f another's feelings which flows from love only. The
leper had almost forgotten what the touch of a hand felt like. He had
lived, ever since his disease was manifest, apart from others, had
perhaps lost the embraces of wife and children, had walked alone in
crowds, and had a heart-chilling circle cleared round him everywhere.
But now this Man stretches His hand across the dreary gulf, and lets him
feel once more the sweetness of a warm and gentle touch. It was half
the cure; it was the complete clearing away of the last film of the
cloud of doubt as to the will of Jesus. It answered the 'if' by
something that spoke louder than any word. And, though it was not meant
for anything but the silent voice of pity and love, we do not rob it of
its beautiful spontaneity when we see, in the touch of that pure hand on
the rotting feculence of leprosy, a parable of the Incarnation, in which
He lays hold on our flesh of sin and is yet without sin--contracts no
defilement by contact, but by touching cleanses the foulness on which He
lays His white fingers. By that touch He proclaimed Himself the priest,
to whom the Law gave the office of laying his hand on the leper.

But the great word accompanying the touch is majestic in its brevity and
absolute claim to absolute power. Jesus accepts the leper's lofty
conception of His omnipotent will, as He always accepted the highest
conceptions that any formed of His person or authority. The sovereign
utterance, 'I will,' claims possession of the divine prerogative of
affecting dead matter by the mere outgoing of His volition. Not only is
it true of Him that 'He spake and it was done,' but He willed and it was
done; and these are the hall-marks of divine power. Neither the touch of
His hand nor the word of His lips cleansed the leper, but simply the
exercise of His will, of which word and touch were but audible and
visible tokens for sense to grasp. The form of the poor husky croak for
help determined the form of the answer, and the correspondence is marked
by all the evangelists as a striking instance of Christ's loving way of
echoing our petitions in His replies, and moulding His gifts to match
our desires. Thunder in heaven wakes echoes on earth, but more wonderful
is it that the thin voice of our supplications, when we scarcely dare to
shape them into prayers, should wake a voice from the throne, which,
though it is mighty as 'the voice of many waters' and sweet as that of
'harpers harping w