A man must live; we justify Low shift and trick to treasure high A little note for a little gold To a whole senate bought and sold By that self-evident reply.
» Fanar, Life of Christ, i. 136. « R. W. Dale.
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But is it 80 ? Pray tell me why Life at such cost you have to buy ? In what religion were you told A man must live ?
There are times when a man must die. Imagine, for a battle cry,
For soldiers, for soldiers with a sword to hold— For soldiers with the flag unrolled — This coward's whine, this liar's lie — A man must live ?
Faith and Doubt.
ST. MARK — 14
Literature.
Albertson (C. C), College Sermons, 55.
Butler (H. M.), Harrow School Sermons, 61.
Dix (M.), Sermons Doctrinal and Practical, 195.
Hardy (E. J.), Doubt and Faith, 135.
Jowett (B.), College Sermons, 11,
Ker (J.), Sermons, 2nd Ser., 1.
Leckie (J.), Sermons Preached at Ibrox, 362.
Maclaren (A.), The Wea/ried Christ and other Sermons, 125.
Martineau (J.), Endeavours after the Christian Life, 343.
Parkhurst (C. H.), A Little Lower than the Angels, 186.
Pierce (C. C), The Hunger of the Heart for Faith, 1.
Roberts (W. Page), Our Prayer-Book, Conformity and Conscience, 192.
Spurgeon (C. H.), The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xviii. 61.
Westcott (B. F.), The Historic Faith, 1.
Christian World Pulpit, Ixiv. 359 (Mellowes) ; Ixv. 286 (Cowe) ;
Ixxiv. 421 (Thomas). Churchman's Pulpit, pt. xx. 396 (Stokoe).
Faith and Doubt.
straightway the father of the child cried out, and said, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief. — ix. 24.
The text is a part of St. Mark's reference to the great problem which confronted our Lord when He came down from the Mount of Transfiguration. There are many aspects of the scene which call for interest and sympathy; the blight and bitterness of a father's heart over the limitations of human love ; the epilepsy of a son ; the paroxysms of this awful malady in the presence of them all ; and the mental unbalancing which was worse than death.
We owe to this Gospel the fullest account of this pathetic incident. St. Mark alone gives us this part of the conversation between our Lord and the afflicted child's father. The poor man had brought his boy to the disciples, and found them unable to do anything with him. Now a torrent of appeal breaks from his lips as soon as the Lord gives him an opportunity of speaking. He dwells upon all the piteous details, with that fondness for repetition which sorrow knows so well.
In the background of the story is the Mount and the glory of the Transfiguration. It is true that the "mist is on the river," and the " sun is on the hill " ; but the sun shines into the valley, and the mist goes. The Master comes down from the Mount, and the child is healed. Is it not the message of the Incarnation ? Sin and sorrow are at the foot of the Mount ; but though the light be in heaven, the Christ shall be born in Bethlehem. The glory of heaven must cast its light on the earth. As we come to the study of a passage such as this, we learn that darkness is not to shut out the light, but light is to
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banish darkness. The end is to be not eternal night, but eternal light. Grace is to master sin, and our imperfect life is to know the joy of eternal perfection.
Hours there will come of soulless night. When all that's holy, all that's bright,
Seems gone for aye: When truth and love, and hope and peace, All vanish into nothingness,
And fade away.
Fear not the cloud that veils the skies, 'Tis out of darkness Hght must rise,
As e'er of old: The true, the good, the fair endure, And thou, with eyes less dim, more pure,
Shalt them behold.^
The subject may be considered under two aspects — I. The Suppliant's Attitude towards Christ. II. Christ's Attitude towards the Suppliant.
I.
The Suppliant's Attitude towards Christ.
i. His Distress.
The case has been in the hands of the disciples, but they have failed to do anything effective, and so the hope that mercifully turns men from one failure to a new test, brings this woe to the Master Himself, if perchance He can do any- thing. We cannot tell how much hope this father had. Hope is hard to kill, but years of sorrow and disappointment are full of wear and tear, so far as the element of expectation is concerned, and though the expectation of hope may grow less and less, the longing of hope, which bids recourse to new expedients, always lingers where love is. There does not seem to be a great deal of expectancy on his part, but he is full of yearning for the recovery of his son. He is sure that he wants * Frederick M. Wlute.
ST. MARK 213
the Christ to try to help his boy and him. " If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us."
1. One thing is certain: the man knew what he wanted. And he wanted it very sorely. He felt his sense of utter helplessness. How often this poor father had looked at his boy in the grip of the fiend, and had wrung his hands in despair that he could do nothing for him. It was this sense of absolute impotence that urged him to seek Divine help. If only he could believe in the omnipotence of Jesus. How those words must have sounded in his ear, giving birth to the faith which was trembling in his heart. " If thou canst ! Do not say that to Me. I can. And because I can, all things are possible for thee to receive." As soon as the consciousness of belief dawned upon the father, and the effort to exercise it was put forth, there sprang up the consciousness of its own imperfection. He would never have known that he did not believe unless he had tried to believe. "I believe; help thou mine unbelief." The man's desire for the moment was not so much that his faith might be increased, as that his unbelief, which he recognises as the barrier to the healing of his child, might be removed. His words mean rather — "Help my child, though,, it is unbelief as much as faith that asks Thee to do it." It is the intense longing of a father's love that breaks forth in his distracted cry.