esus healing the sick]

When the Lord came back to Capernaum the people thronged Him, and when
He rested in the shaded court of a friend's house it was soon filled
with the eager people who longed to hear His word, or be healed by His
touch.

Once it was so crowded in the court that some men, who were bringing a
friend to Jesus who was helpless with palsy, took him up by the outside
stairs to the housetop. There, by taking up a few tiles, they made an
opening just over the place where Jesus sat, and the people soon saw
the man lying on his mat before Jesus, for they had let it down by
cords through the opening.

Jesus saw the faith of the four men who had let their sick friend down
at His feet, and it touched His heart. He also saw the longing in the
soul of the sick man to be good and pure, and He said,

"Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee."

The Scribes, who were always copying the Scriptures--for there was no
printing done in those days--were always watching to hear Jesus say
something contrary to the Law of Moses, that they might tell it to the
priests, and some who were sitting there looked at each other and said
in their hearts,

"Who can forgive sins but God only?"

Jesus heard their thoughts and asked them why they reasoned in this way
with themselves, and which seemed to them the easier, to forgive sins
or to heal the body.

But that they might know that He had power over the body as well as the
soul He said to the sick man,

"Arise; take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house."

The man rose and rolled up his mat and carried it out, the people
falling back astonished to let him pass, for his palsy had left him and
he walked out strong and well.

"We have seen strange things to-day," the people said among themselves
for they could not understand how a man could forgive sins or heal
disease.

When Jesus left the house to go down to the sea-shore He passed the
Custom-house, where the tax-gatherers, or "publicans," gathered money
from the Jewish people to pay to their conquerors, the Romans.

The Romans were very hard in their dealings with the Jews, and made
themselves rich by taking money from the poor of their provinces.

The people did not like the tax-gatherer, and his was not a pleasant
office.

Levi, also called Matthew, was a rich tax-gatherer at Capernaum, and as
he sat in his office looking out upon the market-place he saw Jesus
passing by. Perhaps he had often h