never thirst." He reproached them also with their unbelief-they had seen his miracles, and yet believed not, requiring farther signs, and seeking food for the body, while his mission was to furnish food for the spirit. And when they murmured and doubted, he repeated more distinctly: "I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever and the bread which I shall give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

The Jews strove among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" The carnal mind cannot discern spiritual things; and when the Redeemer proceeded to repeat the great truth: "This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever." His disciples-not the twelve-began now to murmur: "This is an hard saying, who can hear it?" Jesus asked, "Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend where he was before? It is the Spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not.”

From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Their perceptions were too gross-their hopes too much of the earth, earthy, to partake of that bread which quickeneth the spirit. They

could not appreciate a kingdom which is not of this world, nor would they surrender their own long cherished temporal expectations, for the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Jesus, when the disciples, who would have served God and Mammon, turned from him, appealed to the twelve: "Will ye also go away?" Simon Peter answered him: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." Thus, for himself and for all did Peter answer. They had wavered, and their hearts had been hardened, and their understanding darkened; but light now awoke in them and though all the world should desert him, they would cleave to the Hope of Israel. True, at a later date they succumbed to the temptation of fear, and Peter, who answered so boldly for himself and for all, even denied his Master. But Jesus knew their infirmities. He answered them, "Have I not chosen twelve? and one of you is a devil." He spake, says the Evangelist, of Judas Iscariot, for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve. But at this period, the disciples knew not what should befall their master, what trials of their faith awaited themselves. Neither had Judas incurred, so far as we may gather from the Scriptures, any suspicion on the part of his companions.

The second year of the ministry of Jesus now drew near its close. The efforts which he had made to escape the jealousy of the Scribes and Pharisees, he now remitted. His hour approached; and he distinctly avowed the

claims which he had upon his own, and the nature of his kingdom. Still did he not needlessly expose himself to danger; for since in Jewry the Scribes and Pharisees could turn upon him the power of the Sanhedrim, and awake against him the vindictive fury of the Jews, he remained chiefly in Galilee, the tetrarchy of Herod. He had declared prophetically the principal events which remained to mark his mission upon earth. He did not indeed distinctly speak of them-but he so alluded to them that after they were accomplished the disciples remembered the words that he spake. He had before this day announced his crucifixion, in that he said that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so should the Son of Man be lifted up. He had declared his resurrection as shadowed in the sign of the prophet Jonah. He had declared the mystery of the resurrection of all that are in the grave, at the voice of the Son of Man, and by raising two persons from the dead, he had shown his disciples that this power is given unto the Son. And now, in the conversation which he had with the Jews in the Synagogue at Capernaum, he announced that the Son of Man should ascend up where he was before. He had given the mysteries of the kingdom in darkness to his disciples, that in the light, after they were filled with the Holy Ghost, they should pronounce them: he had spoken in the ear, what they were to proclaim upon the housetops. What he did and what he said, they knew not then, but when the Comforter came, which led them into all truth, they declared boldly the mysteries of the Gospel.

XXIII.

Che Syro-Phenician Womau.

Though Jesus remained in Galilee, his fame was known in Jerusalem. The wonders he had wrought, and the word which he preached, with authority rebuking their worldliness and hypocrisy, awakened in the hearts of the Pharisees the fury of persecution. And although in Galilee he was out of their spiritual jurisdiction, they could not refrain from sending messengers, Scribes and Pharisees, that they might, if possible, defeat his words among the people, and oppose their own sanctity to the life of him whom they blasphemed as a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, the friend of publicans and sinners. They cavilled because his disciples disregarded the punctilious formalities of the Pharisees, and said: "Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread." But Jesus answered and said unto them, "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." He reproved the blind leading, which could

compensate by formal rites for disobedience to God's commandments; or absolve a son by a vow from the support of his parents. Calling the people together he admonished them of the folly of careful external ablutions, while the heart is unclean; and that it is not what goeth into the mouth, but what proceedeth out of it, that defile the man.

His disciples informed him that the Pharisees were offended at his sayings, which ran counter to their teachings, and exposed their hypocrisy. He answered that false doctrines, being not planted of the Father, must be rooted up; and bade his disciples not to heed the Pharisees, who were blind leaders of the blind. And he explained to them that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts and all their kindred wickedness. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands defileth not a man.

Jesus arose and departed into the confines of Tyre and Sidon. St. Mark informs us that he sought concealment. Perhaps his object was to avoid Herod; perhaps to escape the arts and machinations of the Pharisees. But he could not be hid, and a woman of Syro-Phenicia, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, hearing of his presence, came and besought him to heal her child. He answered her not a word, and his disciples, weary of her importunity, besought him for her. Jesus answered her, "I am not sent, save unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Then, strong in faith, and earnest in a mother's love, the woman came and worshipped him, saying, "Lord, help me." Willing to try her faith, he answered and said, "It