I suppose it was no easy work to get that crowd seated, for they all wanted to be in the front row, lest the bread give out before their turn come.  No sooner are they seated than there comes a great hush over all the people.  Jesus stands there, His light complexion and auburn locks illumined by the setting sun.  Every eye is on Him.  They wonder what He will do next.  He takes one of the loaves that the boy furnished and breaks off it a piece, which immediately grows to as large a size as the original loaf, the original loaf staying as large as it was before the piece was broken off.  And they leaned forward with intense scrutiny, saying:  “Look! look!” When some one, anxious to see more minutely what is going on, rises in front, they cry:  “Sit down in front!  Let us look for ourselves.”

And then, when the bread is passed around, they taste of it skeptically and inquiringly, as much as to say:  “Is it bread?  Really, is it bread?” Yes, the best bread that was ever made, for Christ made it.  Bread for the first fifty and second fifty.  Bread for the first hundred and the second hundred.  Bread for the first thousand and the second thousand.  Pass it all around the circle:  there, where that aged man sits leaning on his staff, and where that woman sits with the child in her arms.  Pass it all around.  Are you all fed?  “Ay! ay!” respond the ten thousand voices; “all fed.”  One basket would have held the loaves before the miracle; it takes twelve baskets now.  Sound it through all the ages of earth and heaven, that Christ the Lord comes to our suffering race with the bread of this life in one hand, and the bread of eternal life in the other hand.

You have all immediately run out the analogy between that scene and this.  There were thousands there; there are thousands here.  They were in the desert; many of you are in the desert of trouble and sin.  No human power could feed them; no human power can feed you.  Christ appeared to them; Christ appears to you.  Bread enough for all in the desert; bread enough for all who are here.  And, as on that occasion, so in this:  we have the people “sit down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties;” for the fact that many of you stand is no fault of ours, for we have tried to give you seats.  As Christ divided that company into groups, so I divide this audience into three groups:  the pardoned, the seeking, the careless.

I. And, first, I speak to the pardoned.

It is with some of you half past five in the morning, and some faint streaks of light.  With others it is seven o’clock, and thus full dawn.  With others it is twelve o’clock at noon, and you sit in full blaze of Gospel pardon.  I bring you congratulation.  Joseph delivered from Potiphar’s dungeon; Daniel lifted from the lion’s den; Saul arrested and unhorsed on the road to Damascus.  Oh, you delivered captives, how your eyes should gleam, and your souls should bound, and your lips should sing in this pardon!  From what land did you come?