kes the feast. On the other hand, that which is without the
banqueting hall is dark. That darkness is but the making visible of the
nature of the men. Hell comes out of a man before it surrounds him. They
'were sometime darkness,' and now they are in the darkness. I say no
more about that, I dare not; but I pray you to remember that the lips
which said this 'spake that He did know'; and to take heed lest,
speculating and arguing, and sometimes quarrelling, about the nature and
the duration of future retribution, we should lose our sense of the
awfulness and certainty of the fact.

III. So one word lastly as to the answer that faith brings.

'Go thy way; as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.' He heals
at a distance, and shapes His gift by the man's desire. The form of the
vase that is dipped into the sea settles the quantity and the shape of
the water that is taken out. There is a wide truth in that, on which I
do not now enlarge. The measure of my faith is the measure of my
possession of Christ. He puts the key of the treasure-house into our
hands and says, 'Go in, and take as much as you like'; and some of us
come out with a halfpenny as all that we care to bring away. You are
starving, some of you, whilst you are sitting in a granary bursting with
plenty. Suppose a proclamation were made, 'There will be given away gold
to anybody that likes to come. Let them bring a purse, and it will be
filled.' How large a purse do you think you would like to take? A sack,
I should think. Christ says that to you; and you bring a tiny thing like
what they keep sovereigns in, that will scarcely hold a farthing, with
such a narrow throat is it provided, and so small its interior
accommodation. 'Ye have not because ye ask not.' 'Open thy mouth wide
and I will fill it.'

SWIFT HEALING AND IMMEDIATE SERVICE

'And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, He saw his wife's
mother laid, and sick of a fever. 15. And He touched her hand, and
the fever left her: and she arose and ministered unto them.'--MATT.
viii. 14-15.

Other accounts give a few additional points.

Mark:--

That the house was that of Peter and Andrew.

That Christ went with James and John.

That He was told of the sickness.

That He lifted her up.

Luke, physician-like, diagnoses the fever as 'great.' He also tells us
that the sick woman's friends _besought_ Jesus and did not merely 'tell'
Him of her. May we infer that to His ear