The Pulpit Commentary — Mark — Volume 1 — Section 324

and crushed her h~art. That beloved child-that dear daughter, round whom alone, in the absence of 'lluer objects, the mother's afTections were now a.11 entwined-was an invalid, and an invalid whom no medical skill and no human power could relieve. It w11.11 not merely disease under which she laboured ; if that had been all, however barl the ~ or severe the diste~per, it ~ight, e~en after medical appliances had proved 1,1nava1hng, have exhausted itself, as 1s ll0met1mes known to happen, or even the ffl mediaitri:11 natura, might have effected a cure. But no, it was something worse, much worse, than any ordinary disease, however virulent; it was demouiac power--diabolical possession. The girl had "an unclean spirit," and was" grievously vexed with a devil," so that the case was taken out of the common category of diseases, and entirely hopeless. The poignancy of the mother's grief, the bitterness of her sorrow for a daughter so dear to her, and yet so hopelessly, helplessly afHictcd, we can well imagine. Indeed, we seem to hear the echo of her wail in the pathetic cry for mercy:" llave mercy upon me, 0 Lord, thou Son of David I" III. HEB APPLICATION. What led her to think of Jesus at all? In the first instance. no doubt, it wa.s her misery on account of her daughter's distressed condition. She had, we are persuaded, tried many means before this; she bad left nothing undone, we are very eure; but a.11 was in vain I Her wretchedness bad found no relief; her misery remains without alleviation. She is now ready to do or to dare anything that may hold forth the slightest hope of relief. But while it was the feeling of misery in the first instance, and that strong maternal affection which the sufferings of her daughter roused into such active exercise, there was, besides, a rumour that had somehow reached her ears of the great Jewish Teacher, who was Prophet and Physician both in. one. His fame had reached that distant heathen land. He wished, indeed, that no man should know of Lis journey thither or of his being there; he meant to travel incognito. But that he soon found to be impossible, for, a.s the evangelist expresses it, "he could not be hid;" there was that about him, conceal it as he might, which revealed his majesty and bespoke the greatness and dignity of his person. This Canaanitish woman has heard, moreover, that this powerful Healer has quitted the holy city, and left the Galilean hills, the flowery slopes, the glancing waters of the lovely lake ; and that he is at present travelling in that remote north-west. Now she feels that her .opportunity is come, that the time for trying another remedy has arrived, and that a Physician, greater than any she had ever applied to or heard of before, is now accessible. A load is lifted off her heart; her hopes are raised, and with buoyant spirit she sets out to where she heard he we.s. But she has not been long on the road till hope and fear begin to alternate. Had she not been buoyed up with similar hopes before, and yet those hopes had ended in disappointment? Me.y it not be so again? May it not be so now? Still she feels that the object of all this solicitude can scarcely be worse, and may perhaps be better. At all events, she is determined to make the trial, if it should be the last. She has heard of multitudes of cures he has performed, of wonderful cures--cures of demoniacs as well as those afflicted with diseases ; and so she plucks up heart anew, and again resumes her journey. Here were two strong motives impelling her to take the course she was doing-her sense of misery, and the reports about Jesus. And yet there was, we think, a third impelling power; for what suggested the resolution she came to in view of the wretchedness of her own and her daughter's condition, and on the ground of the reports that had reached her? What or who empowered her to make up her mind at once and form the resolution? What it was we are not told in so many words; it is not expressly stated, perhaps not even clearly implied; and yet such an impulse must have been given to her will. We speak of God putting this or that thought into the heart; and so we believe that it was God that opened her eyes to 1ee her real conditinn, that opened her ears to hear the report- the good news about Oue who was mighty to heal and cure; that quickened the seed of thought thus sown in her soul, making it fructify, blossom, and bear fruit; in other words, that produced the resolution and prompted to action in carrying it out. It is exactly thus with the sinner; his eyes are opened to see his sin aud consequent misery; his ears are opened to hear, and his heart to believe, the report of a Saviour ; and he is persuaded and enabled to form the right resolution of applying at once le Jesus for pardon and peace-made willing, in fact, in the day of God's power. IV. HEn RESPECTFUL ADDRESS, The respectful mode of her address, and the e~n.est ST. MAUK. Y  822 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. [011. vn. 1-:r;,