The sun was far down in the west, night was coming on, and there were five thousand people tired, hungry, shelterless.  You know how Washington felt at Valley Forge, when his army was starving and freezing.  You may imagine how any great-hearted general would feel while his troops were suffering.  Imagine, then, how Christ, with His great heart, must have felt as He saw these five thousand hunger-bitten people.  Yes, I suppose there were ten thousand there, for the Bible says there were five thousand men, besides women and children.  The case is put in that way, not because the women and children were of less importance than the men, but because they would eat less; and the whole force of the miracle turns on the amount of food required.

How shall this great multitude be supplied?  I see a selfish man in that crowd pulling a luncheon out of his own pocket, and saying:  “Let the people starve.  They had no business to come out here in the desert without any provisions.  They are improvident, and the improvident ought to suffer.”  There is another man, not quite so heartless, who says:  “Go up into the village and buy bread.”  What a foolish proposition!  There is not enough food in all the village for this crowd; besides that, who has the money to pay for it?  Xerxes’ army, one million strong, was fed by a private individual of great wealth for only one day, but it broke him.  Who, then, shall feed this multitude?

I see a man rising in that great crowd and asking:  “Is there any one here who has bread or meat?” A kind of moan goes through the whole throng.  “No bread—­no meat.”  But just at that time a lad steps up.  You know when a great crowd goes off upon an excursion, there are always men and boys to go along for the purpose of merchandise and to strike a bargain:  and so, I suppose, this boy had gone along for the purpose of merchandise; but he was nearly all sold out, having only five loaves and two fishes left.  He is a generous boy, and he turns them over to Christ.

But these loaves would not feed twenty people, how much less ten thousand!  Though the action was so generous on the part of the boy, so far as satisfying the multitude, it was a dead failure.  Then Jesus comes to the rescue.  He is apt to come when there is a dead lift.  He commands the people that they sit down “in ranks, by hundreds and by fifties,” as much as to say:  “Order! order! so that none be missed.”  It was fortunate that that arrangement was made; otherwise, at the very first appearance of bread, the strong ones would have clutched it, while the feeble and the modest would have gone unsupplied.