l others. It is fascinating and awesome to watch the
growth of power in these movements of Jesus. It is as though He woos
more persistently in the very degree and variety of power that He uses
so freely, and with such apparent ease.

Which calls out greater power, creating or healing? making water into
wine or healing bodily ailment? Which is the greater, power in the realm
of nature or the body? _or_ in the realm of the human will? multiplying
food _or_ changing a human will? Which is greater, to induce a man
voluntarily to change his course of action, _or_ to restrain him (by
moral power only, not by force) from doing something he is dead-set on
doing?

This is the range through which Jesus' action runs in these fifteen
incidents. Is there a growth in the power revealed? Is there an intenser
plea to these men as the story goes on? Is there a steady piling up of
evidence in the wooing of their hearts?

Well, creating is bringing into material being what didn't so exist
before. Healing does something more. It creates new tissue, makes new or
different adjustments and conditions, _and_ it overcomes the opposite,
the broken tissue, the diseased conditions, the weakness, the tendency
towards decay and death. Clearly there's a greater task in healing, and
a greater power at work, or more power, or power revealed more.

Then, too, of course, the human is above the physical. Man is higher
than nature. He is the lord of creation. It is immensely more to affect
a human will than to affect conditions in nature. The whole thing moves
up to a measureless higher level. And clearly enough it is a less
difficult task to enlighten and persuade one who seeks the light, and to
woo up one who is simply carelessly indifferent, than it is to overcome
and restrain a will that is dead-set against you and is bitterly set on
an opposite course.

Of course, all of this is not commonly so recognized. It seems immensely
more to heal the body than to change a man's course of action, or, at
least, it appeals immensely more to the imagination. The man who can
heal is magnified in our eyes above the other. The miraculous always
seems the greater. It is more unusual. Stronger wills are influencing
others daily. That's a commonplace. Bodily healing is rare. And all the
world is ill. Things are ripe to have such power seize upon the
imagination then and always.

And then, too, there are interlacings here of things we see and things
we don't see.