brings into subjection the body. The Lord goes to the root of the matter, the want or the weakness of faith. The comparisons He uses were proverbial among the Jews.' What smaller than a grain of mustard seed? What more immovable than a mountain? Yet a grain of genuine faith, though small as mustard seed, may remove a difficulty as huge as is a mountain. To expel a spirit stubborn as this, might seem as hard as to move that mountain from which they had just descended. To faith nothing is impossible that God commands. This will not of course warrant us in rash experiments.2 God will not work miracles to approve men's fancies. CCXCVII. PRAYER AND FASTING. St. Matthew xvii. 21. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. We may gather from this that there are kinds and degrees of evil spirits, as of evil habits; and some are so inveterate that nothing can dislodge them short of the strongest remedies. There are those which possess a man from a child, and seem more resolute, more reluctant to part from us than others. If you pray seldom,3 and never fast, then marvel not if your enemy be not dispossessed. He is not to be got rid of at that rate. An indolent, self-sparing, selfindulgent habit is the congenial home of evil. "Prayer and fasting." The one is not enough without the other. But this helps to that. The one acts upon the other, and both The figures are repeated by our Lord on two other occasions, St. Matt. xxi. 21, 22; St. Luke xvii. 6. The words are evidently referred to by St. Paul, 1 Cor. xiii. 2. See also Zech. iv. 6, 7; Rev. viii. 8. 2 Such as Savanarola's appeal to an ordeal of fire, or (for extremes meet) John Bunyan's attempt at dry ing up water. See his account of it, and the strange way in which he satisfied his then morbid mind, in his Grace abounding, p. 51. See a fine passage in Jer. Taylor's Sermon on The Return of Prayers, or The Conditions of a prevailing Prayer," He that is cold and tame in his prayers," &c. together they elevate man into that spiritual atmosphere in which alone he can carry on the contest against a spiritual enemy. Prayer faithful, frequent, fervent, persevering, and so effectual. And Abstinence, not merely sometimes from meats and drinks (however helpful this may sometimes be, both directly and indirectly; both mediately as a help to prayer, and immediately against the evil) but abstinence always from all the occasions of sin, from all the opportunities of evil. Have we never in the presence of some great calamity, in the sudden arrival of an affliction, in the prospect of impending danger, lost all concern even for the meal that has been prepared? It has lost its relish. You have lost your longing. Let us strive at least to lose all appetite for sin. For this is one of its most fearful penalties. Men begin by tampering with it, thinking they will only indulge themselves a little (though God has forbidden it altogether) and that they can stop when they please. But they have ventured into deeper water than they thought, and find retreat all but impossible. "Our sins," it has been said, "have not done with us when we have done with them." Such is the case with some unhappy men. They have cherished the serpent which now stings their heart. They have admitted the evil one, and now he haunts them by night and by day; lies down and rises up with them; goes forth with them into the world, into the Church; breaking forth sometimes into open violence, filling them with frenzy, casting them almost upon their destruction, into the very fire and water of outrageous wickedness.2 Have we nothing like this now? Is there not a too common one, the dæmon of drink. For drink is a dæmon, and we know the havoc it makes in some hearts and homes. And there are others like it, almost as potent. Of any inveterate habit of self-indulgence, it may be said, that it goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. As well might we expect some deep-seated disease to be cured without using any of the appointed remedies. It would be more than a miracle. For even in that age of miracles, when the 1 Clarius in Crit. Sac. 2 "Till the seared taste from foulest wells Is fain to slake its fire." The Christian Year, Second Sun. after Epiphany. Great Wonder-worker was visibly in our midst, this was enjoined, and enjoined by Himself. He who cast out the dæmon said to those who failed to cast him out, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting."" CCXCVIII. HE FORETELLS HIS PASSION. St. Mark ix. 30-32. And they departed 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 into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he he is killed, he shall rise the third day. But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him. The reason why the Lord wished to travel, as we say, incognito, was that He might not precipitate the malice of His enemies, which seems at this time to have had one of its periods of activity. For the same reason He avoids Judæa at this time, and keeps to remoter Galilee. His time was not yet come. Till it came He must use the precautions 3 which, notwithstanding His power of working miracles, He imposed on Himself when He took upon Him our flesh. On the road through this part of Galilee He returned to that subject on which He had before begun to enlighten them; His betrayal, and death, and resurrection. It was while they were wondering at the power of His works that He tells them of the apparent weakness approaching. "Let these sayings," He says, "sink down into your ears." " These were the sayings to which the Angels referred after His resurrection. "Remember how He spake unto you while He in. 1 St. Mark ix. 29. 2 St. John vii. 1 seems here to come 31 Sam. xxiii. 10-13. 6 4 St. Matt. xvi. 21. 5 St. Matt. xvii. 22. 62 Cor. xiii. 4; 1 Cor. xv. 43. 7 St. Luke ix. 44. was yet in Galilee." The sayings of the Lord too often are allowed to go no deeper than the surface of our minds. What He here said to them they could not reconcile with what they imagined, that the Messiah should live for ever, and they enjoy a place near the throne. So, though His words were plain enough, they were still a riddle to them. Yet He bears with the misapprehensions of His followers. The full meaning was perhaps in mercy hid from them.' They feared to ask Him further. Not that He was hard of access, but they had a foreboding of some calamity to come, and they shrank from learning its extent; as a patient sometimes shrinks from inquiring the worst from his physician, or a person shuts his eyes to the increasing weakness of one dear to him. So we would rather ask a friend of anything but of that which concerns himself." That is sacred ground, on which we feel we may not intrude. But sometimes we may be too bashful. Many remain ignorant because they are ashamed to inquire." In this case they were simply sorry at that which in the end should make them glad. "3 CCXCIX. St. Matthew xvii. 24-27. And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; 1 St. Luke ix. 45. 2 Bengel. 8 Henry. St. Matt. xvii. 23. and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee. 3 When at Capernaum, the Lord seems to have sheltered Himself chiefly in the house of Peter.1 "To that host of His, therefore, do the toll-gatherers repair for the tribute.” 2 These were not publicans, roughly demanding a tax to Rome from one anxious to evade it, but the authorised ministers of the Temple. This tribute was no other than the head-money or poll-tax, which was paid by every man of twenty years old and upwards for the maintenance of the Temple-worship. It does not seem to have been so strictly enforced as the other. It was in fact a Church-rate, payment of which was left to every man's conscience; a moral obligation not enforced by any legal penalty in case of its evasion. The Lord, it would seem, had passed the Collectors on the road. Peter probably was lingering behind. To him therefore they apply; and with the more propriety, seeing He was his guest. They cannot believe that one so regular as He at public worship should wish to exempt Himself from contributing to its maintenance. He had doubtless paid it hitherto. Their question seems to imply that He was in the habit of so doing, and Peter's answer points to the same conclusion. So another Apostle bids us to "render to all their dues." If the Lord pay tribute, who can plead or pretend an exemption? Entering into the house, to mention the matter to his Master, before he opens his mouth, the Lord anticipates him. This further proof He gives that nothing can pass without His knowledge. Simon, He calls him, in friendly and familiar address. He makes him state what is the usual practice among men. Kings use not to take taxes of any kind from their own children. Taxes in former times went directly to the King. If then the son of an earthly sovereign is exempt from paying to his father, may |