their eyes were opened; and Jesus straitly charged them,
saying, See that no man know it. 31. But they, when they
were departed, spread abroad His fame in all that
country.'--MATT. ix. 18-31.

The three miracles included in the present section belong to the
last group of this series. Those of the second group were all
effected by Christ's word. Those now to be considered are all
effected by touch. The first two are intertwined. The narrative of
the healing of the woman is embedded in the account of the raising
of Jairus's daughter.

Mark the impression of calm consciousness of power and leisurely
dignity produced by Christ's having time to pause, even on such an
errand, in order to heal, by the way, the other sufferer. The father
and the disciples would wonder at Him as He stayed His steps, and be
apt to feel that priceless moments were being lost; but He knows His
own resources, and can afford to let the child die while He heals
the woman. The one shall receive no harm by the delay, and the other
will be blessed. Our Lord is sitting at the feast which Matthew gave
on the occasion of his call, engaged in vindicating His sharing in
innocent festivity against the cavils of the Pharisees, when the
summons to the death-bed comes to Him from the lips of the father,
who breaks in on the banquet with his imploring cry. Matthew gives
the story much more summarily than the other evangelists, and does
not distinguish, as they do, between Jairus's first words, 'at the
point of death, and the message of her actual decease, which met
them on the way. The call of sorrow always reaches Christ's ear, and
the cry for help is never deemed by Him an interruption. So this
'man, gluttonous and a wine-bibber,' as these Pharisees thought Him,