works or heard wonderful words; many because they hoped at length to find in the new prophet the champion of their hopes in deliverance from Roman bondage.  But these sooner or later fell away, disappointed in their desire to use the new leader for their own ends.  It was only because from out the multitudes there were a few who could answer, “To whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life,” when Jesus asked, “Will ye also go away?” that the work in Galilee did not end in complete failure.  These few had felt his personal power, and they became the nucleus of a new religion of love to a personal Saviour.

146.  The test of the personal attachment of the few came shortly after the execution of John the Baptist by Antipas.  Word of this tragedy was brought to Jesus by John’s disciples about the time that he and the twelve returned to Capernaum from their tour of preaching.  At the suggestion of Jesus they withdrew to the eastern side of the lake in search of rest.  It is not unlikely that the little company also wished to avoid for the time the territory of the tyrant who had just put John to death, for Jesus was not yet ready for the crisis of his own life.  Such a desire for seclusion would be intensified by the continued impetuous enthusiasm of the multitudes who flocked about him again in Capernaum.  In fact, so insistent was their interest in Jesus that they would not allow him the quiet he sought, but followed around the lake in great numbers when they learned that he had taken ship for the other side.  He who came not to be ministered unto but to minister could not repel the crowds who came to him, and he at once “welcomed them, and spake to them of the kingdom of God, and them that had need of healing he healed” (Luke ix. 11).  The day having passed in this ministry, he multiplied the small store of bread and fish brought by his disciples in order to feed the weary people.  This work of power seemed to some among the multitudes to be the last thing needed to prove that Jesus was to be their promised deliverer, and they “were about to come and take him by force and make him king” (John vi. 15), when he withdrew from them and spent the night in prayer.

147.  This sudden determination on the part of the multitudes to force the hand of Jesus was probably due to the prevalence of an idea, found also in the later rabbinic writers, that the Messiah should feed his people as Moses had provided them manna in the desert.  The rebuff which Jesus quietly gave them did not cool their ardor, until on the following day, in the synagogue in Capernaum, he plainly taught them that they had quite missed the significance of his miracle.  They thought of loaves and material sustenance.  He would have had them find in these a sign that he could also supply their spirits’ need, and he insisted that this, and this alone, was his actual mission.  From the first the popular enthusiasm had had to ignore many contradictions of its cherished notions.  But his power and the