that he had preceded Jesus with the power of Elijah, and had been slaughtered, and that the fate of the Baptist prefigured the sufferings which he himself was to endure. His own approaching death by violence seemed as plain before his eyes as that of John, which had already been accomplished.

After these wonderful revelations Jesus enjoined silence on the three witnesses. We can readily conjecture good reasons for this. They had become so affected by this interview that they could carry the moral influence into the whole body of the disciples without the description of phenomena which might give rise to perplexing and inharmonious discussions. Everything was to be done which should suppress the sensuous Messianic expectations of his followers. The very criticisin made on this transaction by such men as Paulus and Venturini and Strauss in modern days, shows just the spirit with which the narrative of such lofty scenes and experiences would have been met by the multitude and by the learned men of that time, who were generally coarse, skeptical, and profane. When no good can possibly come of speaking, and much evil may, it is wisdom to keep silence.

Immediately upon the descent from the mountain occurred a scene which stands in contrast with the lofty splendor of the Transfiguration. Jesus came to the nine disci

Region of Cæ

ples whom he had left behind, and found them in sarea Philippi. great trouble and perplexity, and the hostile Mark ix.; Matt. Scribes vexing them with questions, and the xvii.; Luke ix. multitude about them in a tumult. But there

must have been something in the natural dignity of the person of Jesus, and perhaps on this occasion some reminiscence of the glory wherewith he had shone on the eyes of his three disciples in the Mount; for the people were amazed at his appearance, and ran towards him and saluted him. He asked them, "Why do ye question among yourselves?" The disciples gave no answer, nor the Scribes. The former were ashamed of their weakness in the absence of their Master, and the latter feared his power now that he was present. The question, however, was soon answered by a man from the crowd, who came forward and kneeled down before Jesus, and said: "Teacher, I have brought to thee my son, mine only child, who has a dumb spirit; and where it seizes him it tears him, and he suddenly cries out and foams, and guashes with his teeth, and pines away, and the spirit with diffi

culty departs from him; for he is a lunatic and sore vexed. And I spoke to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not."

Here was the whole case, with all its difficulties, revealed. Here was a spectacle of mental and physical wretchedness, an epileptic and lunatic youth, whom the disciples The demoniac had not power to heal; and because they failed boy. when they tried, the party antagonistic to Jesus had stirred up the multitude to profane skepticism, and perhaps to taunts, rejecting the Master in the persons of the disciples, who, under these jeers, on account of their weakness, grew still more impotent. The contrast with the Mount of Transfiguration was violent. Rafaelle's great picture in the Vatican presents to the eye the idea of the contrast, but fails to express it all. The Mount was bright and warm, and full of celestial health and har monies, but here in the plain were physical disease and mental disorder, and darkness, and clang of discordant voices and passions. It smote from the sensitiveness of Jesus the expression: "O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?" What long pent up agony suspired in that groan! He had lived to teach them that faith in God was everything as a basis of character and as an energy of life; and it all seemed to come to nothing. He knew the power and goodness of God so well that want of trust in Him on the part of others gave Jesus the greatest suffering. He could not endure it. It was not the sins into which their passions betrayed them that was most grievous, but the lack of faith which allowed their pas sions such power over their lives.

Brought to Jesus.

"Bring him to me," he said. And as they brought him the boy had another fit, and he fell and wallowed foaming. And Jesus asked the father: "IIow long since this happened to him?" And he answered: "From a child-and often it has cast him into the fire and into the waters, that it might destroy him; but if thou art able, have compassion on us and help us." Jesus replied: "If thou art able!all things are possible to him who believes." There may be a doubt as to the precise shade of meaning which Jesus attached to these words. The emphasis makes great difference. "If thou art able!" would be quoting the man's words and rebuking him for the implication of inability on the part of Jesus. Repeating

the man's words without any emphasizing would be to say: "It is not a question of ability, physical or intellectual, but purely of faith; if I have faith enough I can do this; if my disciples had had faith enough they might have done it." Both these meanings may be in the speech of Jesus, but I think that over them. predominates the sense given by the words when emphasized as above: "If thou-the father of the child-art able." No faith on the part of Jesus would have availed if the man remained unbelieving: and,-faith is strength. "If thou art able" to believe -is the reply to "If thou art able" to cure. It is only the repetition of the teaching of Jesus that the greatest power of humanity lies in its trust in the Father God, that this gives a man control over all the possibilities of the universe, and that things become possible to men in proportion to their faith; that as a man extends the radius of his faith he enlarges the circle of his possibilities. Faith and Love, in the system of Jesus, are the two great wings which bear a man upward through the universe to the highest attainments and enjoyments.

The father's emotions.

The father must have felt that there was some rebuke in the reply of Jesus. He burst into tears and said: "Sir, I believe; do thou help mine unbelief." This is at once so natural, so simple, and so profound, that every reader must feel that he is perusing a narrative of actual events. The father believed that his unbelief was in the way of the healing of his child; he believed that Jesus could do something to destroy that unbelief; he prayed him to do it, so that at once his infidelity and his child's malady might be cured. If it was not the voice, it was at least the echo of faith. It was enough.

By this time the people had begun to run together. He made no prayer, but said authoritatively, "Dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more

Jesus heals the

into him." And shrieking, and having greatly boy. convulsed him, it left; and the boy lay as if

he were dead, so much so that some of the spectators pronounced him dead. But Jesus took his hand and raised him; and he stood up.

When they entered the house, his disciples privately asked him the cause of their failure. He plainly traced it to their lack of faith. They then prayed, "Lord, increase our faith." His reply

was,

Why the disci

ples could not.

"If you have faith as a grain of mustard, ye might say to this sycamine tree, 'Be rooted up and planted in the sea, and it would have obeyed you; or to this mountain, 'Remove hence yonder,' and it should obey you. And nothing should be impossible to you." He also said to them, "This kind can come forth by nothing except by prayer." It was a strong expression of the value attached to faith by Jesus. Stier seldom said a more sensible thing than his comment on this passage. "Faith cannot make it its concern, in a literal sense, to be removing mountains of the earth. But if it could be, and ought to be its concern, then faith would be able really [literally] to remove mountains." All the possibilities are within the reach of faith. But if a man have not faith, even the possibilities become impossibilities. The removing of material mountains is a matter of small moment. It would be curious to stand on a peak of the Alps, and see a spur of the mountain lifted by a word and set down quietly in a Swiss lake; but it would be nothing more. Nothing useful, or beautiful, or profitable would be in it. A man who takes from his fellow-men a mountain of doubt, of intellectual and spiritual difficulty, is greater, does a grander, wiser, better, lovelier thing. Very currently in the school of the Rabbins was a remover of such difficulties finely called "An Uprooter of mountains."

CHAPTER IV.

LAST DAYS IN GALILEE.

go

Through Northern Galilee. Mark

ix.; Matt. xvii. ; Luke ix.

To such a pitch had risen the opposition to Jesus that he no longer dared to show himself openly along the high-roads, lest his life and his ministry should be brought to a sudden termination by violence. He could not down to the lake. So, crossing the Jordan near its source, by field-paths and through byways he went with his disciples through Upper Galilee. In Gaulonitis he had declared to his nearest and most trusted disciples that his end was approaching, and that it was to be one of great shame and pain. But there were scattered throughout Galilee quite a body of people who in such measure believed on him that they might be called disciples. To these, "of whom a nucleus of more than five hundred brethren survived the trial of the cross," he now made the same announcement in plain language, saying, "The Son of Man is being delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he shall arise." Here was an open prediction of a violent death, and of a resurrection after a certain specified time. And yet they could not understand it. They could see no necessity for it. It was so contrary to all their expectations, to his great power and mighty works, that his death was utterly incomprehensible. The resurrection was totally unintelligible. And they were afraid to ask him what this saying meant; but it was a sadness and a sorrow to them.

We do not know how long this journey was, nor what spots of Northern Galilee he visited. It was manifestly not intended to be a circuit of preaching, but a season to be spent in instructing his disciples, especially in the matter of his great trial, which he saw approaching.

After some time he brought his disciples to Capernaum. On their arrival, Peter, who was the most demonstrative, and there