charged them, saying, See that no man know it. But they, when they were departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country.

On His way from the house of Jairus the Lord was followed by these two blind men.' They are importunate in prayer. They address Him by one of the titles of the Messiah, professing their faith in Him as such. This indeed was a mark of the Messiah, to open the eyes of the blind. In the Litany we make this cry of theirs our own. All the Prayers of the Church are either in the exact words, or according to the spirit, of the Scripture. They persevere in prayer, and follow Him even into the house, the house probably of Simon and Andrew at Capernaum. Not till then does the Lord seem to listen to them. By this delay He tests their faith. Then, not for His own information, but for the sake of them that stood by, and for our instruction who have the record of this miracle in our hands, He asks that question which leads to the confession of their faith.3 Then with the Divine touch of His human hand He assists their faith, and opens their hitherto sealed eyes; giving them not so much the reward as the result of their faith. Faith being "the conducting link between man's emptiness and God's fulness. . . the bucket let down into the fountain of God's grace, without which the man could not draw up out of that fountain." 4 The Lord had His reasons for enjoining silence on these objects of His mercy; an injunction which it had been better they had obeyed. "To obey

1 St. Matthew (xx. 29-34) tells us of two other blind men whose eyes the Lord opened near Jericho. Had He mentioned but one of these cases, and left it to another Evangelist to relate the other, there are not wanting those who would have charged one or both Evangelists with error and inconsistency, as if relating differently one and the same event. Blindness, it may be remarked, is in the East, as all travellers even in Egypt can testify, a more common calamity than in our climate. The

is better than sacrifice." From such disregard inconvenience resulted to their Benefactor and to others.1 Men sometimes think that they are doing God service when they are indeed doing dis-service. We need sometimes to be saved from our friends.

CCXXXVI.

A DÆMON CAST OUT OF A DUMB MAN.

St. Matthew ix. 32-34.

As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man

possessed with a devil. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.

Miracle succeeds miracle. Mercy follows upon mercy. No sooner are the two blind men healed and withdrawn, than one who is dumb is brought to Him for healing. In this case there is a mental malady, and worse, in addition to the physical or bodily disorder. The dumbness in this case may have been the sequel of the possession, the actual work of the dæmon. In any case when the evil spirit was dispossessed of the place it had usurped, the hitherto dumb person began to speak. We see the effect of the miracle upon the unprejudiced people. They wondered, and admitted that in their country at least (and if not there, where else ?) the like had never been seen. But the Pharisees, who could not deny that a miracle had been wrought,- could not gainsay the evidence of their senses, with their wonted malignity ascribe it to an impossible cause They attribute a work of mercy to the author of all mischief! Here we have the Pharisees repeating their old calumny, which the Lord has already confuted. How could He be in league

1 St. Mark i. 45.

2 See Lect. CLXXXIII. The history there related is previous to this,

though the circumstances were much the same. We need not so much wonder that the calumny was repeated

with the devil who destroyed the works of the devil? It was impossible that Satan could assist the Lord's miracles. It is certain he inspired the Pharisees' suggestion.

CCXXXVII.

CHRIST IS CONTEMNED OF HIS OWN
COUNTRYMEN.

St. Mark vi. 1–6.

And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him. And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

As once before He had left Nazareth to dwell in Capernaum,' so the Lord now leaves Capernaum and comes again to Nazareth. This was the place which he called "His own country," being the place where He had been brought up. Again He avails Himself of their day and place of worship. He teaches on the Sabbath, in the Synagogue, as He had done the year before. Our Evangelist describes, as another

as that it should ever have been uttered. As Alford observes, "The habit of the Pharisees once being to ascribe our Lord's expulsion of devils to Beelzebub, the repetition of the

remark would be natural."

1 St. Matt. iv. 13.

That occasion

2 St. Luke iv. 16 ff. is placed by Abp. Newcome between the first and second Passover in our

described on that previous occasion, the effect of the Lord's sermon on some of His hearers. They were astonished that one whose origin was, as they supposed, so humble, who had had no advantages of education, but had simply been brought up to a common trade, should speak and act like this. Such words of wisdom! Such works of power! Yet even if it had been as they supposed, what was there in all this to move their baser passions? These disadvantages on which they dwelt should but have made them admire all the more the energy that could surmount them; as we think most of that husbandman who by good husbandry can get a full crop off an unfertile soil. But their admiration was envious, and their envy was inconsistent. "Obstinate unbelief will never want excuses." 1 Envy can never see another's good without imagining its own loss. So, through their baseness, He became, as the prophet had foretold, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. The Lord not only learned a trade, according to the custom of the Jews, who made this a part of education even in the case of those who did not require it for a living, but He seems to have worked at it for years; not only to assist His supposed father, but to maintain Himself and His mother. We are told by one of the earliest Christian writers that He made ploughs and yokes.3 It is no disparagement to a great teacher to have been bred to an honest calling. Some of the greatest men have had the humblest origin. But "this contempt did not trouble the heart of Jesus." He repeats to them their own old proverb,*

men. And it is related of Scopelianus that, when invited to teach in his own country, his reply was, "The nightingale sings not in his own nest." See the originals in Grotius. So Protogenes the painter (the story is told by Pliny, Nat. Hist. 1. xxxv.) was thought nothing of at home, and spent half a century in poverty, till Apelles, a stranger, came to show his fellow-citizens what an artist they had among them. Socrates, slain by the men of his own city, is perhaps the closest parallel.

proved by their own conduct in this instance. Familiarity breeds, sometimes unreasonable, contempt. Not even His sudden healing of life-long sickness, nor the confessed wisdom of His words, could do more than fill them with a reluctant astonishment, with a grudging admiration. So far did this bad spirit prevail at Nazareth, that He could there do no mighty work who makes faith the necessary condition of His working. A few sick folk however, who were free from this base prejudice, enjoyed a benefit which all Nazareth might have shared. So wide-spread, so deeply rooted was this unbelief, that He who wrought miracles as God, as Man could not choose but marvel. As a Physician might wonder at the folly of those who, from prejudice to his person, should reject His admitted remedies. Yet see the assiduity of the Lord. Even the remote villages are not unvisited by Him. There, it may be, some simple souls shall receive a blessing rejected by the self-satisfied men of Nazareth.

CCXXXVIII.

THE COMPASSION OF THE LORD.

St. Matthew ix. 36-38.

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.

The sight of so many souls with whom He came in contact during this missionary journey, scattered abroad throughout the towns and villages, without adequate provision for their instruction; sown broadcast, as it were, in the land, without labourers to gather in the neglected crop; moved more than once the compassion of the Lord. It did not move

1

St. Mark vi. 34.