THE TWO BLIND MEN RESTORED TO SIGHT.
The next miracle that I shall tell you about, my dear children, is one which is represented in the picture above; it is our Saviour giving sight to two blind men.
When He left the house of Jairus, the ruler, whose daughter He had raised from the dead, the scripture tells us that two blind men followed Him. As they followed, they kept crying out, “Thou son of David, have mercy upon us!” They meant by this entreaty to implore Christ to have pity upon their darkness and misery; to consider how helpless and useless they were; and, as He had just restored to life a child already dead, to have mercy upon them, and give them back their sight.
It is evident that these men thoroughly believed our Saviour to be the true Messiah, whose coming had been foretold by the prophets; for one of the signs by which the true Messiah was to be known, according to the prophecies, was His giving sight to the blind.
Our Saviour at first, as though to try the faith of these two poor men, appeared not to regard them. But they followed Him into the house where He was going, groping their way as they best could, and repeated their prayer, “Oh, son of David, have mercy on us!” Then Jesus, as St. Matthew tells, said unto them, “Believe ye that I am able to do this?” and they replied, “Yea, Lord.” Then He touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done unto you.” And their eyes were opened.
We may observe that Christ appeared to make faith a condition upon which the success of the miracle was to depend, and it is evident that these poor men had perfect faith. What unspeakable joy and gratitude they must have felt on finding their dark night suddenly changed into bright day. Without pain, without any operation, simply by the touch of Christ upon their sightless eyes, had one of the greatest of earthly blessings been given to these two men.
There is another miracle I shall have time to tell you about to-day, my children, which was performed soon after the last. It consisted in the feeding of a multitude of people—five thousand—upon five barley loaves and two small fishes. It took place on the shore of the sea of Galilee.
A great multitude of people had followed our Saviour to listen to His teaching, and He had led them some distance away from any town. He preached to them a long time, and was still continuing His instructions when the shades of evening began to gather round. Then the disciples reminded Him that the day was declining, one of them saying, “This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: send them away that they may go into the country round about and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat.”
But our Saviour was too compassionate to send the people away hungry, and He intended Himself to give them food. He said to His disciples, “How many loaves have ye? go and see.” And when they knew, they said, “Five loaves and two fishes.” Christ then commanded them to make all the people sit down upon the grass; He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and brake the loaves, and gave the pieces to His disciples to give among the people: He also divided the two fishes, and gave them in the same way. Then the multitude, as the Bible tells us, ate and were filled: and, what is more, the disciples afterwards gathered up several basketsful of the fragments that were left.
Thus, by our Lord’s power, those five loaves and two fishes were made sufficient to feed and satisfy that great multitude of five thousand people.
