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in our own country, but in distant lands! And what a glorious season it will be, when all these numerous fields are ripe! Here, alas! below, while time continues, tares will not cease to grow up with the wheat ; pretended worshippers are mingled with the true; real disciples of Christ, and those who are so only in name, are united together; both professing to believe in the Saviour of the world." And this, my dear child, makes it very necessary that we should watch over our own hearts, and take great care not to deceive ourselves; not to make so awful a mistake as to suppose that we really believe in Christ when we do not. This should lead us to pray most earnestly to God, to make us worshippers of His name, and believers in His dear Son "in spirit and in truth." Then at the last great harvest, when the tares shall be bound in bundles to be burnt, we shall be gathered in with the wheat; or in other words, we shall have one lot with the righteous in the kingdom of our Father. See John iv. 6–42.

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY EVENING.

THE NOBLEMAN OF CAPERNAUM.

M. Two days did our blessed Lord remain in Sychar, teaching its inhabitants the great truths of His Gospel; increasing and strengthening that faith, which had sprung up in their hearts, when they heard the report which the poor woman of Samaria had brought them, of that wonderful person who had told her all things that ever she did. Happy people, to

be thus taught by Christ Himself! There is no teaching, my child, to be compared to His teaching, and most earnestly ought we to seek a share in it. It is a great thing to be taught to know and love Him by our parents, our teachers, or the ministers whom God has set over us; nor can we be too thankful for such instruction, nor too willing to believe the great and good things which they tell us of this blessed Saviour. But we should not be satisfied with the accounts of others, we should try to know Him for ourselves: we should search His own word, and pray to be enlightened by His own Spirit, and carefully observe all the proofs we may find of His goodness towards ourselves; then, with these favoured Samaritans, we should feel thoroughly assured in our hearts, that He is indeed the Christ the Saviour of the world.

From Samaria, our blessed Lord went on to Cana in Galilee; can you tell me what other city lay directly in His path?

E. Yes, He must have gone, I think, through His own city Nazareth, for you see here on the map that that place lies nearly in the road from Sychar in Samaria to Cana in Galilee. I suppose He rested there among His own friends.

M. One would have thought, indeed, that Nazareth would always have been a home to Him, after having spent there so many years of His holy life; and that there would have been many persons there who would have grieved whenever He left them, and have rejoiced whenever He returned again. But it was not so. Jesus was by no means so much valued in His own city, and among His own people, as in

other places; for men are by nature inclined to prize what is new and difficult to obtain, far more than the blessings, however great, which spring up immediately around their steps. Nor was the blessed Jesus ignorant of this. He who made the heart knows all its folly and its sin; all its ignorance and unthankfulness. He knew and declared that "a prophet has no honour in his own country;" and feeling that He was likely to be less kindly received in His early home than elsewhere, He passed by His own city, and visited the smaller towns and villages of Galilee instead. For Galilee was that part of the holy land in which He saw fit to pass the most of His time; and there He was pleased to work the greater part of His wonderful miracles. I am glad to be able to tell you that these other Galileans received our Lord gladly; for many of them had been at Jerusalem to keep the Passover, and had seen all the things that He had done there. And Jesus came again to Cana where He had made the water wine. Here no doubt He was well remembered; this spot had before been hallowed by His gracious presence, and by an extraordinary proof of His Almighty power; and now it was to be consecrated still further, and to be the favoured scene again of His power, His piety, and His love.

We have already had several opportunities of observing our Saviour's gracious dealings towards all who needed His compassionate interposition, and in any way applied to Him for help. I dare say you can tell me how many proofs we have had of this already.

E. I think I remember them all, Mamma. You

know how kindly He received the disciples whom John sent to Him, and took them to His own dwelling; then, how bountifully He gave the friends of His mother the wine which they wanted for the wedding feast and I have not forgotten how patiently He spent the night in teaching Nicodemus, nor how good and gracious and gentle He was to the poor woman of Samaria, who spoke so unkindly to Him at the well.

M. Well answered; and you are now to become acquainted with another part of our Redeemer's character. You have seen that He can take an interest in human happiness, as He did at the wedding feast; that He can bear patiently with great ignorance, as in the case of the ruler Nicodemus; that He is able and willing to bestow on the most guilty the renewing grace of His Holy Spirit; for He gave it to the woman of Samaria. And now you will see that not only human happiness, not only human ignorance and sin, shall obtain the compassion of Christ, but human suffering too. We have seen how He can sympathize with the happy, how He can bear with the ignorant and the guilty, let us now see how He can feel for the miserable.

No sooner had the Lord Jesus arrived at Cana in Galilee, than a case of great distress was brought before Him. There was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum; when he heard that Jesus had left Judea and returned into Galilee, he went to Him and besought Him that He would come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death.

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The person who now stands before our Lord an earnest suppliant for His help, is not, you see, one

of the poor of this world; no, we are expressly told that he is noble; probably an officer of importance in Herod's court; and yet he was as much in need of Christ's assistance, as the poorest and lowest of his fellow creatures could have been. Rank and riches cannot preserve people from trouble. Sickness, sorrow, and death find their way into palaces, as easily as into the meanest cottage; and miserable indeed would be the rich and great and prosperous, if they could not go to Jesus as well as others. No doubt this nobleman had already obtained every relief for his child that human help could give him. All that the most skilful physicians, or the tenderest nurses could do, that poor child had doubtless enjoyed; but all had been in vain ; he is at the point of death.

What will not a fond parent do, to save his child? This nobleman had heard of Jesus, knew that He was gone into Galilee, and believing firmly that if He were present to see his child, the child might still be saved, he determined to go himself and entreat Jesus to come down to Capernaum. This was an errand too important to trust to any one else: who would travel so quickly, who would beg so earnestly, who would return so impatiently to the dying bed, as the fond parent himself? Painful must it have been to tear himself away from that sick chamber, and to undertake a journey, which must have occupied many hours, at a moment when every breath the child drew might be his last! But faith in Christ overcame the parent's weakness. He felt, no doubt, a strong persuasion that his journey would not be in vain; that the time he seemed to lose in travelling those thirty miles would be abundantly

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