by the suggestion of the more vigorous and more highly willed personality. He believed that the demon was being driven from him. A nervous paroxysm followed; he was freed from his obsession; he stood up healed; the devil "had gone out of him." In our time, when physicians skilled in the use of suggestion apply similar methods we recognize the operation of definite mental laws. But to the unscientific and for the most part densely ignorant people who saw this most extraordinary thing happen, it was the revelation of the direct hand of God: who but God had a power superior to that of the devil over his minions? What could this procedure mean? Here were no rites of exorcism, no secret forms of words; he merely commanded and "the demon had come out." They were all amazed insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, "What is this new teaching? With authority he commandeth even the evil spirits and they obey him."

Quickly the report of this miraculous event swept through the crowded population of Capernaum. It was immediately followed by a similar event in which the mother-in-law of Peter was relieved of a fever by the inspiration of the presence of Jesus, whose hold on the popular confidence and imagination was already becoming very great. It is perhaps impossible for us who live in a period when competent and scientific physicians are abundant, when most diseases and their causes are thoroughly understood, when the means for the alleviation of hu

man suffering have been multiplied and improved, to understand what the effect must have been in a population where disease and suffering were far more abundant than among us and hopeless beyond expression. For most of the ills to which flesh is heir there was to the people of Jesus' time no relief. There were no anaesthetics; there was practically no surgery; suffering was to be endured; for the sufferer there was little or no hope.

To a population thus filled with suffering and devoid of hope the information must have run like an electric thrill, that here was some one who was able to heal diseases, to relieve pain. In Capernaum that first wonderful day, within a few hours after these two "cures" had been effected, the whole population of the city had gathered around the house where Jesus was. All the sick people of Capernaum were there. All the demoniac, the insane, and possessed were there. With one accord the whole people rushed to the man who had unexpectedly shown the capacity to heal.

The later reports of this event state that he healed all that were brought to him. The older, more cautious, more correct story by Mark" merely states that "He healed many that were sick with divers diseases and cast out many devils."

It is not extraordinary to believe that among that multitude of distressed humanity there were numbers of disorders which would yield to the sugges

"Mark, 1:34. Cf Matthew 8:17, Luke 4:40.

tion of so vigorous and powerful a personality. We have seen many times in subsequent centuries how such healing enthusiasm takes possession of a multitude so that numbers are healed through the contagion of the belief in the healing of those about them. This too would have helped. There is no good reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement of Mark.

Neither is there any reason to wonder at the result which immediately followed. In a very short space of time it was impossible for Jesus openly to enter into a city because of the multitudes that thronged about him, pressing for the cure of their sick and possessed. Wherever he went they crowded about him, hanging upon the words of promise and of hope which he spoke, looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where pain and suffering and sickness should cease entirely; but most of all seeking for the healing power of his presence and his words upon those who in this world were already sick and distressed."

It is not necessary to refer in detail to the incidents which characterized this period of his activity. They were all practically of the same character. His message was the promise of the immediateness of the end of the age and of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. The instances of healing

That Jesus should assume that the various human weaknesses would be healed by his commands was a natural corollary to his belief in his special relation to God. Such phenomena were expected to accompany the approaching Kingdom. Cf Isaiah 35:3-6; 42:6, 7.

were practically of the same type: words of authority, suggestions of various type; commands to the demon to depart, forgiveness of the sins, the sense of which oppressed the minds of the sick as the cause of their suffering. Success in such activities increased the possibility of more such results, as confidence in him increased. The effect upon the people was the same everywhere; "They were all amazed and glorified God, saying 'we never saw it in this fashion.'"'

What part of the people at this time were drawn to him by their delight in his message, and desire to observe his warning, what part of them by the hope of benefit from his power to heal, it is of course impossible to tell, but it is extremely likely that the healing impressed them most. The tendency to "take the cash and let the credit go" is strong in all peoples and all ages. Here was something immediate, perceptible, intensely desirable. Here there was no uncertainty. They hoped with him, believed with him in the coming of the future Kingdom of Heaven, but they rejoiced with him in what both he and they came quickly to believe to be the hand of God working among them, relieving their suffering and saving their lives.

CHAPTER V.

CONFLICT WITH THE PHARISEES

The enthusiasm which now possessed Jesus and those who walked with him gave little heed to thoughts of powers or boundaries. All believed that the end of the world was near at hand and gave little or no heed to the fact that they were in a time and place where they were subject to authority and must be restrained by the laws of their own people as well as by those of the alien government which was set over them. Such a state of mind was certain to lead them into conflict with those responsible for the maintenance of peace among the population. But Jesus' earliest official trouble occurred with the influential class of his own nation, and arose from questions of the Jewish ceremonial law.

The Pharisees were an element of Jewish society of great influence both with the government of Galilee and with the government of Judea. They were men of high social standing, who in general conformed to the laws and regulations of the foreigncontrolled civil government under which they lived, but at the same time considered themselves in a peculiar sense responsible for the maintenance of the Jewish ritualistic law. This law, though perhaps not specifically enforced by the civil authorities, was yet practically in effect among the Jews throughout the whole of Palestine, wherever the Jewish tradi