He com

spake, and the deed of healing was done. manded, and the work of his might stood forth. A mighty army of the children of Israel were with him; and the concourse was hourly increasing. Moses led the children of Israel of old into the desert, and the prophets of Israel from the earliest day, had sought in the desert communion with God, and had been found in the wilderness of their followers. A word from Jesus-the prophet that they declared, of a truth, to be him that should come into the world-and the anxious faces of the multitude would have been lighted up with the fire of courage. The mandate of the Son of David would have rallied them around the Lion of Judah. They would have attacked Pilate in Jerusalem-stormed Herod in his palace. Nay, they were ready to march to imperial Rome, and hew its senators. with axes, as the prophet of old slew Agag, king of the Amalekites.

Were they unarmed? So were the children of Israel, when Moses led them out of Egypt, and did not Moses command them, Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord! And was not this, of a truth, the prophet like unto Moses? Had they fainted with hunger? So did Israel, and God fed them with manna; and Jesus had fed five thousand men with five barley loaves. Here then was the promised Saviour-here the deliverer of Israel. No. wonder that, in their blind and worldly enthusiasm, they would have served to make him a king. All the wrongs of many years were remembered for vengeance. They saw again the visible glory of the God of Israel in the place of

the Mercy Seat. Now, they verily believed the kingdom was to be restored. They, who before they sat down to eat, doubting whence food would come, were wan and spiritless, arose as giants refreshed, and with shouts of worship and acclamations, were eager to acknowledge the Nazarene as the Lord's Anointed. They perceived the fulfilment of the prophecy, but they could not comprehend the character of the Messiah. They would have taken him by force to make him a temporal king, whose coming was to establish a spiritual kingdom. But he sent them away; as he doth all those who would change the kingdom of Christ into a kingdom of this world, and, for the spiritual, substitute the earthly. And he departed into a mountain apart to pray: for he who teaches his disciples. to pray in their closets, often while on earth sought communion with the Father in secret prayer. And he constrained his disciples to go before him in a ship to the other side of the lakes.

Thus, by a mighty miracle had their faith been confirmed in Jesus, as the prophet expected of old the salvation of Israel. And thus too he had instructed them, as his appointed apostles, what manner of kingdom they were to proclaim. The words with which he sent them forth into Galilee, and the wonders which they wrought in his name, were succeeded by this greater wonder; lest they should imagine that the power they possessed was to conquer for them a temporal dominion. Shall we complain that we are not also instructed by miracles? We have the record of the past-and the promise that if those who saw are

blessed-blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.

But are we not indeed instructed by miracles? Are not the invisible things of God "clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made?" In the man Christ Jesus, God was manifest in the flesh. In the walk of Christ upon earth, we have the type of God's government of the universe. He testified his power in miracles. So doth God always for it is an eternal miracle that he upholds all things by the word of his power. It is a miracle that the fleshly tabernacle is the abode of an immortal spirit. Matter is a miracle, mind is a wonder. That the body can rest here, while the mind is in the further Ind: that the gross and corporeal can be forgotten of the intellectual, while the rapt soul is prying with curious search into the mysteries of the Unsearchable--and ascending into heaven to seek God that He who made us of clay, and formed us men, should send a living soul for a little while to be the light of the countenance and light in the heart-that he should call it hence, and its tenement instantly crumble to decay that man should shout defiance from his eyes today, and to-morrow the tomb-worm wind in and out of their sockets. Are not these MIRACLES? Great and wonderful are thy works, O God; in wisdom hast thou made them all!

XXI.

Jesus Walking on the Sea.

While Jesus sent the multitudes away, his disciples, constrained by him, had embarked in a boat to pass over on the other side. They partook, unquestionably, of the feeling of the multitude, and shared in the popular desire to make Jesus a king. Having the idea of an immediate and temporal sovereignty before their eyes, they were amazed that their Master declined the power that was pressed upon him. In this darkness and doubt and despondency, they were nevertheless obedient. Jesus, of whom they would perhaps have desired an explanation, as we find was their custom, when left alone with him, withdrew from them, and without his presence they were constrained, at his command, to embark. At the very moment when the acclamations of the people appeared to indicate that, in the prophet like unto Moses, the kingdom was about to be restored to Israel, that prophet thrust aside the crown which was tendered to him.

Having, at the call of Jesus, left all to follow him, the disciples counted that, in his glory, they were to be glorious, in his power, powerful. The doubts of kindred and friends, and the taunts of enemies, were now to be

removed. It was to be seen of all men that for nought they had not deserted their occupations and followed the Nazarene. Worship and honour were before their eyes. as they should sit, the chosen council of the promised Saviour, the Redeemer of Israel; the monarch of the seed. of David, who was to establish a more mighty kingdom than his father, and to reign in splendor greater than Solomon's.

All these glorious visions, the acts of the Son of Man deferred-nay, removed. He sent the worshipping multitude away. He ordered his disciples, even now that darkness was falling upon the earth, to return to their boat, and tempt the thickening gloom of night and the gathering storm. For the triumphal march which they had imagined, conquering and to conquer, what a change was this! for the acclamations of the multitude, silence and darknesssilence, save as the sound of the wind was heard among the hills, and the dashing of the waves admonished them of the shore. What a contrast did a few hours create for them! In one hour a multitude of adoring faces surrounded the disciples, in the next they were alone, alone upon the sea. It was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them.

Alone upon the sea! In no place does man more deeply feel his weakness and his nothingness, than, when driven of the winds and tossed, he is made to own that his strength is even as nothing in respect of God-that verily every man living is altogether vanity. Above, the silent sky, silent as to speech and language, though their voices