son, and dost thou teach _us_! Darest thou imply a divine preference for
Capernaum over Nazareth?' In bad odour with the rest of their
countrymen, they were the prouder of themselves.

The _whole_ synagogue, observe, rose in a fury. Such a fellow a prophet!
He was worse than the worst of Gentiles! he was a false Jew! a traitor
to his God! a friend of the idol-worshipping Romans! Away with him! His
townsmen led the van in his rejection by his own. The men of Nazareth
would have forestalled his crucifixion by them of Jerusalem. What! a
Sidonian woman fitter to receive the prophet than any Jewess! a heathen
worthier to be kept alive by miracle in time of famine, than a
worshipper of the true God! a leper of Damascus less displeasing to God
than the lepers of his chosen race! It was no longer condescending
approval that shone in their eyes. He a prophet! They had seen through
him! Soon had they found him out! The moment he perceived it useless to
pose for a prophet with them, who had all along known the breed of him,
he had turned to insult them! He dared not attempt in his own city the
deceptions with which, by the help of Satan, he had made such a grand
show, and fooled the idiots of Capernaum! He saw they knew him too well,
were too wide-awake to be cozened by him, and to avoid their expected
challenge, fell to reviling the holy nation. Let him take the
consequences! To the brow of the hill with him!

How could there be any miracle for such! They were well satisfied with
themselves, and

Nothing almost sees miracles
But misery.

Need and the upward look, the mood ready to believe when and where it
can, the embryonic faith, is dear to Him whose love would have us trust
him. Let any man seek him--not in curious inquiry whether the story of
him may be true or cannot be true--in humble readiness to accept him
altogether if only he can, and he shall find him; we shall not fail of
help to believe because we doubt. But if the questioner be such that the
dispersion of his doubt would but leave him in disobedience, the Power
of truth has no care to effect his conviction. Why cast out a devil that
the man may the better do the work of the devil? The childlike doubt
will, as it softens and yields, minister nourishment with all that was
good in it to the faith-germ at its heart; the wise and prudent
unbelief will be left to develop its own misery. The Lord could easily
have satisfied the Nazarenes that he was t