THE WOMAN CURED. 299 moment the heart is converted, the pretended difficulties about attending public worship vanish away. The new heart finds no trouble in keeping the Sabbath holy. Where there is a will there is always a way. Let us never forget that our feelings about Sundays are a sure test of the state of our souls. The man who can find no pleasure in giving God one day in the week, is manifestly unfit for heaven. If we cannot enjoy a few hours in God's service, once a week in this world, it is plain we could not enjoy an eternity in His service in the world to come. It We see, also, in these verses, the almighty power of our Lord Jesus Christ. This miracle was one of those which our Lord worked unsolicited and unasked. The widow at Nain is another instance. In both cases the person to whom kindness was shown was a woman. is a striking instance of our Lord's love and compassion towards sinners. If He does so much for a person when unsolicited, how much more will He do for those who call upon Him in prayer. Jesus called the woman "to Him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands on her." That touch was accompanied by miraculous healing virtue. At once a disease of eighteen years' standing gave way before the Lord of life. "Immediately she was made straight, and glorified God." We need not doubt that this mighty miracle was intended to supply hope and comfort to sin-diseased souls. With Christ nothing is impossible. He can soften hearts which seem hard as the nether millstone. He can create, and transform, and renew, and break down, and build, and quicken, with irresistible power. He lives who formed the world out of nothing, and He never changes. Let us never despair about our own salvation. Our sins may be countless, our lives may have been long spent in worldliness and folly; but are we willing to come to Christ, and commit our souls to Him? If so, there is hope. He can heal us thoroughly, and say, "Thou art loosed from thine infirmity." Let us never despair about the salvation of others, so long as they are alive. Let us name them before the Lord night and day, and cry to Him on their behalf. There are no incurable cases with Christ. Let us pray on, and faint not. Jesus is able "to save to the uttermost." We see, lastly, the right observance of the Sabbath day asserted and defended by our Lord Jesus Christ. The ruler of the synagogue in which the infirm woman was healed, found fault with her as a breaker of the Sabbath. He drew down upon himself a stern but just rebuke. If it was allowable to attend to the wants of animals on the Sabbath, how much more to human creatures! The principle here laid down by our Lord is the same that we find elsewhere in the Gospels. He teaches us that the command to "do no work" on the Sabbath, was not intended to prohibit works of necessity and mercy. The Sabbath was made for man's benefit, and not for his hurt. It was appointed to promote man's best and highest interests, and not to debar him of anything that is really for his good. Let us pray for a right understanding of the law of the Sabbath. Let us lay down for ourselves two special rules for its observance: (1) Let us do no work which is not abso THE WOMAN CURED. 301 lutely needful; (2) Let us keep the day "holy," and give it to God. From these two rules let us never swerve. Experience shows there is the closest connection between Sabbath sanctification and healthy Christianity. Increase, O Lord, our faith and hope, And fit us to ascend Where the assembly ne'er breaks up, Accept our faint attempts to love, Y THERE is a peculiar interest belonging to the two parables contained in these verses. We find them twice delivered by our Lord, and at two distinct periods in His ministry. The first time we refer to is in Matt. xiii. 31-33, when Jesus "sat by the seaside,” and "spake unto the multitude in parables;" when He told them that of "the sower," and the "wheat and the tares." This fact alone should make us give the more earnest heed to the lessons which these later parables convey. They will be found rich both in prophetical and experimental truths. That of the mustard seed is intended to show the progress of the Gospel in the world. The beginnings of the Gospel were exceedingly small. It was a religion which seemed at first so feeble, and helpless, and powerless, that it could not THE TWO PARABLES. 303 live. Its first Founder was One who was poor in this world, and ended His life by dying the death of a malefactor on the cross. Its first adherents were a little company, whose number probably did not exceed a thousand when the Lord Jesus left the world. Its first preachers were a few fishermen and publicans, who were most of them unlearned and ignorant men. Its first starting-point was a despised corner of the earth called Judæa, a petty tributary province of the vast empire of Rome. Its first doctrine was eminently calculated to call forth the enmity of the natural heart. Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. Its first movements brought down on its friends persecution from all quarters. Pharisees and Sadducees, Jews and Gentiles, ignorant idolaters and self-conceited philosophers, all agreed in hating and opposing Christianity. These are simple historical facts, which no one can deny. If ever there was religion which was a little grain of seed at its beginning, that religion was the Gospel. But the progress of the Gospel, after the seed was once cast into the earth, was great, steady, and continuous. The grain of mustard seed "grew and waxed a great tree." In spite of persecution, opposition, and violence, Christianity gradually spread and increased. In a few hundred years, the religion of the despised Nazarene - the religion which began in the upper chamber at Jerusalem,—had overrun the civilized world. It was professed by nearly all Europe, by a great part of Asia, and by the whole northern part of Africa. The prophetic words of the parable before us |