ith their harps,' deigns to echo our poor cries.

The prohibition to speak of the cure till the priests had pronounced it
real and complete is more stringent in Mark, who also tells how utterly
it was disregarded. Its reason was obviously the wish to comply with the
law, and also the wish to get the official seal to the cure. Jesus did
desire the miracle to be known, but not till it was authoritatively
certified by the priest whose business it was to pronounce a sufferer
clean. It was for the leper's advantage, too, that he should have the
official certificate, since he would not be restored to society without
it. One does not wonder that the prohibition was disregarded in the
uncontrollable delight and wonder at such an experience. The leper was
eloquent, as we all can be, when our hearts are engaged, and his
blessing refused to be hid. Alas, how many of us, who profess to have
been cleansed from a worse defilement, find no such impulse to speak
welling up in ourselves! Alas, how superfluous is the injunction to
hundreds of Christ's disciples: 'See thou say nothing to any man'!

THE FAITH WHICH CHRIST PRAISES

'The centurion answered and said: Lord, I am not worthy that Thou
shouldest come under my roof, but speak the word only, and my
servant shall be healed. 9. For I am a man under authority, having
soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go! and he goeth; and to
another, Come I and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this; and he
doeth it.'--MATT. viii. 8-9.

This miracle of the healing of the centurion's servant is the second of
the great series which Matthew gives us. It is perhaps not accidental
that both the first and the second miracles in his collection point out
our Lord's relation to outcasts from Israel. The first of them deals
with a leper, the second with the prayer of a heathen. And so they both
contribute to the great purpose of Matthew's Gospel, the bringing out of
the nature of the kingdom and the glory of the King.

My object now is to deal with the whole of the incident of which I have
read the most important part. We have in the story three things: the man
and his faith; Christ's eulogium upon the faith, and declaration of its
place in His kingdom; and the answer to the faith. Look, then, at these
three in succession.

I. We consider, first, the man and his faith.

He was a heathen and a Gentile. The Herod, who then ruled over Galilee,
had a little army, office