the
grain from the chaff, and eat the kernels of wheat.

[Illustration: Jesus in the wheat fields]

Following close after them were some men who had been told to watch
Jesus and His disciples, and see if anything could be brought against
them.

They held very strict views about keeping the Sabbath, as all Pharisees
did, and here they saw something that might be called breaking the
Sabbath, for were they not really reaping the wheat, and sifting it
through their hands?

"Behold thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the
Sabbath day," they said. "The Son of Man," said Jesus, "is Lord even
of the Sabbath day."

Another Sabbath He entered into a synagogue and taught. Among the
people stood a man who had a helpless and withered hand. The same
Pharisees who had followed Jesus as spies when He walked through the
grain-fields were watching Him in the Synagogue to see if He would heal
on the Sabbath. He knew their thoughts, and called the man, saying,
"Rise up and stand forth in the midst."

The man rose, and while he stood waiting, Jesus turned to the Pharisees
who were eagerly watching to see if Jesus would do something that was
forbidden in their law, and said,

"Is it lawful on the Sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? To save
life or to destroy it?" The Pharisees dared not answer, and Jesus,
looking round upon them all, said to the man, "Stretch forth thy hand."

The man obeyed. Although he had not been able to raise his hand, he
stretched it forth, and it became as whole and as strong as the other.

The Pharisees went away very angry, and tried to make a plan among
themselves for bringing Jesus into trouble.

Jesus came to fill the law about the Sabbath full of the spirit of
heaven; to teach love and service to the neighbor, as well as the love
and worship of God, but they could not understand Him.

Jesus was near the end of His ministry to the people east of the Jordan
in the country called Decapolis. They were not like the Galilean Jews,
they were half heathen people who lived among the wild, rocky hills of
that region. They were poor and ignorant, yet they were more ready to
accept the gospel than the wise and wicked Pharisees had been.

He had been kind to them in their sickness and poverty, and they
followed Him with their sick, and lame, and deaf, and blind, leaving
them at His feet until they arose praising God that they had been saved
from their sufferings.

Jesus had been