without thought of His long day of work, crowd round the house with
their sick. The sinking sun brought no rest for Him, but the new calls
found Him neither exhausted nor unwilling. Capernaum was but a little
place, and the whole city might well be 'gathered together at the
door,' some sick, some bearing the sick, all curious and eager. There
was no depth in the excitement. There was earnestness enough, no
doubt, in the wish for healing, but there was no insight into His
message. Any travelling European with a medicine chest can get the
same kind of cortege round his tent. These people, who hung upon Him
thus, were those of whom He had afterwards to say that it would be
'more tolerable for Sodom, in the day of judgment, than for them.' But
though He knew the shallowness of the impression, He was not deaf to
the misery; and, with power which knew no weariness, and sympathy
which had no limit, and a reservoir of healing virtue which the day's
draughts had not emptied by a hairs-breadth, He healed them all.
Remarkable is the prohibition of the demons' speech, They knew Him,
while men were ignorant; for they had met Him before to-day. He would
have no witness from them; not merely, as has been said, because their
attestation would hinder, rather than further, His acceptance by the
people, nor because they may be supposed to have spoken in malice, but
because a divine decorum forbade that He should accept acknowledgments
from such tainted sources.

So ended this first of 'the days of the Son of Man,' which our
Evangelist records. It was a day of hard toil, of merciful and
manifold self-revelation. As teacher and doer, in the synagogue, and
in the home, and in the city; as Lord of the dark realms of evil and
of disease; as ready to hear hinted and dumb prayers, and able to
answer them all; as careless of His own ease, and ready to spend
Himself for others' help,--Jesus showed Himself, on that Sabbath day,