, the particulars of such cases, and have been
unexceptionable witnesses to their reality. Persons may feign blindness
and other infirmities among strangers, but no man can pass himself off
as palsied, deaf and dumb, blind, (especially blind from birth,) halt,
withered, in his own community. The reality of the maladies then is
beyond all question; and so is also the reality of their instantaneous
removal by the immediate power of the Saviour. Here we must not fail to
take into account the immense number of our Lord's miracles, their
diversified character, and the fact that they were performed everywhere,
as well without as with previous notice, and in the most open and public
manner. Modern pretenders to miraculous power have a select circle of
marvellous feats, the exhibition of which is restricted to particular
places. No one of them would venture to undertake the cure of a man born
blind, or that had a withered limb, or that had been a paralytic for
thirty-eight years. But Jesus of Nazareth went about the cities and
villages of Judea for the space of three years, healing all manner of
disease. With him there was no distinction of easy and difficult, since
to Divine power nothing is hard. With the same word he rebuked a raging
fever, cleansed from leprosy, gave strength to the paralytic, healed the
withered limb, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech
to the dumb, and raised the dead to life. The same voice that said to
the man at Bethesda, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk," said also to
Lazarus, who had lain four days in the grave, "Come forth."

6. It is with reason that we lay special stress upon the fact that
Christ performed many of his greatest miracles in the presence of his
enemies, who had both the means and the will to institute a searching
investigation concerning them, and who would have denied their reality
had it been in their power to do so. Sad indeed is the record of the
perverse opposition and calumny which our Lord encountered on the part
of the Jewish rulers. But even this has a bright side. It shows us that
the Saviour's miracles could endure the severest scrutiny--that after
every means which power and wealth and patronage and official influence
could command had been used for their disparagement, their divine origin
still shone forth like the unclouded sun at noon-day. If any one doubts
this, let him read attentively the ninth chapter of John's gospel, which
records the investig