There was something singularly beautiful and attractive, as well as majestic and impressive, in the teaching of our Lord.  The Sermon on the Mount is a most pleasing specimen of His method of conveying instruction.  Whilst He gives utterance to sentiments of exalted wisdom, He employs language so simple, and imagery so chaste and natural, that even a child takes a pleasure in perusing His address.  There is reason to think that He did not begin to speak in parables until a considerable time after He had entered upon His ministry. [23:1] By these symbolical discourses He at once blinded the eyes of His enemies, and furnished materials for profitable meditation to His genuine disciples.  The parables, like the light of prophecy, are, to this very day, a beacon to the Church, and a stumbling-block to unbelievers.

The claims of Jesus as the Christ were decisively established by the Divine power which He manifested.  It had been foretold that certain extraordinary recoveries from disease and infirmity would be witnessed in the days of the Messiah; and these predictions were now literally fulfilled.  The eyes of the blind were opened, and the ears of the deaf were unstopped; the lame man leaped as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sang. [23:2] Not a few of the cures of our Saviour were wrought on individuals to whom He was personally unknown; [23:3] and many of His works of wonder were performed in the presence of friends and foes. [23:4] Whilst His miracles exceeded in number all those recorded in the Old Testament, they were still more remarkable for their variety and their excellence.  By His touch, or His word, he healed the most inveterate maladies; He fed the multitude by thousands out of a store of provisions which a little boy could carry; [24:1] He walked upon the waves of the sea, when it was agitated by a tempest; [24:2] He made the storm a calm, so that the wind at once ceased to blow, and the surface of the deep reposed, at the same moment, in glassy smoothness; [24:3] He cast out devils; and He restored life to the dead.  Well might the Pharisees be perplexed by the inquiry—­“How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?” [23:4] It is quite possible that false prophets, by the help of Satan, may accomplish feats fitted to excite astonishment; and yet, in such cases, the agents of the Wicked One may be expected to exhibit some symptoms of his spirit and character.  But nothing diabolical, or of an evil tendency, appeared in the miracles of our Lord.  With the one exception of the cursing of the barren fig-tree [24:5]—­a malediction which created no pain, and involved no substantial loss—­all his displays of power were indicative of His goodness and His mercy.  No other than a true prophet would have been enabled so often to control the course of nature, in the production of results of such utility, such benignity, and such grandeur.