the proof of this statement. Whether he ministers to the sick of the
palsy, turns aside to help the father whose child is dead, heals the
woman with the issue of blood, drives away the leprosy from the man
dead by law, stops to open the eyes of the blind man by the wayside,
helps the beggar or wins the member of the Sanhedrim, he is always the
same.

If you journey with him in the morning on the shores of the Sea of
Galilee, or at noon rest with him as he sits on the well curb of
Jacob's well; it you stop with him in the evening as he bares his side
and thrusts forth his hand to the doubting Thomas, or behold him as he
is roused from his sleep in the boat to quiet the storm; if you study
him on the mountain side at midnight or behold him in the garden of
Gethsemane when no one beholds his agony but the eye of his Father--you
will learn that he was always compassionate. You cannot discover him
under any circumstances when this statement is not true of him.

This ninth chapter of Matthew is indeed remarkable. It can be
appreciated only when we read the closing part of the eighth chapter,
for it is here that the people, angry because of the destruction of the
swine, besought him to leave their country; and it is here we see him
taking his departure. Men have since that time driven him from their
hearts and their homes for reasons quite as trifling. It is a sad
thing to know that any one can drive him away if he chooses to do so.

The chapter is remarkable, however, because here we not only read the
story of the calling of Matthew from his position of influence, but
find more specific cases of healing than in most other chapters of the
New Testament. There is the healing of the sick of the palsy in the
second verse, the significant part of which is he was healed when Jesus
saw _their_ faith; the picture of the father whose child was dead and
then raised by him, in the eighteenth verse and the twenty-fifth verse;
the account of the woman with the issue of blood, in the twentieth
verse, and the picture of discouragement when all earthly physicians
had failed changed into great joy when the virtue of the great
physician healed her: the account of the dumb man, in the thirty-second
verse, who was possessed of a devil as well; and then in the
thirty-fifth verse a general statement concerning him to the effect
that he healed all manner of diseases.

The chapter is also remarkable because these cases presented to Jesus