e or none could be obtained. You cry out for a new
supply to the cistern; that supply given will fill this channel which is
for the the moment in requisition, and all the other channels at the
same time. Endurance and forgiving--more than we are able to bear and
bestow--are at this moment required of us; but if we had more faith, we
should exhibit more of these graces, and more of all graces.

The Lord in his answer acknowledges that their inference is correct. By
another form of expression, similar in character to the "seven times in
a day," he intimates that faith possesses an unlimited power of
production in the department of doing. To intensify the result he
employs a double hyperbole, as engineers employ two pairs of wheels to
generate extreme rapidity of motion; the smallest spark of faith will
overcome the greatest obstacles that may lie across a Christian's path.
Again, the same idea which appeared before in Matt. xvii. 20, is
expressed here by a different figure: in both cases the Lord intends to
intimate that what without faith is impossible, may with faith be done.
In Matthew the impossible is represented by the removal of a mountain;
in Luke by the planting of a sycamore in the sea. By these forms our
Teacher conveys his meaning with amazing distinctness. The letters of
his lessons thus sharply, deeply cut, remain indeed dead letters to
those who have not experienced the grace of God; as letters of a book,
the largest and loveliest lie meaningless before the eyes of a savage or
a little child; but in either case, as soon as the scholar becomes
capable of understanding, the meaning shines forth like light. It would
be a great transition from our present position of impotence, if we
should become able to remove a mountain, or plant a sycamore in the sea;
such and so great is the transition when a man passes from death in sin
to life in Christ; such and so great the difference between what he
could bear, and hope, and do while he was at enmity with God, and what
he can bear, and hope, and do when he is reconciled to God through the
death of his Son.

The particular requirement which on this occasion put the faith of the
disciples under a strain greater than it was able to meet, was the
endurance and the forgiving of injuries; but this Scripture must not be
limited to a private interpretation; this is a specimen shown in
illustration of a general rule. There are diversities of operation,
under the providence of