most rudely pictured hell is often the beginning of a true trust in
Christ, which, in due time, will be elevated into perfect consecration.
Some of our modern teachers, who are shocked at Christianity because
it lays the foundation of the most self-denying morality in such
'selfishness,' would be none the worse for going to school to this
story, and learning from it how a desire for nothing more than to
get rid of a painful disease, started a process which turned a life
into a peaceful, thankful surrender of the cured self to the love
and service of the mighty Healer.

Observe, next, how Christ answers the imperfect faith, and, by
answering, corrects and confirms it. Matthew omits Christ's question
as to who touched Him, the disciples' reply, and His renewed
asseveration that He was conscious of power having gone forth from
Him. All these belong to the loving method by which our Lord sought
to draw forth an open acknowledgment. Womanly diffidence, enfeebled
health, her special disease, all made the woman wish to hide herself.
She wanted to steal away unnoticed, as she hoped that she had come.
But Christ forces her to stand out before all the crowd, and there,
with all eyes upon her,--cold, cruel eyes, some of them--to conquer
her shame, and tell all the truth. Strange kindness that; strangely
contrasted with His ordinary desire to avoid notoriety, and with His
ordinary tender consideration for shrinking weakness! He did it for
her sake, not for His own. She is changed from timidity to courage.
At one moment she stretches out her wasted finger, a tremulous
invalid; at the next, she flings herself at His feet, a confessor.
He would have us testify for Him, because faith unavowed, like a
plant in the dark, is apt to become pale and sickly; but ere He bids
us own His name, He pours into our hearts, in answer to our secret
appeal, the health of His own life, and the blissful consciousness