Mark ii. 10.

Matt. ix. 6.

Mark ii. 11.

Mark ii. 12.

Luke v. 25.

Mark ii. 12.

Luke v. 25.

Mark ii. 12.

Luke v. 25.

Mark ii. 12.

Matt. ix. 8.

Mark ii. 12.

Luke v. 26.

Mark ii. 12.

Matt. ix. 8..

But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins:

(Then saith he to the sick of the palsy)

I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.

And immediately he rose up before them, and

took up the bed

that whereon he lay,

and went forth before them all,

and departed to his own house, glorifying God,
insomuch that,

when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and
they were all amazed,

and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange
things to-day;

we never saw it on this fashion.

and [they] glorified God, which had given such power unto

men.

Seat and
Ground of
Faith.

GEORGE K. I liked this verse

"When

Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins are forgiven thee." They showed their faith by letting him down so, and on that account Jesus cured him

MR. ALCOTT. Where was the faith seated?

GEORGE K. In their Spirits.

MR. ALCOTT. In what faculty?

LEMUEL. It was in his Conscience.

LUCIA. It was shown forth in his body.

FRANKLIN. It was in reason and imagination.

LEMUEL. It is in our affections.

MR. ALCOTT. Where was the faith in this case? GEORGE K. In the man's conscience, and in the people's conscience.

MR. ALCOTT. And in that of Jesus also?

GEORGE K. Yes.

MR. ALCOTT. How did they get this faith?

GEORGE K. They had heard and seen what miracles he had done before.

MR. ALCOTT.

hearing?

Did all their faith arise from mere

GEORGE K. They had seen that he could cure, because there had been a good many miracles.

MR. ALCOTT. But a miracle cannot be, you say, without there is faith in the first place. Now what made them believe in his first miracle, when there had been none which they could have heard and seen?

GEORGE K. Why, you know that was at Cana, and his mother believed, because the angel had told her who he was.

MR. ALCOTT. But was there nothing within their minds that helped the truth? Suppose I should go out upon the Common, and come in and say I saw the great elm pulled up by the roots without hands, and dancing on its head should you believe me?

ALL. No.

MR. ALCOTT. Suppose I should tell you, very seriously, that I had had a vision this morning; should you believe me?

SEVERAL. Yes; because that is possible.

LUCIA. It is Reason that would make us have faith. MR. ALCOTT. Reason accepts the vision as possible; but can Reason settle all things, that come before the mind, of a wonderful nature?

ALFRED and OTHERS. No.

(This subject was here dropped.)

Generation

of Disease.

CHARLES. I was most interested in the verse, "Son, thy sins are forgiven thee." That shows that the man had done wickedly in his life, and had been stricken by God with the

palsy, by way of punishment. And then he had seen the reason why he had the palsy, and had repented of the sins, and so he was forgiven.

MR. ALCOTT. Did you think he was arbitrarily struck with the palsy, or did you think his sins were of a nature to bring on the palsy? What do you think he did?

CHARLES. Why, he ate what he ought not, he drank, he got in passions, and God made him have the palsy to punish him, and then he repented; and Jesus knew he had repented.

MR. ALCOTT. Did indulgence of the appetites bring out the disease itself?

(Almost all expressed the idea that excess in the gratification of the appetites and passions produced diseases.)

FRANKLIN. I think this paralytic was diseased on account of his own sins, but the palsy could be inherited by an innocent man.

ANDREW. But in the father or grandfather where it began, it was produced by self-indulgence.

MR. ALCOTT. And so it always begins in wrongdoing somewhere; it always begins in indulged appetite, though perhaps ignorantly indulged, sometimes. It begins by a broken physiological law

LEMUEL. And in passions.

MR. ALCOTT. Passions are an ultimate effect of appetites. The selfishness of the senses gives occasions for quarrels. The glutton sits down to dinner with another glutton, and gets angry with him for eating up what he wants himself. I think I have seen this in the anteroom, sometimes.

SEVERAL. Boys quarrelling about water.

Pictures of the Scene.

LUCIA. I was most interested in the verse where it speaks of their going on the house

top, and letting the paralytic down they had such faith.

MR. ALCOTT. The houses were of one story, and there were openings from the top down into them. They were not such houses as we have; some of you are aware of that. If any of you pictured out this scene you may give your picture.

ALFRED. I thought the house was very full of people, and had a flat roof. And I imagined the young men on the roof just letting him down; and Jesus standing in the room below.

JOSIAH. I thought the house was rather small; and on the roof was a great square place where they let down the man's bed. It was not a bed, but a kind of sheet with four ropes at the four corners. I thought there was but one room in the house, and Jesus stood about the middle of it, and had a smile on his face.

ANDREW. I thought of a small flat-roofed house, and stairs on the outside up to the top. The bed was a kind of cushion about as large as a common bed. There were four ropes and two men; each man had hold of two ropes; and they let him down through a hole in the roof, which they made on purpose.

GEORGE K. I thought like Andrew; only I thought there were four men. The paralytic looked rather siniling, thinking he was to be cured; but when he was cured, he looked very glad indeed.

MR. ALCOTT. What was the name of his feelings? GEORGE K. Gratitude and faith.

CHARLES. I imagined a long low building, not much higher than a man's head; and Jesus was in the largest of the two rooms in the house, two steps higher than the rest, talking to the people. Bye and bye four men bring along a very old man on a sofa- it was their father. He has a crutch for though he expected

Jesus would cure his palsy, one leg was shorter than the other, and he did not expect he would make them of equal length. When they came to the house, they put a ladder to the side of the house, and took the old man upon a piece of canvass, and opened a trap door on the roof and let him down ; and there was just space enough made for him; and Jesus looked at him and smiled ; and then his four sons were so transported that they jumped down from the roof.

(Others wished to give pictures, but Mr. Alcott said he could hear no more. Several said they thought of

the face of Jesus.)

Healing Efficacy of Faith and Repentance.

MR. ALCOTT. What interested you most,
Lemuel?

LEMUEL. I liked where he said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee." The man had done a great many bad things, and he had repented of a good many of them; and Jesus cured him of the rest for repenting so much.

MR. ALCOTT. How long do you think it would take a man, who had the palsy, to recover by repentance? LEMUEL. Why, if he had real repentance and faith, in about a month.

MR. ALCOTT. Suppose he had been bringing it on a year, do you think he would be cured in a less time than he was bringing it on?

LEMUEL. Yes; rather.

ALFRED. No; it takes a longer time than he was bringing it on.

LUCIA. It takes about a month longer.

ELLEN. It takes about the same time.

MR. ALCOTT. I see before me twenty-five Spirits in Bodies; and they have not done wisely and right in all the years which they have been in their bodies. They