invading fancies; but through it all was the nameless unrest, not an
aching, nor a burning, nor a stinging, but a bodily grief, dark, drear,
and nameless. How could they have borne such before He had come?

A sudden ceasing of motions uncontrolled; a coolness gliding through
the burning skin; a sense of waking into repose; a consciousness of
all-pervading well-being, of strength conquering weakness, of light
displacing darkness, of urging life at the heart; and behold! she is
sitting up in her bed, a hand clasping hers, a face looking in hers. He
has judged the evil thing, and it is gone. He has saved her out of her
distresses. They fold away from off her like the cerements of death. She
is new-born--new-made--all things are new-born with her--and he who
makes all things new is there. From him, she knows, has the healing
flowed. He has given of his life to her. Away, afar behind her floats
the cloud of her suffering. She almost forgets it in her grateful joy.
She is herself now. She rises. The sun is shining. It had been shining
all the time--waiting for her. The lake of Galilee is glittering
joyously. That too sets forth the law of life. But the fulfilling of the
law is love: she rises and ministers.

I am tempted to remark in passing, although I shall have better
opportunity of dealing with the matter involved, that there is no sign
of those whom our Lord cures desiring to retain the privileges of
the invalid. The joy of health is labour. He who is restored must be
fellow-worker with God. This woman, lifted out of the whelming sand of
the fever and set upon her feet, hastens to her ministrations. She has
been used to hard work. It is all right now; she must to it again.

But who was he who had thus lifted her up? She saw a young man by her
side. Is it the young man, Jesus, of whom she has heard? for Capernaum