Then, there was in him a beautiful human kindliness, which neither the rough military life, nor that carelessness about a slave—­which is one of the worst fruits of slavery, had been able to sour or destroy.  He was tenderly anxious about his servant, who, according to Luke’s expression, was ‘dear to him.’  Then we get as the crown of all the beauty of his character, the lowliness of spirit which the ‘little brief authority’ in which he ‘was dressed’ had not puffed up.  ’I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof.’  That lowliness is emphasised in Luke’s version of the story, which is more detailed and particularly accurate than Matthew’s summary account.  By it we learn that he did not venture to come himself, but sent His messengers to Jesus.  If we take Matthew’s version, there is another lovely trait.  He does not ask Christ to do anything.  He simply spreads the necessity before Him, in the confidence that His pitying love lies so near the surface that it was sure to flow forth, even at that light touch.  He will not prescribe, he tells the story, and leaves all to Him.  Christ’s answer, ’I will come and heal him,’ throbs with the consciousness of power, and is gentle with tenderness, quick to interpret unspoken wishes, and not slow to answer, unless it is for the wisher’s good to be refused.  When He was asked to go, because the asker considered that His presence was necessary for His power to have effect, He refused; when He is not asked to go, He volunteers to do so.  He is moved to apparently opposite actions by the same motive, the good of the petitioner, whose weak faith He strengthens by refusal, whose strong faith He confirms by acquiescence.  And that is the law of His conduct always, and you and I may trust it absolutely, He may give, or retain ungiven, what we desire; in either case, He will be acting in order that our trust in Him may be deepened.

That brings us to the remarkable and unique conception of our Lord’s manner of working and power to which this centurion gives utterance.  ’I also’ (for the true text of Matthew has that ‘also,’ as the Revised Version shows), ’I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; to another, Come, and he cometh; to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.  Speak thou with a word only and my servant shall be healed.’  A centurion was likely to understand the power of a word of command.  His whole training had taught him the omnipotence of the uttered will of the authoritative general, and although he was but an officer over a poor sixtieth part of a legion, yet in some limited measure the same power lay in him, and his word could secure unhesitating submission.  One good thing about the devilish trade of war is that it teaches the might of authority and the virtue of absolute obedience.  And even his profession, with all its roughness and wickedness, had taught the centurion this precious lesson, a jewel that he had found in a dunghill, the lesson that, given the authoritative lip, a word is omnipotent.  The commander speaks and the legion goes, though it be to dash itself to death.