One, and only one, followed under a deep sense of her need, and of our Saviour's power to relieve her, and that one received a mighty blessing.
We see the same thing going on continually in the Church of Christ at the present day. Multitudes go to our places of worship, and fill our pews. Hundreds come up to the Lord's table, and receive the bread and wine. But of all these worshippers and communicants, how few really obtain anything from Christ ! Fashion, custom, form, habit, the love of excitement, or an itching ear, are the true motives of the vast majority. There are but few here and there who touch Christ by faith, and go home " in peace/' These may seem hard sayings. But they are unhappily too true !
Let us mark, in the third place, how immediate and instantaneous was the cure which this woman received. No sooner did she touch our Lord's clothes than she was healed. The thing that she had sought in vain for twelve years, was done in a moment. The cure that many physicians could not effect, was wrought in an in- stant of time. "She felt in her body that she was healed of that plague."
We need not doubt that we are meant to see here an emblem of the relief that the Gospel confers on souls. The experience of many a weary conscience has been exactly like that of this woman with her disease. Many a man has spent sorrowful years in search of peace with God, and failed to find it. He has gone to earthly re- medies and obtained no relief. He has wearied himself in going from place to place, andchurch to church, and has felt after all " nothing bulj^ Mm!< rather worse.'
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