JESUS AT NAIN.

much struck by this. The Jews admitted his power to heal, but deemed it needful that he should be personally present and touch the diseased person with his hand. But here was a foreigner, a heathen, who had such faith as to suppose that a word from Christ, spoken in the absence of the diseased person, would suffice to effect the cure. Christ therefore turned round to the people who followed him, and said, "I have not found so great faith-no, not in Israel;" and he added, “Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness." This is to us a very intelligible allusion to the calling of the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jews: but to the people it was obscure; and as they probably interpreted it to mean that many such heathen would become proselytes to Judaism, it did not give the offence with which some of our Lord's later and plainer declarations on this point were received.

The friends who had brought to Jesus the message of the centurion returned to the house, and found that he had received the reward of his faith in the perfect recovery of his servant.

The day after this Jesus proceeded to Nain, thirteen miles to the south of the place where the Sermon on the Mount is supposed to have been delivered. This was then a place of some consequence, but has now dwindled to a small hamlet under the name of Nein. On approaching the gate of this town the crowd which attended our Lord was met by another, probably as numerous, issuing from the city. It was the becoming custom of the Jews to bury their dead outside the towns: nor was this peculiar to them, but common to all the nations of the East and West, until the present pernicious practice of burying in or near churches, first introduced in honour of the martyrs, was

extended into general use. The crowd which issued from the gate of Nain was in attendance upon the funeral of a young man, the only son of a poor woman, and her only stay-for she was a widow. The attendance was so great on account of the number of persons who were anxious to testify their sympathy and respect.

This scene was well calculated to move the compassion of him "who went about doing good;" and to lead him to do a greater work than any which he had yet performed. Full of Divine tenderness, he cheered the desolate mother, and said unto her, "Weep not;" and the bearers of the corpse he directed to lay down their melancholy burden. Among the Jews the dead. were carried to the grave upon open biers, and not in closed coffins, the use of which was, in the time of our Lord, confined to the higher classes. Turning to the bier, Jesus said, "Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!" The "dull cold ear of death" heard his voice; the youth rose up, and began to speak to the

RAISING THE DEAD.

persons around him. Jesus then consigned him to his mother. Who can tell the mysteries of human feeling with which that mother received that son from the dead, and held him once more in her embrace? Then indeed did the "widow's heart sing for joy”—a joy so great that, in her case, all wonder was doubtless absorbed in it.

Now it was not so with the people present. To heal the sick and to cast out unclean spirits were indeed acts of wonder to all who saw them; but to restore the dead, to snatch from the grave its prey, was a prodigy so great as filled the beholders not only with amazement, but fear. They glorified God for visiting his people by sending a great prophet among them; for although doubtful that Jesus was the very Christ, the greatness of the deed · satisfied them of the divine power with which he was invested. They could not but see in Jesus one greater than even Elias, inasmuch as, without the use of prayer, or stretching himself upon the body, but by a simple order, he had, in a manner utterly unexampled, restored the dead to life.

CHAPTER XIII.

JOHN'S DISCIPLES WITNESS THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST-OUR LORD DECLARES THE CHARACTER AND MISSION OF JOHN-BECOMES THE GUEST OF SIMON THE PHARISEE-EASTERN MODE OF RECLINING AT TABLE A WOMAN ANOINTS THE FEET OF JESUS-OBJECTION OF SIMON THERETO-ANSWER OF OUR LORD JESUS GOES AGAIN INTO GALILEE-HIS FOLLOWERSTHEY ARRIVE AT CAPERNAUM.

HE great miracle recorded in our last chapter gave a new impulse to the general discussion respecting the prophet of Nazareth. It attracted the attention of John the Baptist in his prison, and decided him to require of Jesus an explicit declaration as to whether he was or was not the promised Messiah. We may ask how it was that

John, who had already more than once declared his perfect satisfaction on this point, should now be in any doubt. The answer may be, that John's ideas in this matter may have become unsettled by Jesus not having manifested himself as the Messiah in the way which he expected, or advanced his claim under the conditions which he had supposed. He therefore sent two of his disciples to Christ to ask the question, "Art thou He that should come? or look we for another?" Jesus, at the time the messengers came, was engaged in healing the diseased, casting out evil spirits, and restoring sight to the blind. Instead of returning a direct answer, he desired the disciples to tell their master the things they had seen performed:-"Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the

JOHN THE BAPTIST.

poor the Gospel is preached." As these were the characteristics of the Messiah's kingdom, according to the prophets, this explicit reference to them as evidence, was calculated to satisfy John and his disciples that the great deeds of Christ were not to be regarded as the acts of a mere prophet, but as the required and appointed testimonials of "the Christ of God."

When John's disciples had departed, our Lord began to speak to those around him of John and his character and mission. He spoke of the austerity and holiness of his person, the greatness of his function, and the divine character of his mission. He affirmed that John was greater than any preceding prophet, indeed the greatest of men born of women. He was a burning and a shining light, the second "Elias" of the prophets-and yet, added Jesus, "He that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he;" meaning, that, as belonging to the old system about to be done away, or at most occupying an intermediate place between the old and the new, any Christian teacher, instructed in the things pertaining to Christ's spiritual kingdom, had points of superiority even over John the Baptist. Jesus concluded with a striking illustration of the perversity of the nation, in the reception which He and the Baptist equally met with, notwithstanding the difference in their course of conduct. The Baptist, who came neither eating nor drinking, that by his austere and mortified deportment he might gain the reverence of the people, could not obtain acceptance; neither could Jesus, who, on the contrary, came eating amd drinking, and whose manners were framed after the common use and habits of men. The austerities of the one they ascribed to insanity; and the sociality of the other, to a conviviality of disposition unseemly in a teacher and a prophet. This gave him occasion more especially to reprehend the towns which had witnessed his greatest works,