less a Saviour now, than He was when He spoke those things to John's
disciples? Do you think He is less able to hear and to help than He
was in John's time? Do you think He used to care about people's
bodies then, but that He only cares about their souls now? Do you
think that He is less compassionate, and less merciful, as well as
less powerful, than He was when He made the blind see, and the lame
walk, and the deaf hear, in Judaea of old?

Less powerful! less compassionate! One would have expected that
Christ was MORE powerful, MORE compassionate, if that were possible.
At least one would expect that His power and compassion would show
itself more and more, and make itself felt more and more, year by
year, and age by age; more and more healing disease; more and more
comforting sorrow; more and still more casting out cunning and evil
spirits, till He had put all under His feet. He Himself said it
should be so. He always spoke of His own kingdom as a thing which
was to grow and increase by laws of its own, men knew not how, but He
knew. Like seed cast into the ground, His kingdom was, He said, at
first the smallest of all seeds; but it was to grow, and take root,
and spread into a mighty tree, He said, till the very birds in the
air lodged in the branches of it; and David's words should be
fulfilled, "Thou, Lord, shalt save both man and beast." And does not
St. Paul speak of His kingdom in the same way, as a kingdom which
should grow? that He was to reign till He had put all enemies under
His feet? that He would deliver at last the whole creation? the earth
on which we stand, the dumb animals around us? For, as St. Paul
says, the whole creation is groaning in labour-pangs, waiting to be
raised into a higher state. And it shall be raised. The whole
creation shall be set free into the glorious liberty of the children
of God.