n the
area of their exercise, and in the permanence of their results. Many
were healed; but many, many more remained diseased. And even those who
were healed were not rendered permanently unassailable by disease. The
eyes of the blind which were opened for a year or two must close shortly
in death. The paralysed, though sent from Christ's presence healed, must
yield to the debilitating influences of age and betake themselves again
to the crutch or the couch. Lazarus given back for a time to his
sorrowing sisters must again, and this time without recall, own the
power of death. And how far did the influence of Christ penetrate into
these healed persons? Did they all obey His words and sin no more? or
did some worse thing than the disease He freed them from fall upon some
of them? Was there none who used his restored eyesight to minister to
sin, his restored energies to do more wickedness than otherwise would
have been possible? In one word, the miracles of Christ, great as they
were and beneficent as they were, were still confined to the body, and
did not directly touch the spirit of man.

But was this the object of Christ's coming? Did He come to do a little
less than several of the great medical discoverers have done? Assuredly
not. These works of healing which He wrought on the bodies of men were,
as John regularly calls them, "signs"; they were not acts terminating in
themselves, and finding their full significance in the happiness
communicated to the healed persons; they were signs pointing to a power
over men's spirits, and suggesting to men analogous but everlasting
benefits. Christ wrought His miracles that men, beginning with what they
could see and appreciate, might be led on to believe in and trust Him
for power to help them in all their matters. And now He expressly
announces to His disciples that these works which He had been doing were
not miracles of the highest kind; that miracles of the highest kind were
works of healing and renewal wrought not on the bodies but on the souls
of men, works whose effects would not be deleted by disease and death,
but would be permanent, works which should not be confined to Palestine,
but should be coextensive with the human race. And these greater works
He would now proceed to accomplish through His disciples. By His removal
from earth His work was not to be stopped, but to pass into a higher
stage. He had come to earth not to make a passing display of Divine
power, not t