watched against, that He breathed the air of
+treachery and vileness.
+
+Here then, in view of the precautions thus forced upon our Lord, we pause
+to reflect upon the awful fall of Judas, the degradation of an apostle
+into a hireling, a traitor, and a spy. Men have failed to believe that one
+whom Jesus called to His side should sink so low.
+
+They have not observed how inevitably great goodness rejected brings out
+special turpitude, and dark shadows go with powerful lights; how, in this
+supreme tragedy, all the motives, passions, moral and immoral impulses are
+on the tragic scale; what gigantic forms of baseness, hypocrisy, cruelty,
+and injustice stalk across the awful platform, and how the forces of hell
+strip themselves, and string their muscles for a last desperate wrestle
+against the powers of heaven, so that here is the very place to expect the
+extreme apostasy. And so they have conjectured that Iscariot was only half
+a traitor. Some project misled him of forcing his Master to turn to bay.
+Then the powers which wasted themselves in scattering unthanked and
+unprofitable blessings would exert themselves to crush the foe. Then he
+could claim for himself the credit deserved by much astuteness, the
+consideration due to the only man of political resource among the Twelve.
+But this well-intending Judas is equally unknown to the narratives and the
+prophecies, and this theory does not harmonise with any of the facts.
+Profound reprobation and even contempt are audible in all the narratives;
+they are quite as audible in the reiterated phrase, "which was one of the
+Twelve," and in almost every mention of his name, as in the round
+assertion of St. John, that he was a thief and stole from the common
+purse. Only the lowest motive is discernible in the fact that his project
+ripened just when the waste of the ointment spoiled his last hope from
+apostleship,--the hope of unjust gain, and in his bargaining for the
+miserable price which he still carried with him when the veil dropped from
+his inner eyes, when he awoke to the sorrow of the world which worketh
+death, to the remorse which was not penitence.
+
+One who desired that Jesus should be driven to counter-measures and yet
+free to take them, would probably have favoured His escape when once the
+attempt to arrest Him inflicted the necessary spur and certainly he would
+have anxiously avoided any appearance of insult. But it will be seen that
+Judas carefully closed every door against his Lord's escape, and seized
+Him with something very like a jibe on his recreant lips.
+
+No, his infamy cannot be palliated, but it can be understood. For it is a
+solemn and awful truth, that in every defeat of grace the reaction is
+equal to the action; they who have been exalted unto heaven are brought
+down far below the level of the world; and the principle is universal that
+Israel cannot, by willing it, be as the nations that are round about, to
+serve other gods. God Himself gives him statutes that are not good. He
+makes fat the heart and blinds the eyes of the apostate. Therefore it
+comes that religion without devotion is the mockery of honest worldlings;
+that hypocrisy goes so constantly with the meanest and most sordid lust of
+gain, and selfish cruelty; that publicans and harlots enter heaven before
+scribes and pharisees; that salt which has lost its savour is fit neither
+for the land nor for the dung-hill. Oh, then, to what place of shame shall
+a recreant apostle be thrust down?
+
+Moreover it must be observed that the guilt of Judas, however awful, is
+but a shade more dark than that of his sanctimonious employers, who sought
+false witnesses against Christ, extorted by menace and intrigue a sentence
+which Pilate openly pronounced to be unjust, mocked His despairing agony,
+and on the resurrection morning bribed a pagan soldiery to lie for the
+Hebrew faith. It is plain enough that Jesus could not and did not choose
+the apostles through foreknowledge of what they would hereafter prove, but
+by His perception of what they then were, and what they were capable of
+becoming, if faithful to the light they should receive.
+
+Not one, when chosen first, was ready to welcome the purely spiritual
+kingdom, the despised Messiah, the life of poverty and scorn. They had to
+learn, and it was open to them to refuse the discipline. Once at least
+they were asked, Will ye also go away? How severe was the trial may be
+seen by the rebuke of Peter, and the petition of "Zebedee's children" and
+their mother. They conquered the same reluctance of the flesh which
+overcame the better part in Judas. But he clung desperately to secular
+hope, until the last vestige of such hope was over. Listening to the
+warnings of Christ against the cares of this world, the lust of other
+things, love of high places and contempt of lowly service, and watching
+bright offers rejected and influential classes estranged, it was
+inevitable that a sense of personal wrong, and a vindictive resentment,
+should spring up in his gloomy heart. The thorns choked the good seed.
+Then came a deeper fall. As he rejected the pure light of self-sacrifice,
+and the false light of his romantic daydreams faded, no curb was left on
+the baser instincts which are latent in the human heart. Self-respect
+being already lost, and conscience beaten down, he was allured by low
+compensations, and the apostle became a thief. What better than gain,
+however sordid, was left to a life so plainly frustrated and spoiled? That
+is the temptation of disillusion, as fatal to middle life as the passions
+are to early manhood. And this fall reacted again upon his attitude
+towards Jesus. Like all who will not walk in the light, he hated the
+light; like all hirelings of two masters, he hated the one he left. Men
+ask how Judas could have consented to accept for Jesus the bloodmoney of a
+slave. The truth is that his treason itself yielded him a dreadful
+satisfaction, and the insulting kiss, and the sneering "Rabbi," expressed
+the malice of his heart. Well for him if he had never been born. For when
+his conscience awoke with a start and told him what thing he had become,
+only self-loathing remained to him. Peter denying Jesus was nevertheless
+at heart His own; a look sufficed to melt him. For Judas, Christ was
+become infinitely remote and strange, an abstraction, "the innocent
+blood," no more than that. And so, when Jesus was passing into the holiest
+through the rent veil which was His flesh, this first Antichrist had
+already torn with his own hands the tissue of the curtain which hides
+eternity.
+
+Now let us observe that all this ruin was the result of forces continually
+at work upon human hearts. Aspiration, vocation, failure, degradation--it
+is the summary of a thousand lives. Only it is here exhibited on a vast
+and dreadful scale (magnified by the light which was behind, as images
+thrown by a lantern upon a screen) for the instruction and warning of the
+world.
+
+
+
+
+The Sop.
+
+
+    "And when it was evening He cometh with the twelve. And as they
+    sat and were eating, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you
+    shall betray Me, _even_ he that eateth with Me. They began to be
+    sorrowful, and to say unto Him one by one, Is it I? And He said
+    unto them, _It is_ one of the twelve, he that dippeth with Me in
+    the dish. For the Son of man goeth, even as it is written of Him:
+    but woe unto that man through whom the Son of man is betrayed!
+    good were it for that man if he had not been born."--MARK xiv.
+    17-21 (R.V.).
+
+
+In the deadly wine which our Lord was made to drink, every ingredient of
+mortal bitterness was mingled. And it shows how far is even His Church
+from comprehending Him, that we think so much more of the physical than
+the mental and spiritual horrors which gather around the closing scene.
+
+But the tone of all the narratives, and perhaps especially of St. Mark's,
+is that of the exquisite Collect which reminds us that our Lord Jesus
+Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked
+men, as well as to suffer death on the cross. Treason and outrage, the
+traitor's kiss and the weakness of those who loved Him, the hypocrisy of
+the priest and the ingratitude of the mob, perjury and a mock trial, the
+injustice of His judges, the brutal outrages of the soldiers, the worse
+and more malignant mockery of scribe and Pharisee, and last and direst,
+the averting of the face of God, these were more dreadful to Jesus than
+the scourging and the nails.
+
+And so there is great stress laid upon His anticipation of the misconduct
+of His own.
+
+As the dreadful evening closes in, having come to the guest chamber "with
+the Twelve"--eleven whose hearts should fail them and one whose heart was
+dead, it was "as they sat and were eating" that the oppression of the
+traitor's hypocrisy became intolerable, and the outraged One spoke out.
+"Verily I say unto you, One of you shall betray Me, even he that eateth
+with Me." The words are interpreted as well as predicted in the plaintive
+Psalm which says, "Mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did
+also eat of My bread, hath lifted up his heel against Me." And perhaps
+they are less a disclosure than a cry.
+
+Every attempt to mitigate the treason of Judas, every suggestion that he
+may only have striven too wilfully to serve our Lord by forcing Him to
+take decided measures, must fail to account for the sense of utter wrong
+which breathes in the simple and piercing complaint "one of you ... even
+he that eateth with Me." There is a tone in all the narratives which is at
+variance with any palliation of the crime.
+
+No theology is worth much if it fails to confess, at the centre of all the
+words and deeds of Jesus, a great and tender human heart. He might have
+spoken of teaching and warnings lavished on the traitor, and miracles
+which he had beheld in vain. What weighs heaviest on His burdened spirit
+is none of these; it is that one should betray Him who had eaten His
+bread.
+
+When Brutus was dying he is made to say--
+
+
+    "My heart doth joy, that yet, in all my life,
+    I found no man, but he was true to me."
+
+
+But no form of innocent sorrow was to pass Jesus by.
+
+The vagueness in the words "one of you shall betray Me," was doubtless
+intended to suggest in all a great searching of heart. Coming just before
+the institution of the Eucharistic feast, this incident anticipates the
+command which it perhaps suggested: "Let a man examine himself, and so let
+him eat." It is good to be distrustful of one's self. And if, as was
+natural, the Eleven looked one upon another doubting of whom He spake,
+they also began to say to Him, one by one (first the most timid, and then
+others as the circle narrowed), Is it I? For the prince of this world had
+something in each of them,--some frailty there was, some reluctance to bear
+the yoke, some longing for the forbidden ways of worldliness, which
+alarmed each at this solemn warning, and made him ask, Is it, can it be
+possible, that it is I? Religious self-sufficiency was not then the
+apostolic mood. Their questioning is also remarkable as a proof how little
+they suspected Judas, how firmly he bore himself even as those
+all-revealing words were spoken, how strong and wary was the temperament
+which Christ would fain have sanctified. For between the Master and him
+there could have been no more concealment.
+
+The apostles were right to distrust themselves, and not to distrust
+another. They were right, because they were so feeble, so unlike their
+Lord. But for Him there is no misgiving: His composure is serene in the
+hour of the power of darkness. And His perfect spiritual sensibility
+discerned the treachery, unknown to others, as instinctively as the eye
+resents the presence of a mote imperceptible to the hand.
+
+The traitor's iron nerve is somewhat strained as he feels himself
+discovered, and when Jesus is about to hand a sop to him, he stretches
+over, and their hands meet in the dish. That is the appointed sign: "It is
+one of the Twelve, he that dippeth with Me in the dish," and as he rushes
+out into the darkness, to seek his accomplices and his revenge, Jesus
+feels the awful contrast between the betrayer and the Betrayed. For
+Himself, He goeth as it is written of Him. This phrase admirably expresses
+the co-operation of Divine purpose and free human will, and by the woe
+that follows He refutes all who would make of God's fore-knowledge an
+excuse for human sin. He then is not walking in the dark and stumbling,
+though men shall think Him falling. But the life of the false one is worse
+than utterly cast away: of him is spoken the dark and ominous word, never
+indisputably certain of any other soul, "Good were it for him if that man
+had not been born."
+
+"That man!" The order and emphasis are very strange. The Lord, who felt
+and said that one of His chosen was a devil, seems here to lay stress upon
+the warning thought, that he who fell so low was human, and his frightful
+ruin was evolved from none but human capabilities for good and evil. In
+"the Son of man" and "that man," the same humanity was to be found.
+
+For Himself, He is the same to-day as yesterday. All that we eat is His.
+And in the most especial and far-reaching sense, it is His bread which is
+broken for us at His table. Has He never seen traitor except one who
+violated so close a bond? Alas, the night when the Supper of the Lord was
+given was the same night when He was betrayed.
+
+
+
+
+Bread And Wine.
+
+
+    "And as they were eating, He took bread, and when He had blessed
+    He brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take ye: this is My body.
+    And He took a cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave to them,
+    and they all drank of it. And He said unto them, This is My blood
+    of the covenant, which is shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I
+    will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I
+    drink it new in the kingdom of God."--MARK xiv. 22-25 (R.V.).
+
+
+How much does the Gospel of St. Mark tell us about the Supper of the Lord?
+He is writing to Gentiles. He is writing probably before the sixth chapter
+of St. John was penned, certainly before it reached his readers. Now we
+must not undervalue the reflected light thrown by one Scripture upon
+another. Still less may we suppose that each account conveys all the
+doctrine of the Eucharist. But it is obvious that St. Mark intended his
+narrative to be complete in itself, even if not exhaustive. No serious
+expositor will ignore the fulness of any word or action in which later
+experience can discern meanings, truly involved, although not apparent at
+the first. That would be to deny the inspiring guidance of Him who sees
+the end from the beginning. But it is reasonable to omit from the
+interpretation of St. Mark whatever is not either explicitly there, or
+else there in germ, waiting underneath the surface for other influences to
+develope it. For instance, the "remembrance" of Christ in St. Paul's
+narrative may (or it may not) mean a sacrificial memorial to God of His
+Body and His Blood. If it be, this notion was to be conveyed to the
+readers of this Gospel hereafter, as a quite new fact, resting upon other
+authority. It has no place whatever here, and need only be mentioned to
+point out that St. Mark did not feel bound to convey the slightest hint of
+it. A communion, therefore, could be profitably celebrated by persons who
+had no glimmering of any such conception. Nor does he rely, for an
+understanding of his narrative, upon such familiarity with Jewish ritual
+as would enable his readers to draw subtle analogies as they went along.
+They were so ignorant of these observances that he had just explained to
+them on what day the passover was sacrificed (ver. 12).
+
+But this narrative conveys enough to make the Lord's Supper, for every
+believing heart, the supreme help to faith, both intellectual and
+spiritual, and the mightiest of promises, and the richest gift of grace.
+
+It is hard to imagine that any reader would conceive that the bread in
+Christ's hands had become His body, which still lived and breathed; or
+that His blood, still flowing in His veins, was also in the cup He gave to
+His disciples. No resort could be made to the glorification of the risen
+Body as an escape from the perplexities of such a notion, for in whatever
+sense the words are true, they were spoken of the body of His humiliation,
+before which still lay the agony and the tomb.
+
+Instinct would revolt yet more against such a gross explanation, because
+the friends of Jesus are bidden to eat and drink. And all the analogy of
+Christ's language would prove that His vivid style refuses to be tied down
+to so lifeless and mechanical a treatment. Even in this Gospel they could
+discover that seed was teaching, and fowls were Satan, and that they were
+themselves His mother and His brethren. Further knowledge of Scripture
+would not impair this natural freedom of interpretation. For they would
+discover that if animated language were to be frozen to such literalism,
+the partakers of the Supper were themselves, though many, one body and one
+loaf, that Onesimus was St. Paul's very heart, that leaven is hypocrisy,
+that Hagar is Mount Sinai, and that the veil of the temple is the flesh of
+Christ (1 Cor. x. 17; Philem. ver. 12; Luke xii. 1; Gal. iv. 25; Heb. x.
+20). And they would also find, in the analogous institution of the paschal
+feast, a similar use of language (Exod. xii. 11).
+
+But when they had failed to discern the doctrine of a transubstantiation,
+how much was left to them. The great words remained, in all their spirit
+and life, "Take ye, this is My Body ... this is My Blood of the Covenant,
+which is shed for many."
+
+(1) So then, Christ did not look forward to His death as to ruin or
+overthrow. The Supper is an institution which could never have been
+devised at any later period. It comes to us by an unbroken line from the
+Founder's hand, and attested by the earliest witnesses. None could have
+interpolated a new ordinance into the simple worship of the early Church,
+and the last to suggest such a possibility should be those sceptics who
+are deeply interested in exaggerating the estrangements which existed from
+the first, and which made the Jewish Church a keen critic of Gentile
+innovation, and the Gentiles of a Jewish novelty.
+
+Nor could any genius have devised its vivid and pictorial earnestness, its
+copious meaning, and its pathetic power over the heart, except His, Who
+spoke of the Good Shepherd and of the Prodigal Son. And so it tells us
+plainly what Christ thought about His own death. Death is to most of us
+simply the close of life. To Him it was itself an achievement, and a
+supreme one. Now it is possible to remember with exultation a victory
+which cost the conqueror's life. But on the Friday which we call Good,
+nothing happened except the crucifixion. The effect on the Church, which
+is amazing and beyond dispute, is produced by the death of her Founder,
+and by nothing else. The Supper has no reference to Christ's resurrection.
+It is as if the nation exulted in Trafalgar, not in spite of the death of
+our great Admiral, but solely because he died; as if the shot which slew
+Nelson had itself been the overthrow of hostile navies. Now the history of
+religions offers no parallel to this. The admirers of the Buddha love to
+celebrate the long spiritual struggle, the final illumination, and the
+career of gentle helpfulness. They do not derive life and energy from the
+somewhat vulgar manner of his death. But the followers of Jesus find an
+inspiration (very displeasing to some recent apostles of good taste) in
+singing of their Redeemer's blood. Remove from the Creed (which does not
+even mention His three years of teaching) the proclamation of His death,
+and there may be left, dimly visible to man, the outline of a sage among
+the sages, but there will be no longer a Messiah, nor a Church. It is
+because He was lifted up that He draws all men unto Him. The perpetual
+nourishment of the Church, her bread and wine, are beyond question the
+slain body of her Master and His blood poured out for man.
+
+What are we to make of this admitted fact, that from the first she thought
+less of His miracles, His teaching, and even of His revelation of the
+Divine character in a perfect life, than of the doctrine that He who thus
+lived, died for the men who slew Him? And what of this, that Jesus
+Himself, in the presence of imminent death, when men review their lives
+and set a value on their achievements, embodied in a solemn ordinance the
+conviction that all He had taught and done was less to man than what He
+was about to suffer? The Atonement is here proclaimed as a cardinal fact
+in our religion, not worked out into doctrinal subtleties, but placed with
+marvellous simplicity and force, in the forefront of the consciousness of
+the simplest. What the Incarnation does for our bewildering thoughts of
+God, the absolute and unconditioned, that does the Eucharist for our
+subtle reasonings upon the Atonement.
+
+(2) The death of Christ is thus precious, because He Who is sacrificed for
+us can give Himself away. "Take ye" is a distinct offer. And so the
+communion feast is not a mere commemoration, such as nations hold for
+great deliverances. It is this, but it is much more, else the language of
+Christ would apply worse to that first supper whence all our Eucharistic
+language is derived, than to any later celebration. When He was absent,
+the bread would very aptly remind them of His wounded body, and the wine
+of His blood poured out. It might naturally be said, Henceforward, to your
+loving remembrance this shall be my Body, as indeed, the words, As oft as
+ye drink it, are actually linked with the injunction to do this in
+remembrance. But scarcely could it have been said by Jesus, looking His
+disciples in the face, that the elements were then His body and blood, if
+nothing more than commemoration were in His mind. And so long as popular
+Protestantism fails to look beyond this, so long will it be hard pressed
+and harassed by the evident weight of the words of institution. These are
+given in Scripture solely as having been spoken then, and no
+interpretation is valid which attends chiefly to subsequent celebrations,
+and only in the second place to the Supper of Jesus and the Eleven.
+
+Now the most strenuous opponent of the doctrine that any change has passed
+over the material substance of the bread and wine, need not resist the
+palpable evidence that Christ appointed these to represent Himself. And
+how? Not only as sacrificed for His people, but as verily bestowed upon
+them. Unless Christ mocks us, "Take ye" is a word of absolute assurance.
+Christ's Body is not only slain, and His Blood shed on our behalf; He
+gives Himself _to_ us as well as _for_ us; He is ours. And therefore
+whoever is convinced that he may take part in "the sacrament of so great a
+mystery" should realize that he there receives, conveyed to him by the
+Author of that wondrous feast, all that is expressed by the bread and
+wine.
+
+(3) And yet this very word "Take ye," demands our co-operation in the
+sacrament. It requires that we should receive Christ, as it declares that
+He is ready to impart Himself, utterly, like food which is taken into the
+system, absorbed, assimilated, wrought into bone, into tissue and into
+blood. And if any doubt lingered in our minds of the significance of this
+word, it is removed when we remember how belief is identified with
+feeding, in St. John's Gospel. "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to
+Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.... He
+that believeth hath eternal life. I am the bread of life." (John vi. 35,
+47, 48.) If it follows that to feed upon Christ is to believe, it also
+follows quite as plainly that belief is not genuine unless it really feeds
+upon Christ.
+
+It is indeed impossible to imagine a more direct and vigorous appeal to
+man to have faith in Christ than this, that He formally conveys, by the
+agency of His Church, to the hands and lips of His disciples, the
+appointed emblem of Himself, and of Himself in the act of blessing them.
+For the emblem is food in its most nourishing and in its most stimulating
+form, in a form the best fitted to speak of utter self-sacrifice, by the
+bruised corn of broken bread, and by the solemn resemblance to His sacred
+blood. We are taught to see, in the absolute absorption of our food into
+our bodily system, a type of the completeness wherewith Christ gives
+Himself to us.
+
+That gift is not to the Church in the gross, it is "divided among" us; it
+individualizes each believer; and yet the common food expresses the unity
+of the whole Church in Christ. Being many we are one bread.
+
+Moreover, the institution of a meal reminds us that faith and emotion do
+not always exist together. Times there are when the hunger and thirst of
+the soul are like the craving of a sharp appetite for food. But the wise
+man will not postpone his meal until such a keen desire returns, and the
+Christian will seek for the Bread of life, however his emotions may flag,
+and his soul cleave unto the dust. Silently and often unaware, as the
+substance of the body is renovated and restored by food, shall the inner
+man be strengthened and built up by that living Bread.
+
+(4) We have yet to ask the great question, what is the specific blessing
+expressed by the elements, and therefore surely given to the faithful by
+the sacrament. Too many are content to think vaguely of Divine help, given
+us for the merit of the death of Christ. But bread and wine do not express
+an indefinite Divine help, they express the body and blood of Christ, they
+have to do with His Humanity. We must beware, indeed, of limiting the
+notion overmuch. At the Supper He said not "My flesh," but "My body,"
+which is plainly a more comprehensive term. And in the discourse when He
+said "My Flesh is meat indeed," He also said "I am the bread of life....
+He that eateth Me, the same shall live by Me." And we may not so carnalize
+the Body as to exclude the Person, who bestows Himself. Yet is all the
+language so constructed as to force the conviction upon us that His body
+and blood, His Humanity, is the special gift of the Lord's Supper. As man
+He redeemed us, and as man He imparts Himself to man.
+
+Thus we are led up to the sublime conception of a new human force working
+in humanity. As truly as the life of our parents is in our veins, and the
+corruption which they inherited from Adam is passed on to us, so truly
+there is abroad in the world another influence, stronger to elevate than
+the infection of the fall is to degrade; and the heart of the Church is
+propelling to its utmost extremities the pure life of the Second Adam, the
+Second Man, the new Father of the race. As in Adam all die, even so in
+Christ shall all be made alive; and we who bear now the image of our
+earthy progenitor shall hereafter bear the image of the heavenly.
+Meanwhile, even as the waste and dead tissues of our bodily frame are
+replaced by new material from every meal, so does He, the living Bread,
+impart not only aid from heaven, but nourishment, strength to our poor
+human nature, so weary and exhausted, and renovation to what is sinful and
+decayed. How well does such a doctrine of the sacrament harmonize with the
+declarations of St. Paul: "I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth
+in me." "The Head, from whom all the body being supplied and knit together
+through the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of God" (Gal.
+ii. 20; Col. ii. 19).
+
+(5) In the brief narrative of St. Mark, there are a few minor points of
+interest.
+
+Fasting communions may possibly be an expression of reverence only. The
+moment they are pressed further, or urged as a duty, they are strangely
+confronted by the words, "While they were eating, Jesus took bread."
+
+The assertion that "they all drank," follows from the express commandment
+recorded elsewhere. And while we remember that the first communicants were
+not laymen, yet the emphatic insistence upon this detail, and with
+reference only to the cup, is entirely at variance with the Roman notion
+of the completeness of a communion in one kind.
+
+It is most instructive also to observe how the far-reaching expectation of
+our Lord looks beyond the Eleven, and beyond His infant Church, forward to
+the great multitude which no man can number, and speaks of the shedding of
+His blood "for many." He, who is to see of the travail of His soul and to
+be satisfied, has already spoken of a great supper when the house of God
+shall be filled. And now He will no more drink of the fruit of the vine
+until that great day when the marriage of the Lamb having come, and His
+Bride having made herself ready, He shall drink it new in the consummated
+kingdom of God.
+
+With the announcement of that kingdom He began His gospel: how could the
+mention of it be omitted from the great gospel of the Eucharist? or how
+could the Giver of the earthly feast be silent concerning the banquet yet
+to come?
+
+
+
+
+The Warning.
+
+
+    "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the mount of
+    Olives. And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended: for
+    it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be
+    scattered abroad. Howbeit, after I am raised up, I will go before
+    you into Galilee. But Peter said unto Him, Although all shall be
+    offended, yet will not I. And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say
+    unto thee, that thou to-day, _even_ this night, before the cock
+    crow twice, shalt deny me thrice. But he spake exceeding
+    vehemently, If I must die with Thee, I will not deny Thee. And in
+    like manner also said they all."--MARK xiv. 26-31 (R.V.).
+
+
+Some uncertainty attaches to the position of Christ's warning to the
+Eleven in the narrative of the last evening. Was it given at the supper,
+or on Mount Olivet; or were there perhaps premonitory admonitions on His
+part, met by vows of faithfulness on theirs, which at last led Him to
+speak out so plainly, and elicited such vainglorious protestations, when
+they sat together in the night air?
+
+What concerns us more is the revelation of a calm and beautiful nature, at
+every point in the narrative. Jesus knows and has declared that His life
+is now closing, and His blood already "being shed for many." But that does
+not prevent Him from joining with them in singing a hymn. It is the only
+time when we are told that our Saviour sang, evidently because no other
+occasion needed mention; a warning to those who draw confident inferences
+from such facts as that "none ever said He smiled," or that there is no
+record of His having been sick. It would surprise such theorists to
+observe the number of biographies much longer than any of the Gospels,
+which also mention nothing of the kind. The Psalms usually sung at the
+close of the feast are cxv. and the three following. The first tells how
+the dead praise not the Lord, but we will praise Him from this time forth
+for ever. The second proclaims that the Lord hath delivered my soul from
+death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. The third bids all
+the nations praise the Lord, for His merciful kindness is great and His
+truth endureth for ever. And the fourth rejoices because, although all
+nations compassed me about, yet I shall not die, but live and declare the
+works of the Lord; and because the stone which the builders rejected is
+become the head stone of the corner. Memories of infinite sadness were
+awakened by the words which had so lately rung around His path: "Blessed
+is He that cometh in the name of the Lord;" but His voice was strong to
+sing, "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar;" and
+it rose to the exultant close, "Thou art my God, and I will praise Thee:
+Thou art my God, I will exalt Thee. O give thanks unto the Lord for He is
+good, for His mercy endureth for ever."
+
+This hymn, from the lips of the Perfect One, could be no "dying
+swan-song." It uplifted that more than heroic heart to the wonderful
+tranquillity which presently said, "When I am risen, I will go before you
+into Galilee." It is full of victory. And now they go unto the Mount of
+Olives.
+
+Is it enough considered how much of the life of Jesus was passed in the
+open air? He preached on the hill side; He desired that a boat should be
+at His command upon the lake; He prayed upon the mountain; He was
+transfigured beside the snows of Hermon; He oft-times resorted to a garden
+which had not yet grown awful; He met His disciples on a Galilean
+mountain; and He finally ascended from the Mount of Olives. His
+unartificial normal life, a pattern to us, not as students but as men--was
+spent by preference neither in the study nor the street.
+
+In this crisis, most solemn and yet most calm, He leaves the crowded city
+into which all the tribes had gathered, and chooses for His last
+intercourse with His disciples, the slopes of the opposite hill side,
+while overhead is glowing, in all the still splendour of an Eastern sky,
+the full moon of Passover. Here then is the place for one more emphatic
+warning. Think how He loved them. As His mind reverts to the impending
+blow, and apprehends it in its most awful form, the very buffet of God Who
+Himself will smite the Shepherd, He remembers to warn His disciples of
+their weakness. We feel it to be gracious that He should think of them at
+such a time. But if we drew a little nearer, we should almost hear the
+beating of the most loving heart that ever broke. They were all He had. In
+them He had confided utterly. Even as the Father had loved Him, He also
+had loved them, the firstfruits of the travail of His soul. He had ceased
+to call them servants and had called them friends. To them He had spoken
+those affecting words, "Ye are they which have continued with me in My
+temptations." How intensely He clung to their sympathy, imperfect though
+it was, is best seen by His repeated appeals to it in the Agony. And He
+knew that they loved Him, that the spirit was willing, that they would
+weep and lament for Him, sorrowing with a sorrow which He hastened to add
+that He would turn into joy.
+
+It is the preciousness of their fellowship which reminds Him how this,
+like all else, must fail Him. If there is blame in the words, "Ye shall be
+offended," this passes at once into exquisite sadness when He adds that
+He, Who so lately said, "Them that Thou gavest Me, I have guarded," should
+Himself be the cause of their offence, "All ye shall be caused to stumble
+because of Me." And there is an unfathomable tenderness, a marvellous
+allowance for their frailty in what follows. They were His sheep, and
+therefore as helpless, as little to be relied upon, as sheep when the
+shepherd is stricken. How natural it was for sheep to be scattered.
+
+The world has no parallel for such a warning to comrades who are about to
+leave their leader, so faithful and yet so tender, so far from
+estrangement or reproach.
+
+If it stood alone it would prove the Founder of the Church to be not only
+a great teacher, but a genuine Son of man.
+
+For Himself, He does not share their weakness, nor apply to Himself the
+lesson of distrustfulness which He teaches them; He is of another nature
+from these trembling sheep, the Shepherd of Zechariah, "Who is My fellow,
+saith the Lord of Hosts." He does not shrink from applying to Himself this
+text, which awakens against Him the sword of God (Zechariah xiii. 7).
+
+Looking now beyond the grave to the resurrection, and unestranged by their
+desertion, He resumes at once the old relation; for as the shepherd goeth
+before his sheep, and they follow him, so He will go before them into
+Galilee, to the familiar places, far from the city where men hate Him.
+
+This last touch of quiet human feeling completes an utterance too
+beautiful, too characteristic to be spurious, yet a prophecy, and one
+which attests the ancient predictions, and which involves an amazing
+claim.
+
+At first sight it is surprising that the Eleven who were lately so
+conscious of weakness that each asked was he the traitor, should since
+have become too self-confident to profit by a solemn admonition. But a
+little examination shows the two statements to be quite consistent. They
+had wronged themselves by that suspicion, and never is self-reliance more
+boastful than when it is reassured after being shaken. The institution of
+the Sacrament had invested them with new privileges, and drawn them nearer
+than ever to their Master. Add to this the infinite tenderness of the last
+discourse in St. John, and the prayer which was for them and not for the
+world. How did their hearts burn within them as He said, "Holy Father,
+keep them in Thy name whom Thou hast given Me." How incredible must it
+then have seemed to them, thrilling with real sympathy and loyal
+gratitude, that they should forsake such a Master.
+
+Nor must we read in their words merely a loud and indignant
+self-assertion, all unworthy of the time and scene. They were meant to be
+a solemn vow. The love they professed was genuine and warm. Only they
+forgot their weakness; they did not observe the words which declared them
+to be helpless sheep entirely dependent on the Shepherd, whose support
+would speedily seem to fail.
+
+Instead of harsh and unbecoming criticism, which repeats almost exactly
+their fault by implying that we should not yield to the same pressure, let
+us learn the lesson, that religious exaltation, a sense of special
+privilege, and the glow of generous emotions, have their own danger.
+Unless we continue to be as little children, receiving the Bread of Life,
+without any pretence to have deserved it, and conscious still that our
+only protection is the staff of our Shepherd, then the very notion that we
+are something, when we are nothing, will betray us to defeat and shame.
+
+Peter is the loudest in his protestations; and there is a painful egoism
+in his boast, that even if the others fail, he will never deny Him. So in
+the storm, it is he who should be called across the waters. And so an
+early reading makes him propose that he alone should build the tabernacles
+for the wondrous Three.
+
+Naturally enough, this egoism stimulates the rest. For them, Peter is
+among those who may fail, while each is confident that he himself cannot.
+Thus the pride of one excites the pride of many.
+
+But Christ has a special humiliation to reveal for his special
+self-assertion. That day, and even before that brief night was over,
+before the second cock-crowing ("the cock-crow" of the rest, being that
+which announced the dawn) he shall deny his Master twice. Peter does not
+observe that his eager contradictions are already denying the Master's
+profoundest claims. The others join in his renewed protestations, and
+their Lord answers them no more. Since they refuse to learn from Him, they
+must be left to the stern schooling of experience. Even before the
+betrayal, they had an opportunity to judge how little their good
+intentions might avail. For Jesus now enters Gethsemane.
+
+
+
+
+In The Garden.
+
+
+    "And they come unto a place which was named Gethsemane: and He
+    saith unto His disciples, Sit ye here, while I pray. And He taketh
+    with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly amazed,
+    and sore troubled. And He saith unto them, My soul is exceeding
+    sorrowful even unto death: abide ye here, and watch. And He went
+    forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it
+    were possible, the hour might pass away from Him. And He said,
+    Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee: remove this cup
+    from Me: howbeit not what I will, but what Thou wilt. And He
+    cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon,
+    sleepest thou? couldest thou not watch one hour? Watch and pray,
+    that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing,
+    but the flesh is weak. And again He went away, and prayed, saying
+    the same words. And again He came, and found them sleeping, for
+    their eyes were very heavy; and they wist not what to answer Him.
+    And He cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now,
+    and take your rest: it is enough; the hour is come; behold, the
+    Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be
+    going: behold, he that betrayeth Me is at hand."--MARK xiv. 32-42
+    (R.V.).
+
+
+All Scripture, given by inspiration of God, is profitable; yet must we
+approach with reverence and solemn shrinking, the story of our Saviour's
+anguish. It is a subject for caution and for reticence, putting away all
+over-curious surmise, all too-subtle theorizing, and choosing to say too
+little rather than too much.
+
+It is possible so to argue about the metaphysics of the Agony as to forget
+that a suffering human heart was there, and that each of us owes his soul
+to the victory which was decided if not completed in that fearful place.
+The Evangelists simply tell us how He suffered.
+
+Let us begin with the accessories of the scene, and gradually approach the
+centre.
+
+In the warning of Jesus to His disciples there was an undertone of deep
+sorrow. God will smite Him, and they will all be scattered like sheep.
+However dauntless be the purport of such words, it is impossible to lose
+sight of their melancholy. And when the Eleven rejected His prophetic
+warning, and persisted in trusting the hearts He knew to be so fearful,
+their professions of loyalty could only deepen His distress, and intensify
+His isolation.
+
+In silence He turns to the deep gloom of the olive grove, aware now of the
+approach of the darkest and deadliest assault.
+
+There was a striking contrast between the scene of His first temptation
+and His last; and His experience was exactly the reverse of that of the
+first Adam, who began in a garden, and was driven thence into the desert,
+because he failed to refuse himself one pleasure more beside ten thousand.
+Jesus began where the transgression of men had driven them, in the desert
+among the wild beasts, and resisted not a luxury, but the passion of
+hunger craving for bread. Now He is in a garden, but how different from
+theirs. Close by is a city filled with foemen, whose messengers are
+already on His track. Instead of the attraction of a fruit good for food,
+and pleasant, and to be desired to make one wise, there is the grim
+repulsion of death, and its anguish, and its shame and mockery. He is now
+to be assailed by the utmost terrors of the flesh and of the spirit. And
+like the temptation in the wilderness, the assault is three times renewed.
+
+As the dark "hour" approached, Jesus confessed the two conflicting
+instincts of our human nature in its extremity--the desire of sympathy, and
+the desire of solitude. Leaving eight of the disciples at some distance,
+He led still nearer to the appointed place His elect of His election, on
+whom He had so often bestowed special privilege, and whose faith would be
+less shaken by the sight of His human weakness, because they had beheld
+His Divine glory on the holy mount. To these He opened His heart. "My soul
+is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; abide ye here and watch." And He
+went from them a little. Their neighbourhood was a support in His dreadful
+conflict, and He could at times return to them for sympathy; but they
+might not enter with Him into the cloud, darker and deadlier than that
+which they feared on Hermon. He would fain not be desolate, and yet He
+must be alone.
+
+But when He returned, they were asleep. As Jesus spoke of watching for one
+hour, some time had doubtless elapsed. And sorrow is exhausting. If the
+spirit do not seek for support from God, it will be dragged down by the
+flesh into heavy sleep, and the brief and dangerous respite of oblivion.
+
+It was the failure of Peter which most keenly affected Jesus, not only
+because his professions had been so loud, but because much depended on his
+force of character. Thus, when Satan had desired to have them, that he
+might sift them all like wheat, the prayers of Jesus were especially for
+Simon, and it was he when he was converted who should strengthen the rest.
+Surely then he at least might have watched one hour. And what of John, His
+nearest human friend, whose head had reposed upon His bosom? However keen
+the pang, the lips of the Perfect Friend were silent; only He warned them
+all alike to watch and pray, because they were themselves in danger of
+temptation.
+
+That is a lesson for all time. No affection and no zeal are a substitute
+for the presence of God realised, and the protection of God invoked.
+Loyalty and love are not enough without watchfulness and prayer, for even
+when the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak, and needs to be upheld.
+
+Thus, in His severest trial and heaviest oppression, there is neither
+querulousness nor invective, but a most ample recognition of their good
+will, a most generous allowance for their weakness, a most sedulous
+desire, not that He should be comforted, but that they should escape
+temptation.
+
+With His yearning heart unsoothed, with another anxiety added to His heavy
+burden, Jesus returned to His vigil. Three times He felt the wound of
+unrequited affection, for their eyes were very heavy, and they wist not
+what to answer Him when He spoke.
+
+Nor should we omit to contrast their bewildered stupefaction, with the
+keen vigilance and self-possession of their more heavily burdened Lord.
+
+If we reflect that Jesus must needs experience all the sorrows that human
+weakness and human wickedness could inflict, we may conceive of these
+varied wrongs as circles with a common centre, on which the cross was
+planted. And our Lord has now entered the first of these; He has looked
+for pity but there was no man; His own, although it was grief which
+pressed them down, slept in the hour of His anguish, and when He bade them
+watch.
+
+It is right to observe that our Saviour had not bidden them to pray with
+Him. They should watch and pray. They should even watch with Him. But to
+pray for Him, or even to pray with Him, they were not bidden. And this is
+always so. Never do we read that Jesus and any mortal joined together in
+any prayer to God. On the contrary, when two or three of them asked
+anything in His name, He took for Himself the position of the Giver of
+their petition. And we know certainly that He did not invite them to join
+His prayers, for it was as He was praying in a certain place that when He
+ceased, one of His disciples desired that they also might be taught to
+pray (Luke xi. 1). Clearly then they were not wont to approach the mercy
+seat hand in hand with Jesus. And the reason is plain. He came directly to
+His Father; no man else came unto the Father but by Him; there was an
+essential difference between His attitude towards God and ours.
+
+Has the Socinian ever asked himself why, in this hour of His utmost
+weakness, Jesus sought no help from the intercession of even the chiefs of
+the apostles?
+
+It is in strict harmony with this position, that St. Matthew tells us, He
+now said not Our Father, but My Father. No disciple is taught, in any
+circumstances to claim for himself a monopolized or special sonship. He
+may be in his closet and the door shut, yet must he remember his brethren
+and say, Our Father. That is a phrase which Jesus never addressed to God.
+None is partaker of His Sonship; none joined with Him in supplication to
+His Father.
+
+
+
+
+The Agony.
+
+
+    "And He saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto
+    death: abide ye here, and watch. And He went forward a little, and
+    fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour
+    might pass away from Him. And He said, Abba, Father, all things
+    are possible unto Thee; remove this cup from Me: howbeit not what
+    I will, but what Thou wilt. And He cometh, and findeth them
+    sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? couldest
+    thou not watch one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into
+    temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
+    And again He went away, and prayed, saying the same words. And
+    again He came, and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very
+    heavy; and they wist not what to answer Him. And He cometh the
+    third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest:
+    it is enough; the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed
+    into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going: behold, he that
+    betrayeth Me is at hand."--MARK xiv. 34-42 (R.V.).
+
+
+Sceptics and believers have both remarked that St. John, the only
+Evangelist who was said to have been present, gives no account of the
+Agony.
+
+It is urged by the former, that the serene composure of the discourse in
+his Gospel leaves no room for subsequent mental conflict and recoil from
+suffering, which are inconsistent besides with his conception of a Divine
+man, too exalted to be the subject of such emotions.
+
+But do not the others know of composure which bore to speak of His Body as
+broken bread, and seeing in the cup the likeness of His Blood shed, gave
+it to be the food of His Church for ever?
+
+Was the resignation less serene which spoke of the smiting of the
+Shepherd, and yet of His leading back the flock to Galilee? If the
+narrative was rejected as inconsistent with the calmness of Jesus in the
+fourth Gospel, it should equally have repelled the authors of the other
+three.
+
+We may grant that emotion, agitation, is inconsistent with unbelieving
+conceptions of the Christ of the fourth Gospel. But this only proves how
+false those conceptions are. For the emotion, the agitation, is already
+there. At the grave of Lazarus the word which tells that when He groaned
+in spirit He was troubled, describes one's distress in the presence of
+some palpable opposing force (John xi. 34). There was, however, a much
+closer approach to His emotion in the garden, when the Greek world first
+approached Him. Then He contrasted its pursuit of self-culture with His
+own doctrine of self-sacrifice, declaring that even a grain of wheat must
+either die or abide by itself alone. To Jesus that doctrine was no smooth,
+easily announced theory, and so He adds, "Now is My soul troubled, and
+what shall I say? Father save Me from this hour. But for this cause came I
+unto this hour" (John xii. 27).
+
+Such is the Jesus of the fourth Gospel, by no means that of its modern
+analysts. Nor is enough said, when we remind them that the Speaker of
+these words was capable of suffering; we must add that profound agitation
+at the last was inevitable, for One so resolute in coming to this hour,
+yet so keenly sensitive of its dread.
+
+The truth is that the silence of St. John is quite in his manner. It is so
+that he passes by the Sacraments, as being familiar to his readers,
+already instructed in the gospel story. But he gives previous discourses
+in which the same doctrine is expressed which was embodied in each
+Sacrament,--the declaration that Nicodemus must be born of water, and that
+the Jews must eat His flesh and drink His blood. It is thus that instead
+of the agony, he records that earlier agitation. And this threefold
+recurrence of the same expedient is almost incredible except by design.
+St. John was therefore not forgetful of Gethsemane.
+
+A coarser infidelity has much to say about the shrinking of our Lord from
+death. Such weakness is pronounced unworthy, and the bearing of multitudes
+of brave men and even of Christian martyrs, unmoved in the flames, is
+contrasted with the strong crying and tears of Jesus.
+
+It would suffice to answer that Jesus also failed not when the trial came,
+but before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, and won upon the
+cross the adoration of a fellow-sufferer and the confession of a Roman
+soldier. It is more than enough to answer that His story, so far from
+relaxing the nerve of human fortitude, has made those who love Him
+stronger to endure tortures than were emperors and inquisitors to invent
+them. What men call His weakness has inspired ages with fortitude.
+Moreover, the censure which such critics, much at ease, pronounce on Jesus
+expecting crucifixion, arises entirely from the magnificent and unique
+standard by which they try Him; for who is so hard-hearted as to think
+less of the valour of the martyrs because it was bought by many a lonely
+and intense conflict with the flesh?
+
+For us, we accept the standard; we deny that Jesus in the garden came
+short of absolute perfection; but we call attention to the fact that much
+is conceded to us, when a criticism is ruthlessly applied to our Lord
+which would excite indignation and contempt if brought to bear on the
+silent sufferings of any hero or martyr but Himself.
+
+Perfection is exactly what complicates the problem here.
+
+Conscious of our own weakness, we not only justify but enjoin upon
+ourselves every means of attaining as much nobility as we may. We "steel
+ourselves to bear," and therefore we are led to expect the same of Jesus.
+We aim at some measure of what, in its lowest stage, is callous
+insensibility. Now that word is negative; it asserts the absence or
+paralysis of a faculty, not its fulness and activity. Thus we attain
+victory by a double process; in part by resolutely turning our mind away,
+and only in part by its ascendancy over appreciated distress. We
+administer anodynes to the soul. But Jesus, when he had tasted thereof,
+would not drink. The horrors which were closing around Him were perfectly
+apprehended, that they might perfectly be overcome.
+
+Thus suffering, He became an example for gentle womanhood, and tender
+childhood, as well as man boastful of his stoicism. Moreover, He
+introduced into the world a new type of virtue, much softer and more
+emotional than that of the sages. The stoic, to whom pain is no evil, and
+the Indian laughing and singing at the stake, are partly actors and partly
+perversions of humanity. But the good Shepherd is also, for His
+gentleness, a lamb. And it is His influence which has opened our eyes to
+see a charm unknown before, in the sensibility of our sister and wife and
+child. Therefore, since the perfection of manhood means neither the
+ignoring of pain nor the denying of it, but the union of absolute
+recognition with absolute mastery of its fearfulness, Jesus, on the
+approach of agony and shame, and who shall say what besides, yields
+Himself beforehand to the full contemplation of His lot. He does so, while
+neither excited by the trial, nor driven to bay by the scoffs of His
+murderers, but in solitude, in the dark, with stealthy footsteps
+approaching through the gloom.
+
+And ever since, all who went farthest down into the dread Valley, and on
+whom the shadow of death lay heaviest, found there the footsteps of its
+conqueror. It must be added that we cannot measure the keenness of the
+sensibility thus exposed to torture. A physical organization and a
+spiritual nature fresh from the creative hand, undegraded by the
+transmitted heritage of ages of artificial, diseased and sinful habit,
+unblunted by one deviation from natural ways, undrugged by one excess, was
+surely capable of a range of feeling as vast in anguish as in delight.
+
+The sceptic supposes that a torrent of emotion swept our Saviour off His
+feet. The only narratives he can go upon give quite the opposite
+impression. He is seen to fathom all that depth of misery, He allows the
+voice of nature to utter all the bitter earnestness of its reluctance, yet
+He never loses self-control, nor wavers in loyalty to His Father, nor
+renounces His submission to the Father's will. Nothing in the scene is
+more astonishing than its combination of emotion with self-government.
+Time after time He pauses, gently and lovingly admonishes others, and
+calmly returns to His intense and anxious vigil.
+
+Thus He has won the only perfect victory. With a nature so responsive to
+emotion, He has not refused to feel, nor abstracted His soul from
+suffering, nor silenced the flesh by such an effort as when we shut our
+ears against a discord. Jesus sees all, confesses that He would fain
+escape, but resigns Himself to God.
+
+In the face of all asceticisms, as of all stoicisms, Gethsemane is the
+eternal protest that every part of human nature is entitled to be heard,
+provided that the spirit retains the arbitration over all.
+
+Hitherto nothing has been assumed which a reasonable sceptic can deny. Nor
+should such a reader fail to observe the astonishing revelation of
+character in the narrative, its gentle pathos, its intensity beyond what
+commonly belongs to gentleness, its affection, its mastery over the
+disciples, its filial submission. Even the rich imaginative way of
+thinking, which invented the parables and sacraments, is in the word "this
+cup."
+
+But if the story of Gethsemane can be vindicated from such a point of
+view, what shall be said when it is viewed as the Church regards it? Both
+Testaments declare that the sufferings of the Messiah were supernatural.
+In the Old Testament it was pleasing to the Father to bruise Him. The
+terrible cry of Jesus to a God who had forsaken Him is conclusive evidence
+from the New Testament. And if we ask what such a cry may mean, we find
+that He is a curse for us, and made to be sin for us, Who knew no sin.
+
+If the older theology drew incredible conclusions from such words, that is
+no reason why we should ignore them. It is incredible that God was angry
+with His Son, or that in any sense the Omniscient One confused the Saviour
+with the sinful world. It is incredible that Jesus ever endured
+estrangement as of lost souls from the One Whom in Gethsemane He called
+Abba Father, and in the hour of utter darkness, My God, and into whose
+Fatherly hands He committed His Spirit. Yet it is clear that He is being
+treated otherwise than a sinless Being, as such, ought to expect. His
+natural standing-place is exchanged for ours. And as our exceeding misery,
+and the bitter curse of all our sin fell on Him, Who bore it away by
+bearing it, our pollution surely affected His purity as keenly as our
+stripes tried His sensibility. He shuddered as well as agonized. The deep
+waters in which He sank were defiled as well as cold. Only this can
+explain the agony and bloody sweat. And as we, for whom He endured it,
+think of this, we can only be silent and adore.
+
+Once more, Jesus returns to His disciples, but no longer to look for
+sympathy, or to bid them watch and pray. The time for such warnings is now
+past: the crisis, "the hour" is come, and His speech is sad and solemn.
+"Sleep on now and take your rest, it is enough." Had the sentence stopped
+there, none would ever have proposed to treat it as a question, "Do ye now
+sleep on and take your rest?" It would plainly have meant, "Since ye
+refuse My counsel and will none of my reproof, I strive no further to
+arouse the torpid will, the inert conscience, the inadequate affection.
+Your resistance prevails against My warning."
+
+But critics fail to reconcile this with what follows, "Arise, let us be
+going." They fail through supposing that words of intense emotion must be
+interpreted like a syllogism or a lawyer's parchment.
+
+"For My part, sleep on; but your sleep is now to be rudely broken: take
+your rest so far as respect for your Master should have kept you watchful;
+but the traitor is at hand to break such repose, let him not find you
+ignobly slumbering. 'Arise, he is at hand that doth betray Me.' "
+
+This is not sarcasm, which taunts and wounds. But there is a lofty and
+profound irony in the contrast between their attitude and their
+circumstances, their sleep and the eagerness of the traitor.
+
+And so they lost the most noble opportunity ever given to mortals, not
+through blank indifference nor unbelief, but by allowing the flesh to
+overcome the spirit. And thus do multitudes lose heaven, sleeping until
+the golden hours are gone, and He who said, "Sleep on now," says, "He that
+is unrighteous, let him be unrighteous still."
+
+Remembering that defilement was far more urgent than pain in our Saviour's
+agony, how sad is the meaning of the words, "the Son of man is betrayed
+into the hands of sinners," and even of "the sinners," the representatives
+of all the evil from which He had kept Himself unspotted.
+
+The one perfect flower of humanity is thrown by treachery into the
+polluted and polluting grasp of wickedness in its many forms; the traitor
+delivers Him to hirelings; the hirelings to hypocrites; the hypocrites to
+an unjust and sceptical pagan judge; the judge to his brutal soldiery; who
+expose Him to all that malice can wreak upon the most sensitive
+organization, or ingratitude upon the most tender heart.
+
+At every stage an outrage. Every outrage an appeal to the indignation of
+Him who held them in the hollow of His hand. Surely it may well be said,
+Consider Him who endured such contradiction; and endured it from sinners
+against Himself.
+
+
+
+
+The Arrest.
+
+
+    "And straightway, while He yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the
+    twelve, and with him a multitude with swords and staves, from the
+    chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now he that betrayed
+    Him had given them a token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that
+    is He; take Him, and lead Him away safely. And when he was come,
+    straightway he came to Him, and saith, Rabbi; and kissed Him. And
+    they laid hands on Him, and took Him. But a certain one of them
+    that stood by drew his sword, and smote the servant of the high
+    priest, and struck off his ear. And Jesus answered and said unto
+    them, Are ye come out, as against a robber, with swords and staves
+    to seize Me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye
+    took Me not; but _this is done_ that the scriptures might be
+    fulfilled. And they all left Him and fled. And a certain young man
+    followed with Him, having a linen cloth cast about him, over _his_
+    naked body: and they lay hold on him; but he left the linen cloth,
+    and fled naked."--MARK xiv. 43-52 (R.V.).
+
+
+St. Mark has told this tragical story in the most pointed and the fewest
+words. The healing of the ear of Malchus concerns him not, that is but one
+miracle among many; and Judas passes from sight unfollowed: the thought
+insisted on is of foul treason, pitiable weakness, brute force
+predominant, majestic remonstrance and panic flight. From the central
+events no accessories can distract him.
+
+There cometh, he tells us, "Judas, one of the Twelve." Who Judas was, we
+knew already, but we are to consider how Jesus felt it now. Before His
+eyes is the catastrophe which His death is confronted to avert--the death
+of a soul, a chosen and richly dowered soul for ever lost--in spite of so
+many warnings--in spite of that incessant denunciation of covetousness
+which rings through so much of His teaching, which only the presence of
+Judas quite explains, and which His terrible and searching gaze must have
+made like fire, to sear since it could not melt--in spite of the outspoken
+utterances of these last days, and doubtless in spite of many prayers, he
+is lost: one of the Twelve.
+
+And the dark thought would fall cold upon Christ's heart, of the
+multitudes more who should receive the grace of God, His own dying love,
+in vain. And with that, the recollection of many an hour of
+loving-kindness wasted on this familiar friend in whom He trusted, and who
+now gave Him over, as he had been expressly warned, to so cruel a fate.
+Even toward Judas, no unworthy bitterness could pollute that sacred heart,
+the fountain of unfathomable compassions, but what speechless grief must
+have been there, what inconceivable horror. For the outrage was dark in
+form as in essence. Judas apparently conceived that the Eleven might, as
+they had promised, rally around their Lord; and he could have no
+perception how impossible it was that Messiah should stoop to escape under
+cover of their devotion, how frankly the good Shepherd would give His life
+for the sheep. In the night, he thought, evasion might yet be attempted,
+and the town be raised. But he knew how to make the matter sure. No other
+would as surely as himself recognise Jesus in the uncertain light. If he
+were to lay hold on Him rudely, the Eleven would close in, and in the
+struggle, the prize might yet be lost. But approaching a little in
+advance, and peaceably, he would ostentatiously kiss his Master, and so
+clearly point Him out that the arrest would be accomplished before the
+disciples realized what was being done.
+
+But at every step the intrigue is overmastered by the clear insight of
+Jesus. As He foretold the time of His arrest, while yet the rulers said,
+Not on the feast day, so He announced the approach of the traitor, who was
+then contriving the last momentary deception of his polluting kiss.
+
+We have already seen how impossible it is to think of Judas otherwise than
+as the Church has always regarded him, an apostate and a traitor in the
+darkest sense. The milder theory is at this stage shattered by one small
+yet significant detail. At the supper, when conscious of being suspected,
+and forced to speak, he said not, like the others, "Lord," but "Rabbi, is
+it I?" Now they meet again, and the same word is on his lips, whether by
+design and in Satanic insolence, or in hysterical agitation and
+uncertainty, who can say?
+
+But no loyalty, however misled, inspired that halting and inadequate
+epithet, no wild hope of a sudden blazing out of glories too long
+concealed is breathed in the traitor's Rabbi!
+
+With that word, and his envenomed kiss, the "much kissing," which took
+care that Jesus should not shake him off, he passes from this great
+Gospel. Not a word is here of his remorse, or of the dreadful path down
+which he stumbled to his own place. Even the lofty remonstrance of the
+Lord is not recorded: it suffices to have told how he betrayed the Son of
+man with a kiss, and so infused a peculiar and subtle poison into Christ's
+draught of deadly wine. That, and not the punishment of that, is what St.
+Mark recorded for the Church, the awful fall of an apostle, chosen of
+Christ; the solemn warning to all privileged persons, richly endowed and
+highly placed; the door to hell, as Bunyan has it, from the very gate of
+Heaven.
+
+A great multitude with swords and staves had come from the rulers.
+Possibly some attempt at rescue was apprehended from the Galileans who had
+so lately triumphed around Jesus. More probably the demonstration was
+planned to suggest to Pilate that a dangerous political agitation had to
+be confronted.
+
+At all events, the multitude did not terrify the disciples: cries arose
+from their little band, "Lord shall we smite with the sword?" and if Jesus
+had consented, it seems that with two swords the Eleven whom declaimers
+make to be so craven, would have assailed the multitude in arms.
+
+Now this is what points the moral of their failure. Few of us would
+confess personal cowardice by accepting a warning from the fears of the
+fearful. But the fears of the brave must needs alarm us. It is one thing
+to defy death, sword in hand, in some wild hour of chivalrous
+effort--although the honours we shower upon the valiant prove that even
+such fortitude is less common than we would fain believe. But there is a
+deep which opens beyond this. It is a harder thing to endure the silent
+passive anguish to which the Lamb, dumb before the shearers, calls His
+followers. The victories of the spirit are beyond animal strength of
+nerve. In their highest forms they are beyond the noble reach of
+intellectual resolution. How far beyond it we may learn by contrasting the
+excitement and then the panic of the Eleven with the sublime composure of
+their Lord.
+
+One of them, whom we know to have been the impulsive Simon, showed his
+loss of self-control by what would have been a breach of discipline, even
+had resistance been intended. While others asked should they smite with
+the sword, he took the decision upon himself, and struck a feeble and
+abortive blow, enough to exasperate but not to disable. In so doing he
+added, to the sorrows of Jesus, disobedience, and the inflaming of angry
+passion among His captors.
+
+Strange it is, and instructive, that the first act of violence in the
+annals of Christianity came not from her assailants but from her son. And
+strange to think with what emotions Jesus must have beheld that blow.
+
+St. Mark records neither the healing of Malchus nor the rebuke of Peter.
+Throughout the events which now crowd fast upon us, we shall not find him
+careful about fulness of detail. This is never his manner, though he loves
+any detail which is graphic, characteristic, or intensifying. But his
+concern is with the spirit of the Lord and of His enemies: he is blind to
+no form of injustice or insult which heightened the sufferings of Jesus,
+to no manifestation of dignity and self-control overmastering the rage of
+hell. If He is unjustly tried by Caiaphas, it matters nothing that Annas
+also wronged Him. If the soldiers of Pilate insulted Him, it matters
+nothing that the soldiers of Herod also set Him at nought. Yet the flight
+of a nameless youth is recorded, since it adds a touch to the picture of
+His abandonment.
+
+And therefore he records the indignant remonstrance of Jesus upon the
+manner of His arrest. He was no man of violence and blood, to be arrested
+with a display of overwhelming force. He needed not to be sought in
+concealment and at midnight.
+
+He had spoken daily in the temple, but then their malice was defeated,
+their snares rent asunder, and the people witnessed their exposure. But
+all this was part of His predicted suffering, for Whom not only pain but
+injustice was foretold, Who should be taken from prison and from judgment.
+
+It was a lofty remonstrance. It showed how little could danger and
+betrayal disturb His consciousness, and how clearly He discerned the
+calculation of His foes.
+
+At this moment of unmistakable surrender, His disciples forsook Him and
+fled. One young man did indeed follow Him, springing hastily from slumber
+in some adjacent cottage, and wrapped only in a linen cloth. But he too,
+when seized, fled away, leaving his only covering in the hands of the
+soldiers.
+
+This youth may perhaps have been the Evangelist himself, of whom we know
+that, a few years later, he joined Paul and Barnabas at the outset, but
+forsook them when their journey became perilous.
+
+It is at least as probable that the incident is recorded as a picturesque
+climax to that utter panic which left Jesus to tread the winepress alone,
+deserted by all, though He never forsook any.
+
+
+
+
+Before Caiaphas.
+
+
+    "And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and there come
+    together with him all the chief priests and the elders and the
+    scribes. And Peter had followed Him afar off, even within, into
+    the court of the high priest; and he was sitting with the
+    officers, and warming himself in the light _of the fire_. Now the
+    chief priests and the whole council sought witness against Jesus
+    to put Him to death; and found it not. For many bare false witness
+    against Him, and their witness agreed not together. And there
+    stood up certain, and bare false witness against Him, saying, We
+    heard Him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands,
+    and in three days I will build another made without hands. And not
+    even so did their witness agree together. And the high priest
+    stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest Thou
+    nothing? what is it which these witness against Thee? But He held
+    His peace and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked Him,
+    and saith unto Him, Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
+    And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting at
+    the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven. And
+    the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What further need
+    have we of witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye?
+    And they all condemned Him to be worthy of death. And some began
+    to spit on Him, and to cover His face, and to buffet Him, and to
+    say unto Him, Prophesy: and the officers received Him with blows
+    of their hands"--MARK xiv. 53-65 (R.V.).
+
+
+We have now to see the Judge of quick and dead taken from prison and
+judgment, the Preacher of liberty to the captives bound, and the Prince of
+Life killed. It is the most solemn page in earthly story; and as we read
+St. Mark's account, it will concern us less to reconcile his statements
+with those of the other three, than to see what is taught us by his
+especial manner of regarding it. Reconciliation, indeed, is quite
+unnecessary, if we bear in mind that to omit a fact is not to contradict
+it. For St. Mark is not writing a history but a Gospel, and his readers
+are Gentiles, for whom the details of Hebrew intrigue matter nothing, and
+the trial before a Galilean Tetrarch would be only half intelligible.
+
+St. John, who had been an eye-witness, knew that the private inquiry
+before Annas was vital, for there the decision was taken which subsequent
+and more formal assemblies did but ratify. He therefore, writing last,
+threw this ray of explanatory light over all that the others had related.
+St. Luke recorded in the Acts (iv. 27) that the apostles recognised, in
+the consent of Romans and Jews, and of Herod and Pilate, what the Psalmist
+had long foretold, the rage of the heathen and the vain imagination of the
+peoples, and the conjunction of kings and rulers. His Gospel therefore
+lays stress upon the part played by all of these. And St. Matthew's
+readers could appreciate every fulfilment of prophecy, and every touch of
+local colour. St. Mark offers to us the essential points: rejection and
+cruelty by His countrymen, rejection and cruelty over again by Rome, and
+the dignity, the elevation, the lofty silence and the dauntless testimony
+of his Lord. As we read, we are conscious of the weakness of His crafty
+foes, who are helpless and baffled, and have no resort except to abandon
+their charges and appeal to His own truthfulness to destroy Him.
+
+He shows us first the informal assembly before Caiaphas, whither Annas
+sent Him with that sufficient sign of his own judgment, the binding of His
+hands, and the first buffet, inflicted by an officer, upon His holy face.
+It was not yet daylight, and a formal assembly of the Sanhedrim was
+impossible. But what passed now was so complete a rehearsal of the
+tragedy, that the regular meeting could be disposed of in a single verse.
+
+There was confusion and distress among the conspirators. It was not their
+intention to have arrested Jesus on the feast day, at the risk of an
+uproar among the people. But He had driven them to do so by the expulsion
+of their spy, who, if they delayed longer, would be unable to guide their
+officers. And so they found themselves without evidence, and had to play
+the part of prosecutors when they ought to be impartial judges. There is
+something frightful in the spectacle of these chiefs of the religion of
+Jehovah suborning perjury as the way to murder; and it reminds us of the
+solemn truth, that no wickedness is so perfect and heartless as that upon
+which sacred influences have long been vainly operating, no corruption so
+hateful as that of a dead religion. Presently they would cause the name of
+God to be blasphemed among the heathen, by bribing the Roman guards to lie
+about the corpse. And the heart of Jesus was tried by the disgraceful
+spectacle of many false witnesses, found in turn and paraded against Him,
+but unable to agree upon any consistent charge, while yet the shameless
+proceedings were not discontinued. At the last stood up witnesses to
+pervert what He had spoken at the first cleansing of the temple, which the
+second cleansing had so lately recalled to mind. They represented Him as
+saying, "I am able to destroy this temple made with hands,"--or perhaps, "I
+will destroy" it, for their testimony varied on this grave point--"and in
+three days I will build another made without hands." It was for
+blaspheming the Holy Place that Stephen died, and the charge was a grave
+one; but His words were impudently manipulated to justify it. There had
+been no proposal to substitute a different temple, and no mention of the
+temple made with hands. Nor had Jesus ever proposed to destroy anything.
+He had spoken of their destroying the Temple of His Body, and in the use
+they made of the prediction they fulfilled it.
+
+As we read of these repeated failures before a tribunal so unjust, we are
+led to suppose that opposition must have sprung up to disconcert them; we
+remember the councillor of honourable estate, who had not consented to
+their counsel and deed, and we think, What if, even in that hour of evil,
+one voice was uplifted for righteousness? What if Joseph confessed Him in
+the conclave, like the penitent thief upon the cross?
+
+And now the high priest, enraged and alarmed by imminent failure, rises in
+the midst, and in the face of all law cross-questions the prisoner,
+Answerest Thou nothing? What is it which these witness against Thee? But
+Jesus will not become their accomplice; He maintains the silence which
+contrasts so nobly with their excitement, which at once sees through their
+schemes and leaves them to fall asunder. And the urgency of the occasion,
+since hesitation now will give the city time to rise, drives them to a
+desperate expedient. Without discussion of His claims, without considering
+that some day there _must_ be some Messiah, (else what is their faith and
+who are they?) they will treat it as blasphemous and a capital offence
+simply to claim that title. Caiaphas adjures Him by their common God to
+answer, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? So then they were not
+utterly ignorant of the higher nature of the Son of David: they remembered
+the words, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee. But the only
+use they ever made of their knowledge was to heighten to the uttermost the
+Messianic dignity which they would make it death to claim. And the
+prisoner knew well the consequences of replying. But He had come into the
+world to bear witness to the truth, and this was the central truth of all.
+"And Jesus said, I am." Now Renan tells us that He was the greatest
+religious genius who ever lived, or probably ever shall live. Mill tells
+us that religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on
+this Man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity. And Strauss
+thinks that we know enough of Him to assert that His consciousness was
+unclouded by the memory of any sin. Well then, if anything in the life of
+Jesus is beyond controversy, it is this, that the sinless Man, our ideal
+representative and guide, the greatest religious genius of the race, died
+for asserting upon oath that He was the Son of God. A good deal has been
+said lately, both wise and foolish, about Comparative Religion: is there
+anything to compare with this? Lunatics, with this example before their
+eyes, have conceived wild and dreadful infatuations. But these are the
+words of Him whose character has dominated nineteen centuries, and changed
+the history of the world. And they stand alone in the records of mankind.
+
+As Jesus spoke the fatal words, as malice and hatred lighted the faces of
+His wicked judges with a base and ignoble joy, what was His own thought?
+We know it by the warning that He added. They supposed themselves judges
+and irresponsible, but there should yet be another tribunal, with justice
+of a far different kind, and there they should occupy another place. For
+all that was passing before His eyes, so false, hypocritical and
+murderous, there was no lasting victory, no impunity, no escape: "Ye shall
+see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the
+clouds of heaven." Therefore His apostle Peter tells us that in this hour,
+when He was reviled and reviled not again, "He committed Himself to Him
+that judgeth righteously" (1 Peter ii. 23).
+
+He had now quoted that great vision in which the prophet Daniel saw Him
+brought near unto the Ancient of Days, and invested with an everlasting
+dominion (Dan. vii. 13, 14.). But St. Matthew adds one memorable word. He
+did not warn them, and He was not Himself sustained, only by the mention
+of a far-off judgment: He said they should behold Him thus "henceforth."
+And that very day they saw the veil of their temple rent, felt the world
+convulsed, and remembered in their terror that He had foretold His own
+death and His resurrection, against which they had still to guard. And in
+the open sepulchre, and the supernatural vision told them by its keepers,
+in great and notable miracles wrought by the name of Jesus, in the
+desertion of a great multitude even of priests, and their own fear to be
+found fighting against God, in all this the rise of that new power was
+thenceforth plainly visible, which was presently to bury them and their
+children under the ruins of their temple and their palaces. But for the
+moment the high-priest was only relieved; and he proceeded, rending his
+clothes, to announce his judgment, before consulting the court, who had no
+further need of witnesses, and were quite content to become formally the
+accusers before themselves. The sentence of this irregular and informal
+court was now pronounced, to fit them for bearing part, at sunrise, in
+what should be an unbiassed trial; and while they awaited the dawn Jesus
+was abandoned to the brutality of their servants, one of whom He had
+healed that very night. They spat on the Lord of Glory. They covered His
+face, an act which was the symbol of a death sentence (Esther vii. 8), and
+then they buffeted Him, and invited Him to prophesy who smote Him. And the
+officers "received Him" with blows.
+
+What was the meaning of this outburst of savage cruelty of men whom Jesus
+had never wronged, and some of whose friends must have shared His
+superhuman gifts of love? Partly it was the instinct of low natures to
+trample on the fallen, and partly the result of partizanship. For these
+servants of the priests must have seen many evidences of the hate and
+dread with which their masters regarded Jesus. But there was doubtless
+another motive. Not without fear, we may be certain, had they gone forth
+to arrest at midnight the Personage of whom so many miraculous tales were
+universally believed. They must have remembered the captains of fifty whom
+Elijah consumed with fire. And in fact there was a moment when they all
+fell prostrate before His majestic presence. But now their terror was at
+an end: He was helpless in their hands; and they revenged their fears upon
+the Author of them.
+
+Thus Jesus suffered shame to make us partakers of His glory; and the veil
+of death covered His head, that He might destroy the face of the covering
+cast over all peoples, and the veil that was spread over all nations. And
+even in this moment of bitterest outrage He remembered and rescued a soul
+in the extreme of jeopardy, for it was now that the Lord turned and looked
+upon Peter.
+
+
+
+
+The Fall Of Peter.
+
+
+    "And as Peter was beneath in the court, there cometh one of the
+    maids of the high priest; and seeing Peter warming himself, she
+    looked upon him, and saith, Thou also wast with the Nazarene,
+    _even_ Jesus. But he denied, saying, I neither know, nor
+    understand what thou sayest: and he went out into the porch; and
+    the cock crew. And the maid saw him, and began again to say to
+    them that stood by, This is _one_ of them. But he again denied it.
+    And after a little while again they that stood by said to Peter,
+    Of a truth thou art _one_ of them; for thou art a Galilaean. But he
+    began to curse, and to swear, I know not this man of whom ye
+    speak. And straightway the second time the cock crew. And Peter
+    called to mind the word, how that Jesus said unto him, Before the
+    cock crow twice, thou shalt deny Me thrice. And when he thought
+    thereon, he wept"--MARK xiv. 66-72 (R.V.).
+
+
+The fall of Peter has called forth the easy scorn of multitudes who never
+ran any risk for Christ. But if he had been a coward, and his denial a
+dastardly weakness, it would not be a warning for the whole Church, but
+only for feeble natures. Whereas the lesson which it proclaims is this
+deep and solemn one, that no natural endowments can bear the strain of the
+spiritual life. Peter had dared to smite when only two swords were
+forthcoming against the band of Roman soldiers and the multitude from the
+chief priests. After the panic in which all forsook Jesus, and so
+fulfilled the prediction "ye shall leave Me alone," none ventured so far
+as Peter. John indeed accompanied him; but John ran little risk, he had
+influence and was therefore left unassailed, whereas Peter was friendless
+and a mark for all men, and had made himself conspicuous in the garden. Of
+those who declaim about his want of courage few indeed would have dared so
+much. And whoever misunderstands him, Jesus did not. He said to him,
+"Satan hath desired to have you (all) that he may sift you like wheat, but
+I have prayed for thee (especially) that thy strength fail not." Around
+him the fiercest of the struggle was to rage, as around some point of
+vantage on a battlefield; and it was he, when once he had turned again,
+who should stablish his brethren (Luke xxii. 31, 32).
+
+God forbid that we should speak one light or scornful word of this great
+apostle! God grant us, if our footsteps slip, the heart to weep such tears
+as his.
+
+Peter was a loving, brave and loyal man. But the circumstances were not
+such as human bravery could deal with. Resistance, which would have
+kindled his spirit, had been forbidden to him, and was now impossible. The
+public was shut out, and he was practically alone among his enemies. He
+had come "to see the end," and it was a miserable sight that he beheld.
+Jesus was passive, silent, insulted: His foes fierce, unscrupulous and
+confident. And Peter was more and more conscious of being alone, in peril,
+and utterly without resource. Moreover sleeplessness and misery lead to
+physical languor and cold,(13) and as the officers had kindled a fire, he
+was drawn thither, like a moth, by the double wish to avoid isolation and
+to warm himself. In thus seeking to pass for one of the crowd, he showed
+himself ashamed of Jesus, and incurred the menaced penalty, "of him shall
+the Son of man be ashamed, when He cometh." And the method of
+self-concealment which he adopted only showed his face, strongly
+illuminated, as St. Mark tells us, by the flame.
+
+If now we ask for the secret of his failing resolution, we can trace the
+disease far back. It was self-confidence. He reckoned himself the one to
+walk upon the waters. He could not be silent on the holy mount, when Jesus
+held high communion with the inhabitants of heaven. He rebuked the Lord
+for dark forebodings. When Jesus would wash his feet, although expressly
+told that he should understand the act hereafter, he rejoined, Thou shalt
+never wash my feet, and was only sobered by the peremptory announcement
+that further rebellion would involve rejection. He was sure that if all
+the rest were to deny Jesus, he never should deny Him. In the garden he
+slept, because he failed to pray and watch. And then he did not wait to be
+directed, but strove to fight the battle of Jesus with the weapons of the
+flesh. Therefore he forsook Him and fled. And the consequences of that
+hasty blow were heavy upon him now. It marked him for the attention of the
+servants: it drove him to merge himself in the crowd. But his bearing was
+too suspicious to enable him to escape unquestioned. The first assault
+came very naturally, from the maid who kept the door, and had therefore
+seen him with John. He denied indeed, but with hesitation, not so much
+affirming that the charge was false as that he could not understand it.
+And thereupon he changed his place, either to escape notice or through
+mental disquietude; but as he went into the porch the cock crew. The girl
+however was not to be shaken off: she pointed him out to others, and since
+he had forsaken the only solid ground, he now denied the charge angrily
+and roundly. An hour passed, such an hour of shame, perplexity and guilt,
+as he had never known, and then there came a still more dangerous attack.
+They had detected his Galilean accent, while he strove to pass for one of
+them. And a kinsman of Malchus used words as threatening as were possible
+without enabling a miracle to be proved, since the wound had vanished:
+"Did I myself not see thee in the garden with Him?" Whereupon, to prove
+that his speech had nothing to do with Jesus, he began to curse and swear,
+saying, I know not the man. And the cock crew a second time, and Peter
+remembered the warning of his Lord, which then sounded so harsh, but now
+proved to be the means of his salvation. And the eyes of his Master, full
+of sorrow and resolution, fell on him. And he knew that he had added a
+bitter pang to the sufferings of the Blessed One. And the crowd and his
+own danger were forgotten, and he went out and wept.
+
+It was for Judas to strive desperately to put himself right with man: the
+sorrow of Peter was for himself and God to know.
+
+What lessons are we taught by this most natural and humbling story? That
+he who thinketh he standeth must take heed lest he fall. That we are in
+most danger when self-confident, and only strong when we are weak. That
+the beginning of sin is like the letting out of water. That Jesus does not
+give us up when we cast ourselves away, but as long as a pulse of love
+survives, or a spark of loyalty, He will appeal to that by many a subtle
+suggestion of memory and of providence, to recall His wanderer to Himself.
+
+And surely we learn by the fall of this great and good apostle to restore
+the fallen in the spirit of meekness, considering ourselves lest we also
+be tempted, remembering also that to Peter, Jesus sent the first tidings
+of His resurrection, and that the message found him in company with John,
+and therefore in the house with Mary. What might have been the issue of
+his anguish if these holy ones had cast Him off?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+
+
+Pilate.
+
+
+    "And straightway in the morning the chief priests with the elders
+    and scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, and bound
+    Jesus, and carried Him away, and delivered Him up to Pilate."
+
+    "... And they lead Him out to crucify Him."--MARK xv. 1-20 (R.V.).
+
+
+With morning came the formal assembly, which St. Mark dismisses in a
+single verse. It was indeed a disgraceful mockery. Before the trial began
+its members had prejudged the case, passed sentence by anticipation, and
+abandoned Jesus, as one condemned, to the brutality of their servants. And
+now the spectacle of a prisoner outraged and maltreated moves no
+indignation in their hearts.
+
+Let us, for whom His sufferings were endured, reflect upon the strain and
+anguish of all these repeated examinations, these foregone conclusions
+gravely adopted in the name of justice, these exhibitions of greed for
+blood. Among the "unknown sufferings" by which the Eastern Church invokes
+her Lord, surely not the least was His outraged moral sense.
+
+As the issue of it all, they led Him away to Pilate, meaning, by the
+weight of such an accusing array, to overpower any possible scruples of
+the governor, but in fact fulfilling His words, "they shall deliver Him
+unto the Gentiles." And the first question recorded by St. Mark expresses
+the intense surprise of Pilate. "Thou," so meek, so unlike the numberless
+conspirators that I have tried,--or perhaps, "Thou," Whom no sympathising
+multitude sustains, and for Whose death the disloyal priesthood thirsts,
+"Art _Thou_ the King of the Jews?" We know how carefully Jesus
+disentangled His claim from the political associations which the high
+priests intended that it should suggest, how the King of Truth would not
+exaggerate any more than understate the case, and explained that His
+kingdom was not of this world, that His servants did not fight, that His
+royal function was to uphold the truth, not to expel conquerors. The eyes
+of a practised Roman governor saw through the accusation very clearly.
+Before him, Jesus was accused of sedition, but that was a transparent
+pretext; Jews did not hate Him for enmity to Rome: He was a rival teacher
+and a successful one, and for envy they had delivered Him. So far all was
+well. Pilate investigated the charge, arrived at the correct judgment, and
+it only remained that he should release the innocent man. In reaching this
+conclusion Jesus had given him the most prudent and skilful help, but as
+soon as the facts became clear, He resumed His impressive and mysterious
+silence. Thus, before each of his judges in turn, Jesus avowed Himself the
+Messiah and then held His peace. It was an awful silence, which would not
+give that which was holy to the dogs, nor profane the truth by unavailing
+protests or controversies. It was, however, a silence only possible to an
+exalted nature full of self-control, since the words actually spoken
+redeem it from any suspicion or stain of sullenness. It is the conscience
+of Pilate which must henceforth speak. The Romans were the lawgivers of
+the ancient world, and a few years earlier their greatest poet had boasted
+that their mission was to spare the helpless and to crush the proud. In no
+man was an act of deliberate injustice, of complaisance to the powerful at
+the cost of the good, more unpardonable than in a leader of that splendid
+race, whose laws are still the favourite study of those who frame and
+administer our own. And the conscience of Pilate struggled hard, aided by
+superstitious fear. The very silence of Jesus amid many charges, by none
+of which His accusers would stand or fall, excited the wonder of His
+judge. His wife's dream aided the effect. And he was still more afraid
+when he heard that this strange and elevated Personage, so unlike any
+other prisoner whom he had ever tried, laid claim to be Divine. Thus even
+in his desire to save Jesus, his motive was not pure, it was rather an
+instinct of self-preservation than a sense of justice. But there was
+danger on the other side as well; since he had already incurred the
+imperial censure, he could not without grave apprehensions contemplate a
+fresh complaint, and would certainly be ruined if he were accused of
+releasing a conspirator against Caesar. And accordingly he stooped to mean
+and crooked ways, he lost hold of the only clue in the perplexing
+labyrinth of expediencies, which is principle, and his name in the creed
+of Christendom is spoken with a shudder--"crucified under Pontius Pilate!"
+
+It was the time for him to release a prisoner to them, according to an
+obscure custom, which some suppose to have sprung from the release of one
+of the two sacrificial goats, and others from the fact that they now
+celebrated their own deliverance from Egypt. At this moment the people
+began to demand their usual indulgence, and an evil hope arose in the
+heart of Pilate. They would surely welcome One who was in danger as a
+patriot: he would himself make the offer, and he would put it in this
+tempting form, "Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?"
+Thus would the enmity of the priests be gratified, since Jesus would
+henceforth be a condemned culprit, and owe His life to their intercession
+with the foreigner. But the proposal was a surrender. The life of Jesus
+had not been forfeited; and when it was placed at their discretion, it was
+already lawlessly taken away. Moreover, when the offer was rejected, Jesus
+was in the place of a culprit who should not be released. To the priests,
+nevertheless, it was a dangerous proposal, and they needed to stir up the
+people, or perhaps Barabbas would not have been preferred.
+
+Instigated by their natural guides, their religious teachers, the Jews
+made the tremendous choice, which has ever since been heavy on their heads
+and on their children's. Yet if ever an error could be excused by the plea
+of authority, and the duty of submission to constituted leaders, it was
+this error. They followed men who sat in Moses' seat, and who were thus
+entitled, according to Jesus Himself, to be obeyed. Yet that authority has
+not relieved the Hebrew nation from the wrath which came upon them to the
+uttermost. The salvation they desired was not moral elevation or spiritual
+life, and so Jesus had nothing to bestow upon them; they refused the Holy
+One and the Just. What they wanted was the world, the place which Rome
+held, and which they fondly hoped was yet to be their own. Even to have
+failed in the pursuit of this was better than to have the words of
+everlasting life, and so the name of Barabbas was enough to secure the
+rejection of Christ. It would almost seem that Pilate was ready to release
+both, if that would satisfy them, for he asks, in hesitation and
+perplexity, "What shall I do then with Him Whom ye call the King of the
+Jews?" Surely in their excitement for an insurgent, that title, given by
+themselves, will awake their pity. But again and again, like the howl of
+wolves, resounds their ferocious cry, Crucify Him, crucify Him.
+
+The irony of Providence is known to every student of history, but it never
+was so manifest as here. Under the pressure of circumstances upon men whom
+principle has not made firm, we find a Roman governor striving to kindle
+every disloyal passion of his subjects, on behalf of the King of the
+Jews,--appealing to men whom he hated and despised, and whose charges have
+proved empty as chaff, to say, What evil has He done? and even to tell
+him, on his judgment throne, what he shall do with their King; we find the
+men who accused Jesus of stirring up the people to sedition, now
+shamelessly agitating for the release of a red-handed insurgent; forced
+moreover to accept the responsibility which they would fain have devolved
+on Pilate, and themselves to pronounce the hateful sentence of
+crucifixion, unknown to their law, but for which they had secretly
+intrigued; and we find the multitude fiercely clamouring for a defeated
+champion of brute force, whose weapon has snapped in his hands, who has
+led his followers to the cross, and from whom there is no more to hope.
+What satire upon their hope of a temporal Messiah could be more bitter
+than their own cry, "We have no king but Caesar"? And what satire upon this
+profession more destructive than their choice of Barabbas and refusal of
+Christ? And all the while, Jesus looks on in silence, carrying out His
+mournful but effectual plan, the true Master of the movements which design
+to crush Him, and which He has foretold. As He ever receives gifts for the
+rebellious, and is the Saviour of all men, though especially of them that
+believe, so now His passion, which retrieved the erring soul of Peter, and
+won the penitent thief, rescues Barabbas from the cross. His suffering was
+made visibly vicarious.
+
+One is tempted to pity the feeble judge, the only person who is known to
+have attempted to rescue Jesus, beset by his old faults, which will make
+an impeachment fatal, wishing better than he dares to act, hesitating,
+sinking inch by inch, and like a bird with broken wing. No accomplice in
+this frightful crime is so suggestive of warning to hearts not entirely
+hardened.
+
+But pity is lost in sterner emotion as we remember that this wicked
+governor, having borne witness to the perfect innocence of Jesus, was
+content, in order to save himself from danger, to watch the Blessed One
+enduring all the horrors of a Roman scourging, and then to yield Him up to
+die.
+
+It is now the unmitigated cruelty of ancient paganism which has closed its
+hand upon our Lord. When the soldiers led Him away within the court, He
+was lost to His nation, which had renounced Him. It is upon this utter
+alienation, even more than the locality where the cross was fixed, that
+the Epistle to the Hebrews turns our attention, when it reminds us that
+"the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the holy place by
+the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned without the camp.
+Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own
+blood, suffered without the gate." The physical exclusion, the material
+parallel points to something deeper, for the inference is that of
+estrangement. Those who serve the tabernacle cannot eat of our altar. Let
+us go forth unto Him, bearing His reproach. (Heb. xii. 10-13).
+
+Renounced by Israel, and about to become a curse under the law, He has now
+to suffer the cruelty of wantonness, as He has already endured the cruelty
+of hatred and fear. Now, more than ever perhaps, He looks for pity and
+there is no man. None responded to the deep appeal of the eyes which had
+never seen misery without relieving it. The contempt of the strong for the
+weak and suffering, of coarse natures for sensitive ones, of Romans for
+Jews, all these were blended with bitter scorn of the Jewish expectation
+that some day Rome shall bow before a Hebrew conqueror, in the mockery
+which Jesus now underwent, when they clad Him in such cast-off purple as
+the Palace yielded, thrust a reed into His pinioned hand, crowned Him with
+thorns, beat these into His holy head with the sceptre they had offered
+Him, and then proceeded to render the homage of their nation to the
+Messiah of Jewish hopes. It may have been this mockery which suggested to
+Pilate the inscription for the cross. But where is the mockery now? In
+crowning Him King of sufferings, and Royal among those who weep, they
+secured to Him the adherence of all hearts. Christ was made perfect by the
+things which He suffered; and it was not only in spite of insult and
+anguish but by means of them that He drew all men unto Him.
+
+
+
+
+Christ Crucified.
+
+
+    "And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the
+    country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to _go with them_,
+    that he might bear His cross. And they bring Him unto the place
+    Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. And
+    they offered Him wine mingled with myrrh: but He received it not.
+    And they crucify Him, and part His garments among them, casting
+    lots upon them, what each should take. And it was the third hour,
+    and they crucified Him. And the superscription of His accusation
+    was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. And with Him they crucify
+    two robbers; one on His right hand, and one on His left. And they
+    that passed by railed on Him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ha!
+    Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days,
+    save Thyself, and come down from the cross. In like manner also
+    the chief priests mocking _Him_ among themselves with the scribes
+    said, He saved others; Himself He cannot save. Let the Christ, the
+    King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and
+    believe. And they that were crucified with Him reproached
+    Him."--MARK xv. 21-32 (R.V.).
+
+
+At last the preparations were complete and the interval of mental agony
+was over. They led Him away to crucify Him. And upon the road an event of
+mournful interest took place. It was the custom to lay the two arms of the
+cross upon the doomed man, fastening them together at such an angle as to
+pass behind His neck, while his hands were bound to the ends in front. And
+thus it was that Jesus went forth bearing His cross. Did He think of this
+when He bade us take His yoke upon us? Did He wait for events to explain
+the words, by making it visibly one and the same to take His yoke and to
+take up our cross and follow Him?
+
+On the road, however, they forced a reluctant stranger to go with them
+that he might bear the cross. The traditional reason is that our
+Redeemer's strength gave way, and it became physically impossible for Him
+to proceed; but this is challenged upon the ground that to fail would have
+been unworthy of our Lord, and would mar the perfection of His example.
+How so, when the failure was a real one? Is there no fitness in the belief
+that He who was tempted in all points like as we are, endured this
+hardness also, of struggling with the impossible demands of human cruelty,
+the spirit indeed willing but the flesh weak? It is not easy to believe
+that any other reason than manifest inability, would have induced his
+persecutors to spare Him one drop of bitterness, one throb of pain. The
+noblest and most delicately balanced frame, like all other exquisite
+machines, is not capable of the rudest strain; and we know that Jesus had
+once sat wearied by the well, while the hardy fishers went into the town,
+and returned with bread. And this night our gentle Master had endured what
+no common victim knew. Long before the scourging, or even the buffeting
+began, His spiritual exhaustion had needed that an angel from heaven
+should strengthen Him. And the utmost possibility of exertion was now
+reached: the spot where they met Simon of Cyrene marks this melancholy
+limit; and suffering henceforth must be purely passive.
+
+We cannot assert with confidence that Simon and his family were saved by
+this event. The coercion put upon him, the fact that he was seized and
+"impressed" into the service, already seems to indicate sympathy with
+Jesus. And we are fain to believe that he who received the honour, so
+strange and sad and sacred, the unique privilege of lifting some little of
+the crushing burden of the Saviour, was not utterly ignorant of what he
+did. We know at least that the names of his children, Alexander and Rufus,
+were familiar in the Church for which St. Mark was writing, and that in
+Rome a Rufus was chosen in the Lord, and his mother was like a mother to
+St. Paul (Rom. xvi. 13). With what feelings may they have recalled the
+story, "him they compelled to bear His cross."
+
+They led Him to a place where the rounded summit of a knoll had its grim
+name from some resemblance to a human skull, and prepared the crosses
+there.
+
+It was the custom of the daughters of Jerusalem, who lamented Him as He
+went, to provide a stupefying draught for the sufferers of this atrocious
+cruelty. "And they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He received it
+not," although that dreadful thirst, which was part of the suffering of
+crucifixion, had already begun, for He only refused when He had tasted it.
+
+In so doing He rebuked all who seek to drown sorrows or benumb the soul in
+wine, all who degrade and dull their sensibilities by physical excess or
+indulgence, all who would rather blind their intelligence than pay the
+sharp cost of its exercise. He did not condemn the use of anodynes, but
+the abuse of them. It is one thing to suspend the senses during an
+operation, and quite another thing by one's own choice to pass into
+eternity without consciousness enough to commit the soul into its Father's
+hands.
+
+"And they crucify Him." Let the words remain as the Evangelist left them,
+to tell their own story of human sin, and of Divine love which many waters
+could not quench, neither could the depths drown it.
+
+Only let us think in silence of all that those words convey.
+
+In the first sharpness of mortal anguish, Jesus saw His executioners sit
+down at ease, all unconscious of the dread meaning of what was passing by
+their side, to part His garments among them, and cast lots for the raiment
+which they had stripped from His sacred form. The Gospels are content thus
+to abandon those relics about which so many legends have been woven. But
+indeed all through these four wonderful narratives the self-restraint is
+perfect. When the Epistles touch upon the subject of the crucifixion they
+kindle into flame. When St. Peter soon afterwards referred to it, his
+indignation is beyond question, and Stephen called the rulers betrayers
+and murderers (Acts ii. 23, 24; iii. 13, 14; vii. 51-53) but not one
+single syllable of complaint or comment mingles with the clear flow of
+narrative in the four Gospels. The truth is that the subject was too
+great, too fresh and vivid in their minds, to be adorned or enlarged upon.
+What comment of St. Mark, what mortal comment, could add to the weight of
+the words "they crucify Him"? Men use no figures of speech when telling
+how their own beloved one died. But it was differently that the next age
+wrote about the crucifixion; and perhaps the lofty self-restraint of the
+Evangelists has never been attained again.
+
+St. Mark tells us that He was crucified at the third hour, whereas we read
+in St. John that it was "about the sixth hour" when Pilate ascended the
+seat of judgment (xix. 14). It seems likely that St. John used the Roman
+reckoning, and his computation does not pretend to be exact; while we must
+remember that mental agitation conspired with the darkening of the sky, to
+render such an estimate as he offers even more than usually vague.
+
+It has been supposed that St. Mark's "third hour" goes back to the
+scourging, which, as being a regular part of Roman crucifixion, he
+includes, although inflicted in this case before the sentence. But it will
+prove quite as hard to reconcile this distribution of time with "the sixth
+hour" in St. John, while it is at variance with the context in which St.
+Mark asserts it.
+
+The small and bitter heart of Pilate keenly resented his defeat and the
+victory of the priests. Perhaps it was when his soldiers offered the
+scornful homage of Rome to Israel and her monarch, that he saw the way to
+a petty revenge. And all Jerusalem was scandalized by reading the
+inscription over a crucified malefactor's head, The King of the Jews.
+
+It needs some reflection to perceive how sharp the taunt was. A few years
+ago they had a king, but the sceptre had departed from Judah; Rome had
+abolished him. It was their hope that soon a native king would for ever
+sweep away the foreigner from their fields. But here the Roman exhibited
+the fate of such a claim, and professed to inflict its horrors not upon
+one whom they disavowed, but upon their king indeed. We know how angrily
+and vainly they protested; and again we seem to recognise the solemn irony
+of Providence. For this was their true King, and they, who resented the
+superscription, had fixed their Anointed there.
+
+All the more they would disconnect themselves from Him, and wreak their
+passion upon the helpless One whom they hated. The populace mocked Him
+openly: the chief priests, too cultivated to insult avowedly a dying man,
+mocked Him "among themselves," speaking bitter words for Him to hear. The
+multitude repeated the false charge which had probably done much to
+inspire their sudden preference for Barabbas, "Thou that destroyest the
+temple and buildest it again in three days, save Thyself and come down
+from the cross."
+
+They little suspected that they were recalling words of consolation to His
+memory, reminding Him that all this suffering was foreseen, and how it was
+all to end. The chief priests spoke also a truth full of consolation, "He
+saved others, Himself He cannot save," although it was no physical bar
+which forbade Him to accept their challenge. And when they flung at Him
+His favourite demand for faith, saying "Let the Christ, the King of
+Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe" surely
+they reminded Him of the great multitude who should not see, and yet
+should believe, when He came back through the gates of death.
+
+Thus the words they spoke could not afflict Him. But what horror to the
+pure soul to behold these yawning abysses of malignity, these gulfs of
+pitiless hate. The affronts hurled at suffering and defeat by prosperous
+and exultant malice are especially Satanic. Many diseases inflict more
+physical pain than torturers ever invented, but they do not excite the
+same horror, because gentle ministries are there to charm away the despair
+which human hate and execration conjure up.
+
+To add to the insult of His disgraceful death, the Romans had crucified
+two robbers, doubtless from the band of Barabbas, one upon each side of
+Jesus. We know how this outrage led to the salvation of one of them, and
+refreshed the heavy laden soul of Jesus, oppressed by so much guilt and
+vileness, with the visible firstfruit of His passion, giving Him to see of
+the travail of His soul, by which He shall yet be satisfied.
+
+But in their first agony and despair, when all voices were unanimous
+against the Blessed One, and they too must needs find some outlet for
+their frenzy, they both reproached Him. Thus the circle of human wrong was
+rounded.
+
+The traitor, the deserters, the forsworn apostle, the perjured witnesses,
+the hypocritical pontiff professing horror at blasphemy while himself
+abjuring his national hope, the accomplices in a sham trial, the murderer
+of the Baptist and his men of war, the abject ruler who declared Him
+innocent yet gave Him up to die, the servile throng who waited on the
+priests, the soldiers of Herod and of Pilate, the pitiless crowd which
+clamoured for His blood, and they who mocked Him in His agony,--not one of
+them whom Jesus did not compassionate, whose cruelty had not power to
+wring His heart. Disciple and foeman, Roman and Jew, priest and soldier
+and judge, all had lifted up their voice against Him. And when the
+comrades of His passion joined the cry, the last ingredient of human
+cruelty was infused into the cup which James and John had once proposed to
+drink with Him.
+
+
+
+
+The Death Of Jesus.
+
+
+    "And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the
+    whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried
+    with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being
+    interpreted, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? And some
+    of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, He
+    calleth Elijah. And one ran, and filling a sponge full of vinegar,
+    put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink, saying, Let be; let us
+    see whether Elijah cometh to take Him down. And Jesus uttered a
+    loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was
+    rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And when the centurion,
+    which stood by over against Him, saw that He so gave up the ghost,
+    he said, Truly this man was the Son of God. And there were also
+    women beholding from afar: among whom _were_ both Mary Magdalene,
+    and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
+    who, when He was in Galilee, followed Him, and ministered unto
+    Him; and many other women which came up with Him unto
+    Jerusalem."--MARK xv. 33-41 (R.V.).
+
+
+Three hours of raging human passion, endured with Godlike patience, were
+succeeded by three hours of darkness, hushing mortal hatred into silence,
+and perhaps contributing to the penitence of the reviler at His side. It
+was a supernatural gloom, since an eclipse of the sun was impossible
+during the full moon of Passover. Shall we say that, as it shall be in the
+last days, nature sympathized with humanity, and the angel of the sun hid
+his face from his suffering Lord?
+
+Or was it the shadow of a still more dreadful eclipse, for now the eternal
+Father veiled His countenance from the Son in whom He was well pleased?
+
+In some true sense God forsook Him. And we have to seek for a meaning of
+this awful statement--inadequate no doubt, for all our thoughts must come
+short of such a reality, but free from prevarication and evasion.
+
+It is wholly unsatisfactory to regard the verse as merely the heading of a
+psalm, cheerful for the most part, which Jesus inaudibly recited. Why was
+only this verse uttered aloud? How false an impression must have been
+produced upon the multitude, upon St. John, upon the penitent thief, if
+Jesus were suffering less than the extreme of spiritual anguish. Nay, we
+feel that never before can the verse have attained its fullest meaning, a
+meaning which no experience of David could more than dimly shadow forth,
+since we ask in our sorrows, Why have we forsaken God? but Jesus said, Why
+hast Thou forsaken Me?
+
+And this unconsciousness of any reason for desertion disproves the old
+notion that He felt Himself a sinner, and "suffered infinite remorse, as
+being the chief sinner in the universe, all the sins of mankind being
+His." One who felt thus could neither have addressed God as "My God," nor
+asked why He was forsaken.
+
+Still less does it allow us to believe that the Father perfectly
+identified Jesus with sin, so as to be "wroth" with Him, and even "to hate
+Him to the uttermost." Such notions, the offspring of theories carried to
+a wild and irreverent extreme, when carefully examined impute to the Deity
+confusion of thought, a mistaking of the Holy One for a sinner or rather
+for the aggregate of sinners. But it is very different when we pass from
+the Divine consciousness to the bearing of God toward Christ our
+representative, to the outshining or eclipse of His favour. That this was
+overcast is manifest from the fact that Jesus everywhere else addresses
+Him as My Father, here only as My God. Even in the garden it was Abba
+Father, and the change indicates not indeed estrangement of heart, but
+certainly remoteness. Thus we have the sense of desertion, combined with
+the assurance which once breathed in the words, O God, Thou art my God.
+
+Thus also it came to pass that He who never forfeited the most intimate
+communion and sunny smile of heaven, should yet give us an example at the
+last of that utmost struggle and sternest effort of the soul, which trusts
+without experience, without emotion, in the dark, because God is God, not
+because I am happy.
+
+But they who would empty the death of Jesus of its sacrificial import, and
+leave only the attraction and inspiration of a sublime life and death,
+must answer the hard questions, How came God to forsake the Perfect One?
+Or, how came He to charge God with such desertion? His follower, twice
+using this very word, could boast that he was cast down yet not forsaken,
+and that at his first trial all men forsook him, yet the Lord stood by him
+(2 Cor. iv. 9; 2 Tim. iv. 16, 17). How came the disciple to be above his
+Master?
+
+The only explanation is in His own word, that His life is a ransom in
+exchange for many (Mark x. 45). The chastisement of our peace, not the
+remorse of our guiltiness, was upon Him. No wonder that St. Mark, who
+turns aside from his narrative for no comment, no exposition, was yet
+careful to preserve this alone among the dying words of Christ.
+
+And the Father heard His Son. At that cry the mysterious darkness passed
+away; and the soul of Jesus was relieved from its burden, so that He
+became conscious of physical suffering; and the mockery of the multitude
+was converted into awe. It seemed to them that His Eloi might indeed bring
+Elias, and the great and notable day, and they were willing to relieve the
+thirst which no stoical hardness forbade that gentlest of all sufferers to
+confess. Thereupon the anguish that redeemed the world was over; a loud
+voice told that exhaustion was not complete; and yet Jesus "gave up the
+ghost."(14)
+
+Through the veil, that is to say His flesh, we have boldness to enter into
+the holy place; and now that He had opened the way, the veil of the temple
+was rent asunder by no mortal hand, but downward from the top. The way
+into the holiest was visibly thrown open, when sin was expiated, which had
+forfeited our right of access.
+
+And the centurion, seeing that His death itself was abnormal and
+miraculous, and accompanied with miraculous signs, said, Truly this was a
+righteous man. But such a confession could not rest there: if He was this,
+He was all He claimed to be; and the mockery of His enemies had betrayed
+the secret of their hate; He was the Son of God.
+
+"When the centurion saw" ... "There were also many women beholding." Who
+can overlook the connection? Their gentle hearts were not to be utterly
+overwhelmed: as the centurion saw and drew his inference, so they beheld,
+and felt, however dimly, amid sorrows that benumb the mind, that still,
+even in such wreck and misery, God was not far from Jesus.
+
+When the Lord said, It is finished, there was not only an end of conscious
+anguish, but also of contempt and insult. His body was not to see
+corruption, nor was a bone to be broken, nor should it remain in hostile
+hands.
+
+Respect for Jewish prejudice prevented the Romans from leaving it to
+moulder on the cross, and the approaching Sabbath was not one to be
+polluted. And knowing this, Joseph of Arimathaea boldly went in to Pilate
+and asked for the body of Jesus. It was only secretly and in fear that he
+had been a disciple, but the deadly crisis had developed what was hidden,
+he had opposed the crime of his nation in their council, and in the hour
+of seeming overthrow he chose the good part. Boldly the timid one "went
+in," braving the scowls of the priesthood, defiling himself moreover, and
+forfeiting his share in the sacred feast, in hope to win the further
+defilement of contact with the dead.
+
+Pilate was careful to verify so rapid a death; but when he was certain of
+the fact, "he granted the corpse to Joseph," as a worthless thing. His
+frivolity is expressed alike in the unusual verb(15) and substantive: he
+"freely-bestowed," he "gave away" not "the body" as when Joseph spoke of
+it, but "the corpse," the fallen thing, like a prostrated and uprooted
+tree that shall revive no more. Wonderful it is to reflect that God had
+entered into eternal union with what was thus given away to the only man
+of rank who cared to ask for it. Wonderful to think what opportunities of
+eternal gain men are content to lose; what priceless treasures are given
+away, or thrown away as worthless. Wonderful to imagine the feelings of
+Joseph in heaven to-day, as he gazes with gratitude and love upon the
+glorious Body which once, for a little, was consigned to his reverent
+care.
+
+St. John tells us that Nicodemus brought a hundred pound weight of myrrh
+and aloes, and they together wrapped Him in these, in the linen which had
+been provided; and Joseph laid Him in his own new tomb, undesecrated by
+mortality.
+
+And there Jesus rested. His friends had no such hope as would prevent them
+from closing the door with a great stone. His enemies set a watch, and
+sealed the stone. The broad moon of Passover made the night as clear as
+the day, and the multitude of strangers, who thronged the city and its
+suburbs, rendered any attempt at robbery even more hopeless than at
+another season.
+
+What indeed could the trembling disciples of an executed pretender do with
+such an object as a dead body? What could they hope from the possession of
+it? But if they did not steal it, if the moral glories of Christianity are
+not sprung from deliberate mendacity, why was the body not produced, to
+abash the wild dreams of their fanaticism? It was fearfully easy to
+identify. The scourging, the cross, and the spear, left no slight evidence
+behind, and the broken bones of the malefactors completed the absolute
+isolation of the sacred body of the Lord.
+
+The providence of God left no precaution unsupplied to satisfy honest and
+candid inquiry. It remained to be seen, would He leave Christ's soul in
+Hades, or suffer His Holy One (such is the epithet applied to the body of
+Jesus) to see corruption?
+
+Meantime, through what is called three days and nights--a space which
+touched, but only touched, the confines of a first and third day, as well
+as the Saturday which intervened, Jesus shared the humiliation of common
+men, the divorce of soul and body. He slept as sleep the dead, but His
+soul was where He promised that the penitent should come, refreshed in
+Paradise.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+
+
+Christ Risen.
+
+
+    "And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
+    _mother_ of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come
+    and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they
+    come to the tomb when the sun was risen. And they were saying
+    among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door
+    of the tomb? and looking up, they see that the stone is rolled
+    back: for it was exceeding great. And entering into the tomb, they
+    saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white
+    robe, and they were amazed. And he saith unto them, Be not amazed;
+    ye seek Jesus, the Nazarene, Which hath been crucified: He is
+    risen; He is not here: behold, the place where they laid Him! But
+    go, tell His disciples and Peter, He goeth before you into
+    Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you. And they
+    went out, and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment
+    had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one; for they
+    were afraid. Now when He was risen early on the first day of the
+    week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast
+    out seven devils. She went and told them that had been with Him,
+    as they mourned and wept. And they, when they heard that He was
+    alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved. And after these
+    things He was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they
+    walked, on their way into the country. And they went away and told
+    it unto the rest: neither believed they them. And afterward He was
+    manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and He
+    upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because
+    they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen. And
+    He said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel
+    to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be
+    saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned. And these
+    signs shall follow them that believe: in My name shall they cast
+    out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up
+    serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise
+    hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall
+    recover."--MARK xvi. 1-18 (R.V.).
+
+
+The Gospels were not written for the curious but for the devout. They are
+most silent therefore where myth and legend would be most garrulous, and
+it is instructive to seek, in the story of Jesus, for anything similar to
+the account of the Buddha's enlightenment under the Bo tree. We read
+nothing of the interval in Hades; nothing of the entry of His crowned and
+immortal body into the presence chamber of God; nothing of the
+resurrection. Did He awake alone? Was He waited upon by the hierarchy of
+heaven, who robed Him in raiment unknown to men? We are only told what
+concerns mankind, the sufficient manifestation of Jesus to His disciples.
+
+And to harmonise the accounts a certain effort is necessary, because they
+tell of interviews with men and women who had to pass through all the
+vicissitudes of despair, suspense, rapturous incredulity,(16) and faith.
+Each of them contributes a portion of the tale.
+
+From St. John we learn that Mary Magdalene came early to the sepulchre,
+from St. Matthew that others were with her, from St. Mark that these
+women, dissatisfied with the unskilful ministrations of men (and men whose
+rank knew nothing of such functions), had brought sweet spices to anoint
+Him Who was about to claim their adoration; St. John tells how Mary,
+seeing the empty sepulchre, ran to tell Peter and John of its desecration;
+the others, that in her absence an angel told the glad tidings to the
+women; St. Mark, that Mary was the first to whom Jesus Himself appeared.
+And thenceforth the narrative more easily falls into its place.
+
+This confusion, however perplexing to thoughtless readers, is inevitable
+in the independent histories of such events, derived from the various
+parties who delighted to remember, each what had befallen himself.
+
+But even a genuine contradiction would avail nothing to refute the
+substantial fact. When the generals of Henry the Fourth strove to tell him
+what passed after he was wounded at Aumale, no two of them agreed in the
+course of events which gave them victory. Two armies beheld the battle of
+Waterloo, but who can tell when it began? At ten o'clock, said the Duke of
+Wellington. At half past eleven, said General Alava, who rode beside him.
+At twelve according to Napoleon and Drouet; and at one according to Ney.
+
+People who doubt the reality of the resurrection, because the harmony of
+the narratives is underneath the surface, do not deny these facts. They
+are part of history. Yet it is certain that the resurrection of Jesus
+colours the history of the world more powerfully to-day, than the events
+which are so much more recent.
+
+If Christ were not risen, how came these despairing men and women by their
+new hope, their energy, their success among the very men who slew Him? If
+Christ be not risen, how has the morality of mankind been raised? Was it
+ever known that a falsehood exercised for ages a quickening and purifying
+power which no truth can rival?
+
+From the ninth verse to the end of St. Mark's account it is curiously
+difficult to decide on the true reading. And it must be said that the note
+in the Revised Version, however accurate, does not succeed in giving any
+notion of the strength of the case in favour of the remainder of the
+Gospel. It tells us that the two oldest manuscripts omit them, but we do
+not read that in one of these a space is left for the insertion of
+something, known by the scribe to be wanting there. Nor does it mention
+the twelve manuscripts of almost equal antiquity in which they are
+contained, nor the early date at which they were quoted.
+
+The evidence appears to lean towards the belief that they were added in a
+later edition, or else torn off in an early copy from which some
+transcribers worked. But unbelief cannot gain anything by converting them
+into a separate testimony, of the very earliest antiquity, to events
+related in each of the other Gospels.
+
+And the uncertainty itself will be wholesome if it reminds us that saving
+faith is not to be reposed in niceties of criticism, but in a living
+Christ, the power and wisdom of God. Jesus blamed men for thinking that
+they had eternal life in their inspired Scriptures, and so refusing to
+come for life to Him, of Whom those Scriptures testified. Has sober
+criticism ever shaken for one hour that sacred function of Holy Writ?
+
+What then is especially shown us in the closing words of St. Mark?
+
+Readiness to requite even a spark of grace, and to bless with the first
+tidings of a risen Redeemer the love which sought only to embalm His
+corpse. Tender care for the fallen and disheartened, in the message sent
+especially to Peter. Immeasurable condescension, such as rested formerly,
+a Babe, in a peasant woman's arms, and announced its Advent to shepherds,
+now appearing first of all to a woman "out of whom He had cast seven
+devils."
+
+A state of mind among the disciples, far indeed from that rapt and
+hysterical enthusiasm which men have fancied, ready to be whirled away in
+a vortex of religious propagandism (and to whirl the whole world after
+it), upon the impulse of dreams, hallucinations, voices mistaken on a
+misty shore, longings which begot convictions. Jesus Himself, and no
+second, no messenger from Jesus, inspired the zeal which kindled mankind.
+The disciples, mourning and weeping, found the glad tidings incredible,
+while Mary who had seen Him, believed. When two, as they walked, beheld
+Him in another shape, the rest remained incredulous, announcing indeed
+that He had actually risen and appeared unto Peter, yet so far from a true
+conviction that when He actually came to them, they supposed that they
+beheld a spirit (Luke xxiv. 34, 37). Yet He looked in the face those pale
+discouraged Galileans, and bade them go into all the world, bearing to the
+whole creation the issues of eternal life and death. And they went forth,
+and the power and intellect of the world are won. Whatever unbelievers
+think about individual souls, it is plain that the words of the Nazarene
+have proved true for communities and nations, He that believeth and is
+baptised has been saved, He that believeth not has been condemned. The
+nation and kingdom that has not served Christ has perished.
+
+Nor does any one pretend that the agents in this marvellous movement were
+insincere. If all this was a dream, it was a strange one surely, and
+demands to be explained. If it was otherwise, no doubt the finger of God
+has come unto us.
+
+
+
+
+The Ascension.
+
+
+    "So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken unto them, was
+    received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
+    And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working
+    with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed.
+    Amen."--MARK xvi. 19-20 (R.V.)
+
+
+We have reached the close of the great Gospel of the energies of Jesus,
+His toils, His manner, His searching gaze, His noble indignation, His love
+of children, the consuming zeal by virtue of which He was not more truly
+the Lamb of God than the Lion of the tribe of Judah. St. Mark has just
+recorded how He bade His followers carry on His work, defying the serpents
+of the world, and renewing the plague-stricken race of Adam. In what
+strength did they fulfil this commission? How did they fare without the
+Master? And what is St. Mark's view of the Ascension?
+
+Here, as all through the Gospel, minor points are neglected. Details are
+only valued when they carry some aid for the special design of the
+Evangelist, who presses to the core of his subject at once and boldly. As
+he omitted the bribes with which Satan tempted Jesus, and cared not for
+the testimony of the Baptist when the voice of God was about to peal from
+heaven over the Jordan, as on the holy mount he told not the subject of
+which Moses and Elijah spoke, but how Jesus Himself predicted His death to
+His disciples, so now He is silent about the mountain slope, the final
+benediction, the cloud which withdrew Him from their sight and the angels
+who sent back the dazed apostles to their homes and their duties. It is
+not caprice nor haste that omits so much interesting information. His mind
+is fixed on a few central thoughts; what concerns him is to link the
+mighty story of the life and death of Jesus with these great facts, that
+He was received up into Heaven, that He there sat down upon the right hand
+of God, and that His disciples were never forsaken of Him at all, but
+proved, by the miraculous spread of the early Church, that His power was
+among them still. St. Mark does not record the promise, but he asserts the
+fact that Christ was with them all the days. There is indeed a connection
+between his two closing verses, subtle and hard to render into English,
+and yet real, which suggests the notion of balance, of relation between
+the two movements, the ascent of Jesus, and the evangelisation of the
+world, such as exists, for example, between detachments of an army
+co-operating for a common end, so that our Lord, for His part, ascended,
+while the disciples, for their part, went forth and found Him with them
+still.
+
+But the link is plainer which binds the Ascension to His previous story of
+suffering and conflict. It was "then," and "after He had spoken unto
+them," that "the Lord Jesus was received up." In truth His ascension was
+but the carrying forward to completion of His resurrection, which was not
+a return to the poor conditions of our mortal life, but an entrance into
+glory, only arrested in its progress until He should have quite convinced
+His followers that "it is I indeed," and made them understand that "thus
+it is written that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead
+the third day," and filled them with holy shame for their unbelief, and
+with courage for their future course, so strange, so weary, so sublime.
+
+There is something remarkable in the words, "He was received up into
+heaven." We habitually speak of Him as ascending, but Scripture more
+frequently declares that He was the subject of the action of another, and
+was taken up. St. Luke tells us that, "while they worshipped, He was
+carried up into heaven," and again "He was received up.... He was taken
+up" (Luke xxiv. 51; Acts i. 2, 9). Physical interference is not implied:
+no angels bore Him aloft; and the narratives make it clear that His
+glorious Body, obedient to its new mysterious nature, arose unaided. But
+the decision to depart, and the choice of a time, came not from Him: He
+did not go, but was taken. Never hitherto had He glorified Himself. He had
+taught His disciples to be contented in the lowest room until the Master
+of the house should bid them come up higher. And so, when His own supreme
+victory is won, and heaven held its breath expectant and astonished, the
+conquering Lord was content to walk with peasants by the Lake of Galilee
+and on the slopes of Olivet until the appointed time. What a rebuke to us
+who chafe and fret if the recognition of our petty merits be postponed.
+
+"He was received up into heaven!" What sublime mysteries are covered by
+that simple phrase. It was He who taught us to make, even of the mammon of
+unrighteousness, friends who shall welcome us, when mammon fails and all
+things mortal have deserted us, into everlasting habitations. With what
+different greetings, then, do men enter the City of God. Some converts of
+the death bed perhaps there are, who scarcely make their way to heaven,
+alone, unhailed by one whom they saved or comforted, and like a vessel
+which struggles into port, with rent cordage and tattered sails, only not
+a wreck. Others, who aided some few, sparing a little of their means and
+energies, are greeted and blessed by a scanty group. But even our
+chieftains and leaders, the martyrs, sages and philanthropists whose names
+brighten the annals of the Church, what is their influence, and how few
+have they reached, compared with that great multitude whom none can
+number, of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, who cry with a
+loud voice, Salvation unto our God who sitteth upon the throne, and unto
+the Lamb. Through Him it pleased the Father to reconcile all things unto
+Himself, through Him, whether things upon the earth or things in the
+heavens. And surely the supreme hour in the history of the universe was
+when, in flesh, the sore stricken but now the all-conquering Christ
+re-entered His native heaven.
+
+And He sat down at the right hand of God. The expression is, beyond all
+controversy, borrowed from that great Psalm which begins by saying, "The
+Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at My right hand," and which presently
+makes the announcement never revealed until then, "Thou art a Priest for
+ever after the order of Melchizedec" (Ps. cx. 1, 4). It is therefore an
+anticipation of the argument for the royal Priesthood of Jesus which is
+developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Now priesthood is a human
+function: every high priest is chosen from among men. And the Ascension
+proclaims to us, not the Divinity of the Eternal Word but the
+glorification of "the Lord Jesus;" not the omnipotence of God the Son, but
+that all power is committed unto Him Who is not ashamed to call us
+brethren, that His human hands wield the sceptre as once they held the
+reed, and the brows then insulted and torn with thorns are now crowned
+with many crowns. In the overthrow of Satan He won all, and infinitely
+more than all, of that vast bribe which Satan once offered for His homage,
+and the angels for ever worship Him who would not for a moment bend His
+knee to evil.
+
+Now since He conquered not for Himself but as Captain of our Salvation,
+the Ascension also proclaims the issue of all the holy suffering, all the
+baffled efforts, all the cross-bearing of all who follow Christ.
+
+His High Priesthood is with authority. "Every high priest standeth," but
+He has for ever sat down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in
+the heavens, a Priest sitting upon His throne (Heb. viii. 1; Zech. vi.
+13). And therefore it is His office, Who pleads for us and represents us,
+Himself to govern our destinies. No wonder that His early followers, with
+minds which He had opened to understand the Scriptures, were mighty to
+cast down strongholds. Against tribulation and anguish and persecution and
+famine and nakedness and peril and sword they were more than conquerors
+through Him. For He worked with them and confirmed His word with signs.
+And we have seen that He works with His people still, and still confirms
+His gospel, only withdrawing signs of one order as those of another kind
+are multiplied. Wherever they wage a faithful battle, He gives them
+victory. Whenever they cry to Him in anguish, the form of the Son of God
+is with them in the furnace, and the smell of fire does not pass upon
+them. Where they come, the desert blossoms as a rose; and where they are
+received, the serpents of life no longer sting, its fevers grow cool, and
+the demons which rend it are cast out.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+    1 Cf. the admirable note in Archdeacon Watkins' "Commentary on John."
+
+    2 By the absence of the article in the Greek.
+
+    3 The opposite is asserted by the fact that one demon may ally himself
+      with seven others worse.
+
+    4 The connection would be almost certain if the word "devil" were
+      alike in both. But in all these narratives it is "demon," there
+      being in Scripture but one devil.
+
+    5 The exceptions in the Revelation are only apparent. St. John does
+      not call Jesus the Son of man (i. 13), nor see Him, but only the
+      type of Him, standing (v. 6).
+
+    6 And this proves beyond question that He did not merely follow
+      Ezekiel in applying to himself the epithet as if it meant a son
+      among many sons of men, but took the description in Daniel for His
+      own. Ezekiel himself indeed never employs the phrase: he only
+      records it.
+
+    7 Lange. _Life of Christ_, li. p. 179.
+
+    8 It is also very natural that, in telling the story, he should
+      remember how, while hesitating to enter, he "stooped down" to gaze,
+      in the wild dawn of his new hope.
+
+    9 "Theology would have been spared much trouble concerning this
+      passage, and anxious timid souls unspeakable anguish, if men had
+      adhered strictly to Christ's own expression. For it is not a _sin_
+      against the Holy Ghost which is here spoken of, but _blasphemy_
+      against the Holy Ghost."--Lange "_Life of Christ_," vol. ii. p. 269.
+
+   10 Unless indeed the meaning be rather, "_ever_ hearing the word,"
+      which is not its force in the New Testament (Matt. xviii. 17,
+      twice).
+
+   11 Once besides in the New Testament this phrase was applied to death.
+      That was by St. Peter speaking of his own, when the thought of the
+      transfiguration was floating in his mind, and its voices lingered
+      unconsciously in his memory (2 Pet. i. 15, cf. ver. 17). The phrase,
+      though not unclassical, is not common.
+
+   12 That the event was recent is implied in the present tense: "he
+      followeth not": "forbid him not"; the matter is still fresh.
+
+   13 "By the fire the children sit
+      Cold in that atmosphere of death."--_In Memoriam_, xx.
+
+   14 The ingenious and plausible attempt to show that His death was
+      caused by a physical rupture of the heart has one fatal weakness.
+      Death came too late for this; the severest pressure was already
+      relieved.
+
+_   15 I.e._ in the New Testament, where it occurs but once besides.
+
+   16 Can anything surpass that masterstroke of insight and descriptive
+      power, "they still disbelieved for joy" (Luke xxiv. 41).
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK***
+
+
+
+CREDITS
+
+
+August 18, 2011
+
+            Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1
+            Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, David King, and the
+            Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+            <http://www.pgdp.net/>. (This file was produced from images
+            generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian
+            Libraries.)
+
+
+
+A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG
+
+
+This file should be named 37120.txt or 37120.zip.
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+
+
+    http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/1/2/37120/
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one -- the old editions will be
+renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one
+owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and
+you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission
+and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the
+General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and
+distributing Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works to protect the Project
+Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered
+trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you
+receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of
+this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
+for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
+performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given away
+-- you may do practically _anything_ with public domain eBooks.
+Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+
+
+_Please read this before you distribute or use this work._
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
+any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project Gutenberg"),
+you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~}
+License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.
+
+
+General Terms of Use & Redistributing Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works
+
+
+1.A.
+
+
+By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic work,
+you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the
+terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright)
+agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this
+agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of
+Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee
+for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic work
+and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may
+obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set
+forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+
+1.B.
+
+
+"Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or
+associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be
+bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can
+do with most Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works even without complying
+with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are
+a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works if you
+follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to
+Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+
+1.C.
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" or
+PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual
+work is in the public domain in the United States and you are located in
+the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying,
+distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on
+the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of
+course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} mission of
+promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project
+Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for
+keeping the Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} name associated with the work. You can
+easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} License when you
+share it without charge with others.
+
+
+1.D.
+
+
+The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you
+can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant
+state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of
+your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before
+downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating
+derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} work.
+The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of
+any work in any country outside the United States.
+
+
+1.E.
+
+
+Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+
+1.E.1.
+
+
+The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access
+to, the full Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} License must appear prominently whenever
+any copy of a Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} work (any work on which the phrase
+"Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project Gutenberg"
+is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or
+distributed:
+
+
+    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+    almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
+    or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
+    included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+1.E.2.
+
+
+If an individual Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic work is derived from the
+public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with
+permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and
+distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or
+charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you
+must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7
+or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~}
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+
+1.E.3.
+
+
+If an individual Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic work is posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply
+with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed
+by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project
+Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} License for all works posted with the permission of the
+copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+
+1.E.4.
+
+
+Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} License
+terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any
+other work associated with Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~}.
+
+
+1.E.5.
+
+
+Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic
+work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying
+the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate
+access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} License.
+
+
+1.E.6.
+
+
+You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed,
+marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word
+processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version posted
+on the official Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} web site (http://www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other form.
+Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} License as
+specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+
+1.E.7.
+
+
+Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing,
+copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} works unless you comply
+with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+
+1.E.8.
+
+
+You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or
+distributing Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works provided that
+
+    - You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+      the use of Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} works calculated using the method you
+      already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to
+      the owner of the Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} trademark, but he has agreed to
+      donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg
+      Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60
+      days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally
+      required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments
+      should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg
+      Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4,
+      "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+      Archive Foundation."
+
+    - You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+      you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+      does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} License.
+      You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the
+      works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and
+      all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} works.
+
+    - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+      any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+      electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+      receipt of the work.
+
+    - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+      distribution of Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} works.
+
+
+1.E.9.
+
+
+If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic
+work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this
+agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from both the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael Hart, the owner of the
+Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in
+Section 3 below.
+
+
+1.F.
+
+
+1.F.1.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to
+identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works in creating the Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} collection. Despite these
+efforts, Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works, and the medium on which they
+may be stored, may contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to,
+incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright
+or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk
+or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot
+be read by your equipment.
+
+
+1.F.2.
+
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES -- Except for the "Right of
+Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~}
+trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~}
+electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for
+damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE
+NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH
+OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE
+FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT
+WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
+PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY
+OF SUCH DAMAGE.
+
+
+1.F.3.
+
+
+LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND -- If you discover a defect in this
+electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund
+of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to
+the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a
+physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation.
+The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect
+to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the
+work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose
+to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in
+lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a
+refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+
+1.F.4.
+
+
+Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
+paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+
+1.F.5.
+
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the
+exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or
+limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state
+applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make
+the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state
+law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement
+shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+
+1.F.6.
+
+
+INDEMNITY -- You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark
+owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of
+Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and
+any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution
+of Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs
+and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from
+any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of
+this or any Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} work, and (c) any Defect
+you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.
+
+
+           Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~}
+
+
+Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic
+works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including
+obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the
+efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks
+of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance
+they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~}'s goals and ensuring
+that the Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} collection will remain freely available for
+generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for
+Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} and future generations. To learn more about the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations
+can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation web page at
+http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.
+
+
+   Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of
+Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.
+The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541.
+Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. Contributions to the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full
+extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr.
+S. Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 North
+1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact information
+can be found at the Foundation's web site and official page at
+http://www.pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+
+
+    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+    Chief Executive and Director
+    gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.
+
+
+  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+                                Foundation
+
+
+Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} depends upon and cannot survive without wide spread
+public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the
+number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment
+including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are
+particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States.
+Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable
+effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these
+requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not
+received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or
+determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have
+not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against
+accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us
+with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any
+statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the
+United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation methods
+and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including
+checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please
+visit: http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.
+
+
+      General Information About Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} electronic works.
+
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~}
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with
+anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~}
+eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~} eBooks are often created from several printed editions,
+all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. unless a copyright
+notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance
+with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's eBook
+number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, compressed
+(zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected _editions_ of our eBooks replace the old file and take over the
+old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed.
+_Versions_ based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+
+    http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg{~TRADE MARK SIGN~}, including how
+to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,
+how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email
+newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+***FINIS***
+
\ No newline at end of file