what a hunger of desire, what absolute assurance of confidence that
one finger-tip on His robe was enough! Therefore she had her desire,
and her Healer recognised her faith as true, though blended with much
ignorance of Him. Her error was very like that which many Christians
entertain with less excuse. To attach importance to external means of
grace, rites, ordinances, sacraments, outward connection with Christian
organisations, is the very same misconception in a slightly different
form. Such error is always near us; it is especially rife in countries
where there has long been a visible Church. It has received strange
new vigour to-day, partly by reaction from extreme rationalism, partly
by the growing cultivation of the aesthetic faculties. It is threatening
to corrupt the simplicity and spirituality of Christian worship, and
needs to be strenuously resisted. But the more we have to fight
against it, the more do we need to remember that, along with this
clinging to the hem of the garment instead of to the heart of its
Wearer, there may be a very real trust, which might shame some of
those who profess to hold a less sensuous form of faith. Many a poor
soul clasping a crucifix clings to the Cross. Many a devout heart
kneeling at mass sees through the incense-smoke the face of Christ.

This woman's faith was selfish. She wanted health; she did not care
much about the Healer. She would have been quite contented to have
had no more to do with Him, if she could only have stolen out of the
crowd cured. She would have had little gratitude to the unconscious
Giver of a stolen good. So, many a Christian life in its earlier
stages is more absorbed with its own deep misery and its desire for
deliverance, than with Him. Love comes after, born of the experience
of His love. But faith precedes love, and the predominant motive
impelling to faith at first is distinctly self-regard. That is all as
it should be. The most purely self-absorbed wish to escape from the