woman who was bowed with a spirit of infirmity, and could not lift
herself up--did our Lord say that it had pleased God to make her a
wretched cripple? No; he spoke of her as this daughter of Israel,
whom Satan had bound, and not God, this eighteen years; and that was
His reason for healing her, even on the sabbath-day, because her
disease was not the work of God, but of the cruel, disordering,
destroying evil spirit which is at enmity with God. That was why
Christ cured her. And THAT--for this is the point I have been coming
to, step by step--that was the reason why, when John the Baptist sent
to ask if Jesus was the Christ, our Lord answered: "Go and show John
again those things which ye do see and hear: the blind receive their
sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to
them."

Do not be in a hurry, my friends, and suppose that our Lord meant
merely: "Tell John what wonderful miracles I am working." If He had
meant that why would He have put in as the last proof that He was the
Christ, that He was preaching the gospel to the poor? What wonderful
miracle was there in THAT? No: it was as if He had said: "Go and
tell John that I am the Christ, because I am the great physician, the
healer and deliverer of body and soul: one who will and can cure the
loathsome diseases, the uselessness, the misery, the ignorance of the
poorest and meanest." He has proved Himself the Christ by showing
not only His boundless power, but His boundless love and mercy; and
THAT, not only to men's souls, but to their bodies also. To prove
Himself the Christ by wonderful and astonishing miracles was exactly
what He would not do. He refused, when the Scribes and Pharisees
came and asked of Him a sign from heaven to prove that He was Christ--
wanting Him, I suppose, to bring some apparition, or fiery comet, or