Christ and the Demoniacs.

Matthew viii. 28-34; Mark v. 1-20; Luke viii. 26-39.

EMONIAC possession was an awful but an actual condition of many in the days of our Lord's sojourn on earth. Hence we read of some that were "possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce." They said, "What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God?"-they saw Him, and recognized Him-"art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" What a fearfully suggestive cry! These demons, or fiends, part of Satan's followers and legions, saw in Christ their Judge, and they anticipated as a certainty, their final punishment; but they wished that certainty to be put off as long as possible. This was not disease. It was not palsy, it was not sickness, it was not any of the nervous or physical maladies incident to humanity still; it was actual demoniac possession. We shall find in the whole history of God's providential revelation, that whatever God did, Satan always got up an imitation of it, in order to draw man off from giving attention to what God was doing. Did God work miracles in Egypt? Satan did the same. Did God raise up prophets? Satan did the same. Did God come in the flesh? Satan was also in a way manifest in the flesh; and his spirits, as his servants, took literal possession of the human body. But I do not believe that demoniac possession exists now as it was then; indeed it is doubtful if it exists

at all. That Satan and his servants do come in contact with the soul is quite certain; but that Satan and his servants take demoniac possession of the body, in all likelihood, is not true. When Christ became incarnate, and died, and rose again, a new economy begannot only the economy of God manifest in the flesh, but the economy of the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost. Satan's mimicry now is to get up a counter system, the exact counterpart and correlative of the Gospel of Christ; and one specimen of his mimicry is the great apostasy. That is his last and most desperate effort; and we are thankful that it will be the last, that his all is staked on it, and that all his schemes will be consumed by the spirit of Christ's mouth, and destroyed by the brightness of his coming.

The devils asked as a respite, that they might go into a herd of swine; and Jesus said, "Go." Now that does not mean that He commanded it; all it implies is, that He permitted it. God often and everywhere permits in this world what He does not applaud; and the fact that He permitted these devils to go into a herd of swine is not evidence that He approved of it; it was licence, and not authority. But there may have been a reason for it in the following fact. These swine were not ostensibly, though really, kept by the Jews. They were too strict in the outward observance of their ceremonial law to do so; and yet, too greedy not to desire the profits accruing therefrom. They thought that they got rid of the sin which they would have committed in themselves keeping swine by getting Gergesenes to keep the swine for them, and thus to commit the sin for them, and save their consciences, as if sin could be done and the punishment borne by proxy.

Hence these Gergesenes kept the swine in obedience to Jewish masters, who were the real possessors, because the only gainers; and, of course, the Jewish masters were far more guilty than the heathen who did this work for them. When, therefore, Jesus allowed the swine to rush into the sea, it was a just punishment

inflicted upon those avaricious Jews, who broke their law by making others do for them what they themselves would not be seen to do, while they thought that thus they escaped the sin. This arrangement is carried out in modern times wherever it is held that one person may do penance for another, or that a sinner may repent by proxy; or a criminal hire a substitute so far to bear his punishment, and thus believe that he gets rid of the consequences of his sin.

These Gergesenes, who lost the property, and probably their Jewish masters too, begged Jesus to leave them. What an awful request! When He healed their diseases they begged Him to remain; but when He deprived them of their property, they begged Him to depart. It was not the salvation of their souls they sought, or Jesus that they loved. This earth was their all. What affected their earthly and secular interests they felt deeply. What related to their immortal souls and their eternal concerns they disregarded. Far better have Christ with us-with poverty, and sickness, and sorrow, and pain, and losses, than have all the wealth of the world. and no part in Him.

The Gergesenes preferred their swine to the Son of God. The apostle said, "I count all but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Him."

Christ Raising Fairus' Daughter.

Matthew ix. 18-26. Mark v. 22-43. Luke viii. 41-56.

ESUS, who had been entreated by the Gergesenes to leave them, passed over again by ship unto the other side of the lake, and one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, came and besought Him, saying, "My little daughter lieth at the point of death, come and *lay thy hands on her that she may be healed;" and Jesus, the sympathizing Saviour, whose ear was ever open to the cry of sorrow, went with him.

On the way to the ruler's house a person came and addressed the father, "Thy daughter is dead, trouble not the master." Jairus had appealed to

Jesus for the restoration of his sick and suffering daughter. When the messenger saw the anxious parent making his appeal for help where help lay and was ever available, when sickness pined or sorrow gnawed his heart, entertaining the common notion that death closed all resources, and defied even Him who was the Resurrection and the Life, he begged the father to cease troubling the Master. Jesus turned to the afflicted father, and said, "Fear not, believe only, and she shall be made whole." Death had no invincibility in his presence. He came to destroy death, and him who had the power of death. His words, therefore, were no mere mitigation of despair, but an assurance of victory. David had said, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." David's Son here says, "Fear not, believe only, and she shall be made whole."

The witnesses admitted to this sublime visit of "The Life" to the place of the dead, were Peter, James, and John, and the weeping parents. Jesus assured them, "She is not dead but sleepeth, and they laughed Him to scorn, knowing that she was dead."

It must strike every reader of the accounts of the Redeemer's miracles, that in none of them was there what can by any possibility be construed as display. He selects competent witnesses, in order that his acts of pardon and compassion might never be without a testimony, and with this He is satisfied. He therefore repels from the dark chamber the noisy and unreflecting crowd, as if the chamber of the dead was too sacred to be profaned or unnecessarily disturbed, and selects as his only witnesses three apostles and the parents of the dead maiden. She was evidently much beloved, for all wept and bewailed her. But amid these voices of sorrow one voice was heard sounding as music from the better land-a prelude of that resurrection morning when all the pious dead shall hear his voice, and come forth to the resurrection of life. He said, "Weep not, she is not dead but sleepeth." There is no death in the case of any believer. They that die in the Lord live for ever, while the body reposes in a temporary sleep. They "knew she was dead," and therefore they irreverently laughed to scorn the words of Him they yet knew not as the Resurrection and the Life. Their conduct was deeply unbecoming. But perhaps the bewildering sorrow that wept so bitterly blinded their eyes to his glorious presence, and their troubled hearts deemed such words too good to be true, and therefore a mockery of their grief. The all-sympathizing Saviour forgave the unadvised lips, and restored to the startled group and the darkened home a living daughter. "He took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise; and her spirit came again, and she arose straightway."

Her soul has gone upward to join "the spirits of the just made