IN the verses we are now to consider we are still face to face with the manifestation of opposition to the King. Indeed, prior to the dividing of the ways at Caesarea Philippi, the account of which is found in the next chapter, opposition became more direct, more keen, more systematic.

These Pharisees and scribes constituted a very definite deputation from Jerusalem. They sought Him out with the set purpose of critical consultation, the nature of their question revealed their eagerness and anxiety to draw Him into controversy; their critical attitude was at once manifest. The first eleven verses tell us the story of their coming, and of how the Lord dealt with them. In the other nine verses we have the account of the conversation of the disciples with Jesus concerning what He had said to the Pharisees, and the way in which He had dealt with them.

In the second verse we have the Pharisees' question. At the close of the section we find that our Lord was still dealing with that subject, though speaking to His disciples.

The fame of Jesus was spreading, and His influence was also spreading among the common people, that is among all the people who did not hold official positions. All sorts and conditions of men were attracted by Christ. Pharisees and publicans mingled oftentimes; the rulers and the ruled were side by side; rich and poor, learned and illiterate followed Him and listened to Him. The attractive power of Jesus Christ did not lie in the accidentals which appealed to a few; it was rather that of His essential humanity, which found an answer in all human life, notwithstanding the accidentals of birth and position and education. There was growing opposition, but at the same time there was growing attractiveness; and men were crowding after Him, and that, notwithstanding that He was saying things of increasing severity as time went on.

At last this deputation of Pharisees and scribes came from Jerusalem, and came with a definite problem. The point of their criticism does not appear upon the surface. They asked, "Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread." Behind this question there lay the essential difference between their religion, and that of Jesus Christ. It is as though they had said to Him, We are anxious to understand Your position, and the meaning of Your teaching; and we bring You a simple illustration of difference between Your disciples and ours. We are ready to enter into consultation. Is there any way of compromise between us? They did not at the first say how strong was their objection to the attitude of His disciples; that they considered that His disciples were doing wrong. They simply asked a question, Why do Thy disciples eat bread with unwashed hands?

Now, in order to understand Christ's answer, it is necessary to recognize that this was not a question as to cleanliness; it was purely a question of ritual. They were objecting to the fact that His disciples, in their comradeship with Christ, neglected certain ceremonial observances, which they, the Pharisees, held to be of supreme importance. The whole religious life of Hebraism at this time had become encumbered with ceremonial observances that followed men into all the details of their lives; and these were based upon the interpretation of men, who had added the traditions of the elders to the divinely revealed religion. This very question of washing before meals was the result of a tradition that Shibta, a demon, sat upon the hands of men as they slept during the hours of the night, and if any person should touch his food with unwashed hands, then that demon sat upon his food and made it dangerous. We are very much inclined to smile at this, but it was the actual teaching of certain of the Rabbis. The Rabbi Taanith, in consequence of this superstition, taught that, "Whosoever hath his abode in the land of Israel and eateth his common food with washed hands, and speaks the holy language, and recites his phylacteries morning and evening, he may rest assured that he shall obtain eternal life." Gradually religion had degenerated into the observance of such outward ceremonies as these. Men who had taught these things came to Jesus Christ and asked Him, How is it that Your disciples neglect this washing of hands, this ritualistic ceremonial before meals, whereby men may be made sure of eternal life? Thus behind the local and illustrative question, there existed their concern that the disciples of Jesus had violated tradition; and what that meant may be gathered from other Rabbinical teachings. One of the Rabbis had declared; "The words of the elders are weightier than the words of the prophets." While yet another had said, "Some of the words of the law and the prophets are weighty, others are not weighty. All the words of tradition are weighty words." Thus the real condition of affairs was that these Pharisees and scribes, who had become the authoritative interpreters of the law of God, had super-added thereto the tradition of elders; indeed they had submerged the law of God beneath tradition; they had actually minimized the value of the law of God and the messages of the prophets in their exaltation of these traditions. They said in effect, The Scriptures of the Hebrew people are not enough, they must be interpreted; and interpretation in many cases had become contradiction. Out of the midst of their traditions they brought this one illustration of how the disciples of Jesus Christ were violating them.

Our Lord's answer to these men was twofold. First, He directly answered the Pharisees; and then He called the multitudes to Him, and uttered a very remarkable and solemn word of warning to them about the Pharisees.

He commenced His answer to the Pharisees with the words; "Why do ye also?"-Mark the "also;" there is tremendous force in it. There was not a single word in Christ's answer that denied that His disciples had violated tradition. So far from denying that they had violated tradition, He vindicated them for doing so. If He had for one single moment said anything, or said what He did say in such a "form as to suggest that after all they had not violated tradition, there may have been some excuse for tradition. But He did not, and therefore the set teaching of this passage is against tradition.

He admitted their violation in the word "also;" they did not wash their hands, not merely by neglect, but of set purpose. They had swept out of their lives the very things upon which the Pharisees set value.

His whole question to these Pharisees was; "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God, because of your tradition?" and in that answering inquiry we come to the very heart of the difference between the religion of the Pharisees and the religion of Jesus Christ. He charged them that by their very tradition they had transgressed the commandment of God. His question suggested the inference, that the supreme thing in every life is not human tradition, but God's commandment.

These men had brought an illustration of how His disciples violated tradition. He gave them one of how they, by tradition, violated the Divine Commandment. He said to them in effect; You have a tradition that if a man shall say over anything that he possesses, "Corban"-that is, it is devoted; or it is a gift to God; in the case of everything so protected, he shall not only not be compelled to minister to the need of his parents, but is forbidden to do so.

Thus the King showed by this supreme and remarkable contrast, how tradition violated the commandment of God to honour father and mother; in that they would allow some mystic word to be pronounced to save a man from obligation; and thus a man was taught by tradition, that he could be religious and true to God, a worshipper, and a man of high principle, while all the while he was violating God's first commandment with promise. Our Lord did not answer them by dealing first with their own illustration, but by providing another illustration to show how tradition may cause a man to break in upon his relationship to God.

Then by quotation from their own ancient prophecy, which He directly applied to them, He revealed the secret of their failure;

Christ's charge was that it is possible to honour God with the lip while the heart is far from Him.

Then He turned to the multitudes, and, calling them to Him, He rebuked the Pharisees. In the words He uttered to the multitudes we find His condemnation of external religion, and His affirmation of the importance of heart relationship.

Now He took up their own illustration, as He said; the things that enter a man as to his body never defile a man, but the things that come from the centre of a man's essential life are the things that defile. How revolutionary these words must have sounded in the hearing of the multitudes; how searching even to His own disciples; and how angry they must have made the Pharisees. What to eat, and what not to eat; what to wear, and what not to wear; what to do and what not to do; these were trivialities which had become supreme matters in the influence and the teaching of scribes and Pharisees. In correction the King declared; It is not the thing that a man touches in his physical life that pollutes him. Not that Jesus meant to say that there is no relationship between the physical and spiritual. We must not take a single text and base a false philosophy upon it, or we shall be violating the commandment of God as these men did. There is the closest relationship between spirit, mind, and body; and this is taught throughout the old and new economies. But when a man thinks he makes himself religious by observing rules which deal only with the physical, he has missed the heart and centre of religion; and therefore the King affirmed in the hearing of the multitudes, that it was not the physical thing that entered into the man that defiled him, but the things that came from his heart, the seat of intelligence, and emotion, and will, the spiritual centre of a man. Christ said that from that spiritual centre spring all the forces that defile. So that a man may wash his hands not only before meals, but as the Pharisees did, between the courses, a man may be ceremonially clean by the observance of all the traditions of the elders, and yet his heart may be a veritable sink of iniquity, a flowing stream and a river, not polluting himself only, but also the life of family, friends, of the city and the nation. This was the King's protest against any religion that consists in the observance of externalities; and His affirmation of the fact that nothing makes life pure but inward purity which will influence all the externalities.

After this teaching the disciples came to Jesus, filled with concern. They said, Do you know that the Pharisees are offended? There is a very human touch in this; something that makes it very kin to our own age. They seemed to say, The deputation was from Jerusalem, a deputation of elders; they were men of light and learning, and You have offended these men? Perhaps there was a touch of reproach in their question. Observe what we may describe as the ruthlessness of Christ's answer. There is no pity in the word of Jesus for error, no matter by whomsoever the error may be taught Men who were violating the commandment of God by insisting upon the tradition, men who were hiding that commandment underneath tradition had no place in His pity. Our Lord said, "Every plant which My heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up." He was not referring to the men, but to the system for which they stood; and in effect He said to His disciples, when they told Him the Pharisees were offended, that He had nothing to do with these Pharisees. He never descended to the level of dealing with men personally in order to hurt and harm them. The plant of traditional religion God had not planted, and it was His indication of His method with His' disciples when He told them that the plants which were not of God's planting must be rooted up. Therefore He said, "Let them alone: they are blind guides." That explained what He had done. He had not attacked them; He was not dealing with them as individuals; but with the evil thing in their system and teaching. He came, the Truth, to correct error; He came, God's own great Vine of life, and light, and love, to destroy the false fungus growths upon religious thinking which were sapping the very life of men and ruining them. When Peter came and inquired the meaning of the parable, showing how they were astonished at the radical thing Jesus had said, He repeated what He had already said as to the sources of defilement.

Now let us notice the teaching of this section for ourselves. First, in His dealing with the tradition of the scribes and Pharisees, Christ revealed the perpetual conflict between divine and human religion. Human religion is conditioned in externalities, and therefore fails to touch essential life. Divine religion begins in essential life, and from that centre governs the last externality. There is perpetual difference. It is manifest all through the New Testament, and when we come to the teaching of the Epistles we find it specially emphasized. If we take the Galatian Epistle, the charter of Christian liberty, it sets at nought the idea that any man may be made spiritual by fleshly observance; and insists upon the necessity for spiritual relationship, if there is to be spiritual purity. The difference between human and divine religion is always seen in this respect. In all heathen religions, religion and morality are divorced. This is the supreme test of religion. Is our religion a thing of the heart, a communion between our inner life and God, a force that drives us to the watch-tower in the morning to catch the gleam of the glory of the pathway of His feet, a passion that sends us back to Him with shame and disgust when we have sinned? That is the true religion. If Jesus in all the virtue of His life and love sits sentinel in our heart we shall guard our lips, and be careful as to what we eat or drink; but it is not the things that enter in, but the things that come out of the centre which defile the man. That is the perpetual test. Christ's estimate concerning tradition must be ours also. Wherever tradition violates the commandment of God, it is to be violated. And every plant which God has not planted must be rooted up.

Tradition still binds us very largely. We have super-added very much in our Christian life to the simplicity of Jesus Christ. Man is naturally, unless he be very careful, the slave of tradition. In certain parts of Wales people will not lay the bodies of their loved ones to final resting-places save as they are enswathed in flannel, because in a certain reign a law was passed that this should be done for the purpose of giving a new impetus to the flannel industry. There was a reason for the practice once; but the reason has become a tradition, and these people would think they were irreligious if they violated the tradition. What tradition binds us? Are we bound by a tradition that it is a good thing to read our Bible every morning? Break through it if there is nothing more in such reading than the observance of a tradition. If we are simply the slaves of tradition, even though the tradition may have had its foundation in a reason, the tradition becomes a barrier that shuts us out from God. There are some persons, for instance, who are so harmed by the traditions of public worship that all the warmth, and soul, and force of public worship fails to touch them. There are people to whom the tradition of Church relationship has no other value than that of the lightning-conductor to a building. It serves to catch the electric force and carry it off, so that it never touches the building. Our King desires to bring every man from the bondage of everything, into living touch with God. Everything that separates between us and God, though it be the most religious and sanctified thing by old associations, we had better sweep it away. The very sacred Supper of the Lord may become such a tradition as to shut us out of communion with Jesus Christ. The very ceremony of sacred and reverent worship may become a door that bars us from communion; the very conventionalities of our respectability may become the traditions that exclude us from God.

There must be personal and direct heart relationship with God. Let us therefore be very much afraid of any system of religion that declares that anything more is needed for the cultivation of religious life than the commandment of God. Any interpretation of men becomes at last a tradition. Any exposition which is human, when you lift it into a necessity becomes a curse. There is a place for exposition, there is a place for interpretation, there is a place for teaching; but the interpretation and the exposition, and the teaching, must never be made essential. The essential thing is the commandment of God, and lest our interpretations, and expositions, and traditions, should violate that commandment, let us guard our souls, and let us see to it that we stand first in relationship with God. In true religion there is no room for anything between the spirit of a man and the flaming Spirit of God, and whether the thing between be priest, or sacrament, or ceremony, or observance, it must be swept out,

is the cry of the true worshipper, and when that cry is answered, then there is religion which will immediately affect all the externalities. Let us be very much afraid of externalities, lest they seduce us from spiritual worship. Let us very jealously cultivate spiritual worship that it may affect and govern all the externalities of life.

THE key to the understanding of this paragraph in its relationship to the progress of the King's enforcement of His claims, is to be found in the opening statement; "And Jesus went out thence, and withdrew into the parts of Tyre and Sidon." A similar statement has occurred before in this Gospel three times at least; and now again we read that He withdrew; but here a break is indicated, and a marked contrast is manifested in the things before His withdrawal and those which followed. Perhaps we may summarize the whole matter by saying that He withdrew from the infidelity of traditional religion, to the faith which lives outside the covenant. He had been exercising His ministry amongst His own people, and, as we have seen, there had been an increase of confidence; men had gathered to Him, and had been helped, healed, and blessed by Him. On the other hand, there had been a clearly defined growth of opposition, which, "i so far, had culminated in the coming of the deputation of Pharisees and scribes, who raised in illustration the whole question of His method. Now turning His back upon them, and the whole ideal for which they stood, He broke more definitely with His own people than ever before, and went to Tyre and Sidon. The story following gives us the picture of His ministry among people other than His own. The Canaanitish woman, the multitudes that gathered to Him at Decapolis, and the multitudes that He fed, were people outside the Hebrew covenant of flesh relationship. He passed over the border, crossed the line of geographical limitation, and first dealt with the woman who was a daughter of the outcast people. He then exercised the power of His Kingdom among people who were all outside the covenant, and who came into living relationship with Him upon one single principle, as we shall see. Finally, in a great beneficent flow of His tenderness, He fed the multitudes outside the border of Israel, as but recently He had fed the multitudes within that border. Such is the character of the passage we are now to consider.

First, let us look still more carefully at this contrast of place, and people, and condition. To the King the journey to Tyre and Sidon was one of set purpose, and for specific reason. He must have been supremely conscious of all the blindness that had happened to Israel, of the darkness that had settled upon God's own people, and to Him, may we not say, it was a journey in which the song of the larger purpose was in His heart.

The story of Tyre and Sidon-the region long under the curse of God-lay in the background. Not long before, when warning the cities inside the geographical boundary-Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum-He held Tyre and Sidon up, as an illustration, to a people who had received the light, saying Tyre and Sidon would have repented in sackcloth and ashes had they had the same light. Having dealt with the Syrophenician woman, He left the immediate neighbourhood of the cities, and came to the sea of Galilee. Mark distinctly tells us that He came into Decapolis, so that it is evident that He remained in Gentile territory and among Gentile people.

Let us look, then, at the new people by whom He was surrounded. Beginning with that Canaanitish woman, we recognize that she was a direct descendant of people who were outcasts in the divine economy, people who had been swept out on account of their awful and disastrous failure in the past, because the love of God needed to make way for purer people to fulfill His purpose in succeeding generations. We learn from Mark that she was a Syrophenician woman, and a Greek. The word Greek does not refer to nationality. She was not a Greek by birth, but one of the Semitic peoples, and yet not within the covenant. She was a Greek by religion, and Greek, as Mark used the word, meant heathen. It has been said that this was the first heathen convert to Christianity. She was undoubtedly a worshipper of Asherali or Astarte, that strange system, false and degraded on the one side, high and beautiful on the other. There were elect souls who saw the higher ideal, and who walked in the glimmering light. It may be this woman in the worship of Astarte had realized the highest ideal possible to her of religion. But presently, she turned from Astarte the goddess of nature, because she was unable therein to find the answer to her deepest need.

The new people also were foreign, using the word foreign as the Hebrew would have used it. In the last part of our chapter, at verse thirty-seven, we read, "And they all ate, and were filled; and they took up that which remained over of the broken pieces, seven baskets full." In the fourteenth chapter and the twentieth verse, we read, "And they all ate, and were filled; and they took up that which remained over of the broken pieces twelve baskets full." In chapter sixteen, verses nine and ten, the margin of the Revised Version draws attention to a suggestive fact when it says, "Basket in verses nine and ten represent different Greek words." Jesus, in referring to the two miracles, said; "Do ye not yet perceive, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand"-that was the first miracle in the midst of the Hebrew people-"and how many baskets ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand," that was the second miracle among these people outside the covenant-"and how many baskets ye took up?" He used two entirely different words in referring to the baskets. The word He used of the first miracle was the same as we have in the account of the first miracle, and the word He used of the second miracle was the same as in the account of the A second miracle. There was carefulness and discrimination in this choice of words. If we trace this through the Gospels, we shall find that the four Evangelists give the account of the first miracle, and they all use the first word. Only two of them give the account of the second miracle, and they both use the second word. The difference is that the first word translated basket refers to a receptacle that was peculiarly Hebrew, a small basket in which the travelling Hebrew carried his food. The second word basket refers to a much larger receptacle, platted and woven, the basket carried by the Gentile merchantman on his journey. With all accuracy we may describe the difference by saying that the one was the basket of the Jews, and the other the basket of the Gentiles. All this strengthens the view that the feeding of the four thousand was the feeding, not of the people of the same economy, but of people outside. We see the King halting with the child of the cursed race. We see Him healing people outside the covenant in Decapolis. We see Him feeding four thousand people outside the covenant.

Now mark the new condition to which Jesus had come. He had turned His back upon the critical unbelief of the rulers of His own people; and He found Himself in the atmosphere of faith; and this fact drew forth from Him a remarkable commendation. He had warned the people against the Pharisees, the rulers of religion in their own age, but to a woman outside the covenant, an idolater, a worshipper of Astarte, He said, "O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even, as thou wilt."

This faith was manifested not only by the woman, but also by the multitudes. We see Him returning from the city and going to Decapolis and climbing the mountain, and we watch them thronging up after Him. What a sight it must have been, these people crowding, hurrying, jostling after Him, carrying sick, blind, maimed, lame! The Greek word suggests a great rush, and hurry. They flung them at His feet as fast as they could bear them to Him, and as fast as they came He healed them. What wonderful reticence there is in these Gospel narratives! Whole crowds of miracles are packed into a passing sentence; "He healed them." What made these people bring these sick folk? Faith. Not faith as a theoretical conviction, not faith as a creed recited, such as the Pharisees had, but faith in a Person, faith in His ability. With all reverence we may say that day in Decapolis was a great day for Jesus. He found one woman, and He said, "Great is thy faith." He found great multitudes of people in the midst of idolatry, who nevertheless when the light shone, answered it, and carried their sick to Him for healing.

Finally notice, however, that the feeding of the four thousand was not the answer to faith. It was the over-plus of His tenderness. Let us not try to add dignity to it by robbing it of its simplicity. He knew that if the multitudes went back as they were they would be hungry and faint; and He fed them. It was the King, unable to hold His bounty in check when hungering men and women, although outside the covenant, were in need.

The great truth taught by all this is that the benefits of the Kingdom are granted to simple faith. Look at this woman. In the background was her religion; in the foreground was her need. The worship of Astarte, perhaps, had sufficed for her till then. But when the dark day came, and the demon entered her child, and she cried and wailed to the goddess Astarte, there was no answer. And so as this woman came to Jesus Christ we see her religious background fading away, because it could not help her. In the foreground there was her anguish. Mark how she came; how faith operated. She came first of all against prejudice, for the prejudice of the Gentile was as great against the Jew as that of the Jew against the Gentile. Here the prejudice was on both sides, and yet this woman, driven by her need, came to seek Him.

She persevered against silence. Sometimes we question the meaning of Christ's strange attitude towards this woman. In Mark's Gospel we read, when He came into this region "He entered into a house, and would have no man know it" He went into the house for rest. How did the woman get to Him? Mark says, "He could not be hid." Why not? She was outside, and her need drew Him forth. He could not remain in hiding or in rest while that woman was outside in trouble. And when He came out of the house she proffered her request, first calling Him Son of David; and He was silent. And the disciples came to Jesus, and said to Him, "Send her away: for she crieth after us." We might misunderstand that request if it were not for Christ's reply to her, which shows that they meant, Give her what she wants and let her go. They were not unkind; they did not mean, Refuse her, send her away. Christ's answer was, "I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." That was His reason for not giving her what she sought. She still pleaded; and dropped the title distinctive of Hebraism-"Son of David." She put the whole of her need into the one word, "Lord, help me." Then He turned towards her and spoke, and at the first moment His speech seemed almost more unkind than His silence. "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs." Here again occurs a word we need to examine. There are two distinct words for dogs, and they mark two entirely different ideas. We all know how profound was the hatred of the Hebrew to the low, marauding, fierce, half scavenger, half-wolf dog of that country. But then it is also true that dogs were found in Jewish households; they were the little dogs, the playthings of the children; and the word Christ used here was that for the little dogs. Probably there was a great welling of pity and tenderness in the voice of Jesus as He said to her, "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the little dogs." Now, on the basis of that distinction, let us see what she said-"Yea, Lord, for even the little dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters' tables."-Notice carefully the placing of the apostrophe. "Masters" is plural. It is as if she said, It is true I am outside the covenant; they are masters, they have been for centuries. If you say you cannot take the bread of the children and give it to the little dogs under the table, the playthings of the children, it is quite true; but even the little dogs have the crumbs. It is not surprising that Jesus looked at her and said, " O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even as thou wilt." Against prejudice she came, against silence she persevered, against exclusion she proceeded, against rebuff she won. That is what He found outside the covenant. Her appeal was based on faith. When she said, "Son of David," it was the hope of faith. When she said, "Lord, help me," it was the appeal of faith. When she said, "True, Lord, yet the little dogs eat of the crumbs," it was what an old Puritan commentator called "the wit of faith," using the word wit in the true old Saxon sense, the tact of faith.

Turn for a moment from the woman, and glance at the multitudes. We have exactly the same truth the Kingdom benefits given in answer to faith. The bringing of the unfit to Jesus was a venture of faith, in all likelihood the outcome of this woman's victory, for faith is always propagative, and some one else will believe because we have believed. Let faith in Christ be manifested in some victory we gain, and there is nothing in the wide world more propagative of faith in other people. As we see these people crowd up the mountain sides carrying all the incompetents of the neighbourhood, what does it mean? That one woman's faith, which had won a victory, had created faith in Jesus in the whole district and neighbourhood, and amongst all the people. And what did He do? He answered them all as they came. Oh the glory of the King! All the difficulties were in Jerusalem among those men who were always washing their hands! Christ has no difficulty with the man who is polluted with sin, when that man sighs his soul to Him in faith. But He has a good deal of difficulty with the traditional ritualist. It is the man who comes with the great burden, who in faith commits his need to the King, that feels all the virtue of His healing pass into his life. There was no difficulty with these people when they believed.

When these people obtained their blessings "They glorified the God of Israel." These were not of Israel after the flesh. They were outside, they were people of Decapolis. They were the condemned Gentiles, but they glorified the God of Israel. Why? Because one Man, Jesus of Israel, of Judah's Kingly tribe, had fulfilled toward them the Divine intention. When God made the nation He said, to the Founder, "I will bless thee and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing." This Man, living in the covenant relationship under God's blessing, was made a blessing; and through Him the rivers of God's life were flowing, not merely inside the geographical boundary in which He lived as a Jew, but out to Tyre and Sidon, to Decapolis, to a Canaanitish woman, to the multitudes of men and women outside the covenant! Thus the Divine ideal for Israel was realized in this King, and outsiders were made of Israel in spirit by faith.

Finally, notice how the movement of the latter half of this chapter is the demonstration of the strength of faith. Perhaps He took His disciples there, that they might see the thing He had not been able to show them in the midst of His own people with their traditionalism and ritualism; that they might see faith working free and untrammelled; and as He took them there He revealed to them the force of faith in contrast with the barrenness of ritualism.

In His dealing with the woman there was not half the severity we sometimes imagine. In His every action there was a gleam of light. First, He came out of the house and was silent; but she could not forget that because she was outside claiming Him, He had come forth. This was the inspiration of her firmer faith. Then when she cried, and He was silent, let us remember that silence is not refusal; indeed, we have heard that silence gives consent! In His silence there was still the gleam of hope. When He answered the disciples she heard Him say, "I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." In that there was a suggestion of hope; she may have said within herself, Then perhaps .He will do something, after all; If He is after lost sheep, perhaps He will come put side the one fold and touch me. Then she cried, "Lord, help me" That cry was born of the gleam o hope when He said "lost sheep;" and when He turned to her it was not with the tone of severity, as we have already seen. Christ never spoke severely except to Pharisees. He was leading her on, increasing her faith. He knew the strength of her faith, and He wanted to bring it out into all its strength. He could have said to the woman, "great is thy faith" at the beginning, but He led her through the process of sifting until it flamed into the sight of men. The strength of faith as developed by Jesus, seems to be the special value of this story.

And then, finally, notice the King's pure pity as He fed the multitude. That feeding was not an answer to faith. The crowd did not ask Him to feed them. The disciples did not seem to believe that He was called upon to feed them. They had seen Him feed the multitudes in Judea; but that was within the covenant, and the geographically correct place. But there was pity in His heart and power there; and though among people who might never see the spiritual life, still He fed them, lest they should faint by the way.

Behold the King. Behold Him with the woman, all strength and tenderness, merging from the process of apparent severity to the triumph of a great beneficence. Behold Him with the incapable people as they are brought to Him, the breadth and plenteousness of His power operating on their behalf. Behold Him with the hungry; in simple and exquisite sympathy, He fed them.

Let us learn from this meditation what is the law of relation to this King which brings men into the place of blessing. It is faith which is persistent; faith which is amenable to law, answering every word He says I "Lord, increase our faith."

In our relation to Jesus Christ as His messengers and workers, let us look for faith in unexpected places. Let us not keep out of Tyre and Sidon because there are no good people there. There is a freshness of faith everywhere waiting to surprise us if we will only venture to cross the line.