wailing would be very repulsive to the soul of Christ; and, first stopping at the door to forbid any of the multitude to follow Him, He entered the house with three only of the inmost circle of His Apostles -Peter, and James, and John. On entering, His first care was to still the idle noise; but when His kind declaration-" The little maid is not dead, but sleepeth"-was only received with coarse ridicule, He indignantly ejected the paid mourners. When calm was restored, He took with him the father and the mother and His three Apostles, and entered with quiet reverence the chamber hallowed by the silence and awfulness of death. Then, taking the little cold dead hand, He uttered these two thrilling words, "Talitha cumi"-"Little maid, arise!" and her spirit returned, and the child arose and walked. An awful amazement seized the parents; but Jesus calmly bade them give the child some food. And if He added His customary warning that they should not speak of what had happened, it was not evidently in the intention that the entire fact should remain unknown-for that would have been impossible, when all the circumstances had been witnessed by so many-but because those who have received from God's hand unbounded mercy are more likely to reverence that mercy with adoring gratitude if it be kept like a hidden treasure in the inmost heart.

Crowded and overwhelming as had been the incidents of this long night and day, it seems probable from St. Matthew that it was signalised by yet one more astonishing work of power. For as He departed thence two blind men followed Him with the cry-as yet unheard "Son of David, have mercy on us." Already Christ had begun to check, as it were, the spontaneity of His miracles. He had performed more than sufficient to attest His power and mission, and it was important that men should pay more heed to His divine eternal teaching than to His temporal healings. Nor would He as yet sanction the premature, and perhaps ill-considered, use of the Messianic title "Son of David "-a title which, had He publicly accepted it, might have thwarted His sacred purposes, by leading to an instantaneous revolt in His favour against the Roman power. Without noticing the men or their cry, He went to the house in Capernaum where He abode; nor was it until they had persistently followed Him into the house that He tested their faith by the question, "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" They said unto Him, "Yea, Lord." Then touched He their eyes, saying, "According to your faith be it unto you." And their eyes were opened. Like so many

whom He healed, they neglected His stern command not to reveal it. There are some who have admired their disobedience, and have attributed it to the enthusiasm of gratitude and admiration; but was it not rather the enthusiasm of a blatant wonder, the vulgarity of a chattering boast ? How many of these multitudes who had been healed by Him became His true disciples? Did not the holy fire of devotion which a hallowed silence must have kept alive upon the altar of their hearts die away in the mere blaze of empty rumour ? Did not he know best? Would not obedience have been better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams? Yes. It is possible to deceive ourselves; it is possible to offer to Christ a seeming service which disobeys His inmost precepts-to grieve Him, under the guise of honouring Him, by vain repetitions, and empty genuflexions, and bitter intolerance, and irreverent familiarity, and the hollow simulacrum of a dead devotion. Better, far better, to serve Him by doing the things He said than by a seeming zeal, often false in exact proportion to its obtrusiveness, for the glory of His name. These disobedient babblers, who talked so much of Him, did but offer Him the dishonouring service of a double heart; their violation of His commandment served only to hinder His usefulness, to trouble His spirit, and to precipitate His death.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A VISIT то JERUSALEM.

ANY one who has carefully and repeatedly studied the Gospel narratives side by side, in order to form from them as clear a conception as is possible of the life of Christ on earth, can hardly fail to have been struck with two or three general facts respecting the sequence of events in His public ministry. In spite of the difficulty introduced by the varying and non-chronological arrangements of the Synoptists, and by the silence of the fourth Gospel about the main part of the preaching in Galilee, we see distinctly the following circumstances :

1. That the innocent enthusiasm of joyous welcome with which Jesus and His words and works were at first received in Northern

Galilee gradually, but in a short space of time, gave way to suspicion, dislike, and even hostility on the part of large and powerful sections of the people.

2. That the external character, as well as the localities, of our Lord's mission were much altered after the murder of John the Baptist.

3. That the tidings of this murder, together with a marked development of opposition, and the constant presence of Scribes and Pharisees from Judæa to watch His conduct and dog His movements, seems to synchronise with a visit to Jerusalem not recorded by the Synoptists, but evidently identical with the nameless festival mentioned in John v. 1.

4. That this unnamed festival must have occurred somewhere about that period of His ministry at which we have now arrived. What this feast was we shall consider immediately; but it was preceded by another event-the mission of the Twelve Apostles.

At the close of the missionary journeys, during which occurred some of the events described in the last chapters, Jesus was struck with compassion at the sight of the multitude. They reminded Him of sheep harassed by enemies, and lying panting and neglected in the fields because they have no shepherd. They also called up to the mind the image of a harvest ripe, but unreaped for lack of labourers; and He bade His Apostles pray to the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth labourers into His harvest. And then, immediately afterwards, having Himself now traversed the whole of Galilee, He sent them out two and two to confirm His teaching and perform works of mercy in His name.

Before sending them He naturally gave them the instructions which were to guide their conduct. At present they were to confine their mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and not extend it to Samaritans or Gentiles. The topic of their preaching was to be the nearness of the kingdom of heaven, and it was to be freely supported by works of power and beneficence. They were to take nothing with them; no scrip for food; no purse for money; no change of raiment ; no travelling shoes (Todpaтa, calcei), in place of their ordinary palm-bark sandals, they were not even to procure a staff for the journey if they did not happen already to possess one; their mission -like all the greatest and most effective missions which the world has ever known-was to be simple and self-supporting. The open hospi tality of the East, so often used as the basis for a dissemination of new

thoughts, won'd be ample for their maintenance. On entering a town they were to go to any house in it where they had reason to hope that they would be welcome, and to salute it with the immemorial and much-valued blessing, Shalôm lakem, "Peace be to you," and if the children of peace were there the blessing would be effective; if not, it would return on their own heads. If rejected, they were to shake off the dust of their feet in witness that they had spoken faithfully, and that they thus symbolically cleared themselves of all responsibility for that judgment which should fall more heavily on wilful and final haters of the light than on the darkest places of a heathendom in which the light had never, or but feebly, shone.

So far their Lord had pointed out to them the duties of trustful faith, of gentle courtesy, of self-denying simplicity, as the first essentials of missionary success. He proceeded to fortify them against the inevitable trials and persecutions of their missionary work.

They needed and were to exercise the wisdom of serpents no less than the harmlessness of doves: for He was sending them forth as sheep among wolves.

Doubtless these discourses were not always delivered in the continuous form in which they have naturally come down to us. Our Lord seems at all times to have graciously encouraged the questions of humble and earnest listeners; and at this point we are told by an ancient tradition, that St. Peter-ever, we may be sure, a most eager and active-minded listener-interrupted his Master with the not unnatural question, "But how then if the wolves should tear the lambs?" And Jesus answered, smiling perhaps at the naïve and literal intellect of His chief Apostle, "Let not the lambs fear the wolves when the lambs are once dead, and do you fear not those who can kill you and do nothing to you, but fear Him who after you are dead hath power over soul and body to cast them into hell-fire." And then, continuing the thread of His discourse, He warned them plainly how, both at this time and again long afterwards, they might be brought before councils, and scourged in synagogues, and stand at the judgment-bar of kings, and yet, without any anxious premeditation, the Spirit should teach them what to say. The doctrine of peace should be changed by the evil passions of men into a war-cry of fury and hate, and they might be driven to fly before the face of enemies from city to city. Still let them endure to the end, for before they had gone through the cities of Israel, the Son of Man should have come. Then, lastly, He at once warned and comforted them by reminding

them of what He Himself had suffered, and how He had been opposed. Let them not fear. The God who cared even for the little birds when they fell to the ground-the God by whom the very hairs of their head were numbered-the God who (and here He glanced back perhaps at the question of Peter) held in His hand the issues, not of life and death only, but of eternal life and of eternal death, and who was therefore more to be feared than the wolves of earth-He was

with them; He would acknowledge those whom His Son acknowledged, and deny those whom He denied. They were being sent forth into a world of strife, which would seem even the more deadly because of the peace which it rejected. Even their nearest and their dearest might side with the world against them. But they who would be His true followers must for His sake give up all; must even take up their cross and follow Him. But then, for their comfort, He told them that they should be as He was in the world; that they who received them should receive Him; that to lose their lives for His sake would be to more than find them; that a cup of cold water given to the youngest and humblest of His little ones should not miss of its reward.

Such is an outline of these great parting instructions as given by St. Matthew, and every missionary and every minister should write them in letters of gold. The sterility of missionary labour is a constant subject of regret and discouragement among us. Would it be so

if all our missions were carried out in this wise and conciliatory, in this simple and self-abandoning, in this faithful and dauntless spirit? Was a missionary ever unsuccessful who, being enabled by the grace of God to live in the light of such precepts as these, worked as St. Paul worked, or St. Francis Xavier, or Henry Martyn, or Adoniram Judson, or John Eliot, or David Schwarz?

That the whole of this discourse was not delivered on this occasion, that there are references in it to later periods, that parts of it are only applicable to other apostolic missions which as yet lay far in the future, seems clear; but we may, nevertheless, be grateful that St. Matthew, guided as usual by unity of subject, collected into one focus the scattered rays of instruction delivered, perhaps, on several subsequent occasions-as for instance, before the sending of the Seventy, and even as the parting utterances of the risen Christ.

The Jews were familiar with the institution of Sheluchim, the plenipotentiaries of some higher authority. This was the title by which Christ seems to have marked out the position of His Apostles.