strong and tender, the Son of God and the servant of men.



HEALING AND SERVICE


'Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever; and straightway they tell
Him of her: 31. And He came and took her by the hand, and raised her
up; and the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.'--Mark i.
30, 31, R. V.

This miracle is told us by three of the four Evangelists, and the
comparison of their brief narratives is very interesting and
instructive. We all know, I suppose, that the common tradition is that
Mark was, in some sense, Peter's mouthpiece in this Gospel. The
truthfulness of that ancient statement is borne out by little morsels
of evidence that crop up here and there throughout the Gospel. There
is one of them in this context. The other two Evangelists tell us that
our Lord, with His four attendant disciples, 'entered into the house
of Simon'; Mark knows that Simon's brother Andrew shared the house
with him. Who was likely to have told him such an insignificant thing
as that? We seem to hear the Apostle himself recounting the whole
story to his amanuensis.

Then, further, Mark's narrative is distinguished from that of the
other two Evangelists in very minute and yet interesting points, which
will come out as we go along. So I think we may fairly say that we
have here Peter himself telling us the story of his mother-in-law's
cure. Now, one thing that strikes one is that this is a very small