Christ Healing the Sick.
If we look into the history of Bonaparte, or Cæsar, or Alexander, we shall see that their lives were chiefly employed in killing people; in making war, by which men, women and children suffered the most dreadful agony, misery and death.
It seems to be a natural idea for men of powerful minds and great ambition, to aim at subduing their fellow-men, and when these resist, to kill them. And, strange to say, the greater number a man kills, the greater hero he is.
Such is the way with mankind. How wonderful it is, then, to take up the New Testament, and read the history of Jesus Christ. How unlike he is, to the great men of the earth—to the Cæsars, the Alexanders and the Napoleons!
In the fourth chapter of Matthew, we are told that, after leaving Nazareth, Jesus began to preach repentance, and to heal all manner of sickness and disease. Instead of wounding and killing mankind, he went about doing good.
“And his fame”—says the sacred story,—“went throughout all Syria; and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those which had the palsy; and he healed them.”
What a wonderful—what a beautiful story is this! Who had ever set such an example? What man had ever conceived the idea of going about doing good? What human being had ever the idea, the purpose, and the power, of going about, curing all manner of diseases?
Surely this was unlike human nature, and altogether beyond human power; it was evidently a divine character, exercising divine power. He came to save a world which was lost; for he saw that the “heart of man was only evil, and that continually.” He came to atone for the sins of mankind; to reconcile a holy God to a sinful world.