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THE CENTURION'S ANNOUNCEMENT.

works; but because he himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses, and goes up into the sick-chamber though a leper be in it, and though a pestilence too foul for my mother to face be filling the chamber with its fatal contagion. This is the Christ to whom I call you. Know him by the depth and tenderness and incessancy of his sympathy and love, and fall down before him, not because forced to your knees by some grammatical and exegetical pressure, but because constrained to that worshipful act by an infinite understanding of your own heart, and an ineffable and redeeming sympathy with every emotion and passion of your life.

"There came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented." A servant at home—what an extraordinary and antiquated conjunction of terms, "There came a centurion, saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented." That is not a prayer-there is no request in that form of words, it is a mere piece of intelligence. See the character of the man in the form of his approach. Is there no prayer in the eye, is there no agony in the look, is there no supplication in the tone? What can the printers do but catch the bare words and put them into cold black ink? This is how it is that the written page is not the spoken discourse; it lacks the fire that glowed in the face, the inquiry that sharpened the vision of the eye, the music and the eloquence that made the tone pierce the hearer's heart like a prayer. Why you, man of few words, gifted with rare silence, often complaining that you have no language, could pray like this! Prayer is the lifting of an eye, prayer is the falling of a tear, prayer is the outdarting of an arm as if it would snatch a blessing from on high. You do not need long sentences, intricate expressions, elaborate and innumerable phrases; a look may be a battle half won. "According to thy faith, so be it unto thee." You may pray now, or in the crowded street, or in the busiest scene you can always have a word with God-you can always wing a whisper to the skies. Pray without ceasing. Live in the spirit of prayer, let your life be one grand desire, Godward and heavenward, then use as many words or as few as you please, your heart is itself a prayer, and your look a holy expectation.

Beautiful is it to see the Pagan come into Christian worship. He does not know what to do. A trained soldier and a man in

authority, he wishes to be respectful and yet he does not know what is proper to the new situation. He therefore beseechingly states the case. It is beautiful to see one unaccustomed to the form of worship in any place, enter into the strange sanctuary and look inquiringly round to see what has to be done next. There is no wish to come into collision with the established usages of the place. There is, indeed, a lingering liking for the way at home, but a willing disposition to accept new forms and methods. There is something pathetic in such ignorance, and something instructive in such inquiry. But see the centurion, a man, a stranger, a Pagan, one far off, coming to state his servant's case, and to leave it with a beseeching look and a beseeching tone-why that is to receive education in an uncertificated school, it is to receive a hint from lips uncircumcised-that is to learn from those who themselves are ignorant of the subtle and peculiar methods adopted under new circumstances.

Having

Jesus will be puzzled by this new form of approach. heard about the servant at home sick of the palsy, he will say, "Well, what then?" He will teach this man how to pray, he will say, "If you want any favour from me you must approach me in certain form or I cannot hear you." He understood the heart -he meets the suppliant half way. Do you suppose that your ladder-prayer can reach the stars? only touches God because God comes down to let it touch him. Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, yet he comes down to the habitations of men and listens for their prayers as if those prayers filled the universe.

It

How does Jesus Christ adapt himself to this man's approach? He meets the man in his own spirit. Without hearing the request he says, "I will come and heal him." That verse makes me a believer in the deity of Christ: I need no other proof. If he said that, he is God enough for me. Not "I will come and inquire into the case, I will come and see whether anything can be done to mitigate this awful mischief: I can sympathize with you, if I can go no further," but with the calmness of the fiat that arched the heavens and lit its lamps, he says, "I will come and hear him." The people were astonished at his doctrine, because he taught them as one having authority. They are astounded at his

18

CHRIST NOT A SPECIALIST.

word, for he speaks of disease as one having infinite power. Last Sunday we saw him touching a leper, and heard him saying, "Be thou clean ;" to-day our lesson brings before us a man sick of the palsy, grievously tormented, and Jesus Christ says, "I will come and heal him." Then he was no specialist. Properly we have amongst ourselves now special studies of special cases. One man undertakes the brain, another the heart, another the blood, it may be, another the bones and joints. This is right, amongst ourselves; for probably hardly any one man has the time, even if he had the capacity, to master with sufficient adequateness all the details and necessities of our wondrous bodily frame. But Jesus Christ said to the leper, "Be thou clean," to the man sick of the palsy, grievously tormented, "I will come and heal him." When he went into Peter's house and saw his wife's mother laid and sick of the fever, he touched her hand and the fever left her, he put out the fire with his touch. He is no specialist, he has not a necromancer's power over any one department of human life or human suffering. His healing was fundamental and all-inclusive. He made the well-head pure, and the flowing stream was as pure as the fountain whence it flowed.

It is so in spiritual matters. There is not in the Church a doctor who cures lying, and another who makes a special study of drunkenness, and a third who is gifted with peculiar ability in dealing with persons of felonious disposition. There is one Mediator between God and man he makes the heart right, and then all the accidental and local diseases, with all their train of ever-varying symptoms, are cleansed and utterly expelled. Thus in the Church of Christ we have no special means for special cases, as contra-distinguished from the general means at our disposal for the universal disease and apostasy. There is one word for all, one healing for all. When you talk of your follies and peculiar sins and characteristic slips and individual passions, these are but symptoms of a grand moral ailment : the whole head is sick, the whole heart faint, and the remedy must be vital and fundamental, not a successful playing with accidental symptoms, but an appeal to the heart, a cleansing of the inner nature. "Ye must be born again."

Whatever your complaint is, of mind, body, or estate, you may take it to Jesus Christ. If you are not doing well in business, go and tell him about it: if you are afflicted in any bodily way, go

and state the case to him and leave it in his hands ; if you be possessed with devils and grievously tormented in your heart, go and state the case to the Son of God. Go and tell Jesus everything. Do not tell him what answer to give in return. I like every day to have a long talk with him in the streets, or in the house, or anywhere, just telling him what I did yesterday, and what a fool I was for doing it, and asking him to keep me this day without sin, and putting my whole broken life into his care, that he may teach me that the part is not the whole, and that there are purposes in his will and providence which I can neither comprehend nor control. He always heals me with rest and with added faith. The thorn remains, the cruel sting goes deeper, the fire licks up further blood, and yet there is an inner healing, a sacred rest, and loving trust in God.

The centurion having heard the reply of Jesus Christ, said, "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me : and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it." He was a man under authority, and his word was law; then why did he not command his servant to be healed? It is thus we always come to our limit, it is thus that the sceptre we lift touches the end of its dominion, and shrinks back into a common walking staff. Said the centurion, "I have authority." Then why did he not use it in new directions? Within our own lines we are mighty; beyond those lines we are captured as trespassers or slain as mean spies. When men learn to keep within their own proper boundaries, intellectual and other, they will attain the fulness and the most satisfactory fruition of their power, but the meanest of us can ask questions that may vex and trouble the heart of God. Happy he who knows the length of his sceptre, and who lays it down at the right point, who says, "I am a man under authority, but there is a point at which my word has no force : I am silent at that point, and I begin to pray where I cease to rule."' That is the true law of life.

Yet what wisdom the man had! He said, "But speak the word only." He little knew what he was saying. 'The word" -that would have been beautiful and complete-" the word only," there he falls into softness and weakness; he shows the stoop

20

THE PRAYER OF FAITH.

which proves him to be but a man. The word only." The word is the authority, the word is the power, the word is the soul, the word is the incarnation. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Your word is yourself: do not imagine that your speech is something independent of your individuality; your speech is your soul in utterance. When a man speaks earnestly, the word is the very fire and flame of his heart. Jesus Christ could not but speak earnestly, so his quietest word held the thunder, the lightning, as the dewdrop holds it, for there is force enough in that one dewdrop, if rightly touched, to rend the mountain and throw down the altar stair that faced heavenward. Let your yea be yea, and your nay nay-let your word be your true self, and it will always be, according to the degree of your capacity and influence, with authority and power.

Now it is Jesus Christ's turn: O that we could have seen that marred and sorrow-riven face when he lifted it up and marvelled. He himself had seen a miracle: his own miracles, viewed as mere expressions of power, fell into insignificance before the miracle performed by the centurion, the miracle of all-trust, living, loving, simple, unquestioning, undisputing trust. "Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." A great wave of emotion swelled his heart; forecasting the ages, he saw the crown already rounding into shape that was to sit upon his own head, and though the cross lay between him and that crown, he endured the cross and despised the shame.

How pleased he

We have it in our power to gladden his heart. always was with faith. If a man looked trustfully at him, he said he was a son of Abraham. Sinner, others called him, and publican; Jesus called him Son of Abraham. How pleased he was, let me say again and again, with faith; a woman touched the hem of his garment and he called her daughter. He had never seen the woman before, humanly, yet he called her by endearing names and sent her home with his peace. Her house was never so rich as it was in that sunset. He does not ask our intellect, our pomp, our power, our grandeur; what can these be to him, who thickly inlaid the floor of Heaven with "patines of bright gold"? What can our gilt be to him who spoke the sun into