Vers. 25--34.-The magic of faith. I. THE CUBE OF THE SICK WOMAN RESEMBLES .A. MAGICAL CURE. Magical belief universally prevailed. 'l'he principle of it was, an operation on the nervous system through the wishes and the imagination. A repre- sentation in the mind of a cure is assumed, and acted on as a reality. So mysterious and great is the power of imagination over the mechanism of life, that cures might occasionally occur without any real cause external to the sufferer's mind. IL BuT HERE THERE WAS A REAL CAUSE AT worur. Coincident with the touch of the woman was the knowledge of curing virtue going forth from him, in the mind of Christ. Here is something impossible to explain-a connection that defies thought ; but a real connection. And the great general lesson remains. Every change in the mind from sickness to health implies the correspondence of a thought on the sufferer with a reality without him. Whenever and however the energy of God is reflected as a thought of reality or a faith in us, a change for the better must and will occur.-J. Vers. 35--43.-Life victorioua. I. LIFE IN ITS FULNESB KNOWS NO FEAR. Cruel anxieties for the life of those we love are hushed by the voice of Jesus. He ignores death, being the resurrection and the life. We are under a deception of the senses, which Christ saw through. "The child did not die, but is sleeping." From another point of view our saddest facts may be lustrous with the significance of joy. II. LIFE IS COMMANDING. "I say, Arise!" And the words are instantly obeyed. Richer e.s a parable than as a mere story. The fact is soon exhausted; the allegory is infinite. The voice is ever speaking, and resurrections are ever taking place. Lost joys are being recovered, dead forms reanimated. Who knows, as the Greek asked, whether what we call dying be not living, and living dying? But where Christ is, there is no death, no loss; only change from lees life to more. -J.
Vers. 1-20. Parallel passages: Matt. viii. 28-34; Luke viii. 26-40.-Gadarene or Gergesene demoniacs. I. CuBE OF THE GADABENE DEMONIAC. 1. The district. The country called Gilead in the Old Testament, at a later period and in the New Testament goes by the name of Perrea. It was south of Baehan, and formed a sort of peninsula, buundtd by the Yarmuck (anciently Hieromax) on the nortb, Arnon (now Wady el Mojeb) on the south, and Jordan on the east. The part of Gilead between the Yarmuck ::..nd Jabbok at present Wady Zurka, is now Jebel .Ajlun; while the section south of the Jabbok is the Belka. In this region was a. district called Decapolis, from the fact of its being studded over with ten cities, all, except Scythopolis, east of the Jordan. Of these cities one was Gadara, identified with the ruins of Um Keis, the capital of Periea; ()B. v. 1-43.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST, MARK. 238