that sufferers came from Syria and beyond Jordan, and
even from Jerusalem, several days’ journey away,
to be cured of their diseases. Here he healed
the centurion’s servant and Peter’s mother-in-law,
and multitudes of the lame and the blind and persons
possessed of devils; and here, also, he raised Jairus’s
daughter from the dead. He went into a ship
with his disciples, and when they roused him from
sleep in the midst of a storm, he quieted the winds
and lulled the troubled sea to rest with his voice.
He passed over to the other side, a few miles away
and relieved two men of devils, which passed into
some swine. After his return he called Matthew
from the receipt of customs, performed some cures,
and created scandal by eating with publicans and sinners.
Then he went healing and teaching through Galilee,
and even journeyed to Tyre and Sidon. He chose
the twelve disciples, and sent them abroad to preach
the new gospel. He worked miracles in Bethsaida
and Chorazin—villages two or three miles
from Capernaum. It was near one of them that
the miraculous draft of fishes is supposed to have
been taken, and it was in the desert places near the
other that he fed the thousands by the miracles of
the loaves and fishes. He cursed them both,
and Capernaum also, for not repenting, after all the
great works he had done in their midst, and prophesied
against them. They are all in ruins, now—which
is gratifying to the pilgrims, for, as usual, they
fit the eternal words of gods to the evanescent things
of this earth; Christ, it is more probable, referred
to the people, not their shabby villages of wigwams:
he said it would be sad for them at “the day
of judgment”—and what business have
mud-hovels at the Day of Judgment? It would
not affect the prophecy in the least —it
would neither prove it or disprove it—if
these towns were splendid cities now instead of the
almost vanished ruins they are. Christ visited
Magdala, which is near by Capernaum, and he also visited
Cesarea Philippi. He went up to his old home
at Nazareth, and saw his brothers Joses, and Judas,
and James, and Simon—those persons who,
being own brothers to Jesus Christ, one would expect
to hear mentioned sometimes, yet who ever saw their
names in a newspaper or heard them from a pulpit?
Who ever inquires what manner of youths they were;
and whether they slept with Jesus, played with him
and romped about him; quarreled with him concerning
toys and trifles; struck him in anger, not suspecting
what he was? Who ever wonders what they thought
when they saw him come back to Nazareth a celebrity,
and looked long at his unfamiliar face to make sure,
and then said, “It is Jesus?” Who wonders
what passed in their minds when they saw this brother,
(who was only a brother to them, however much he might
be to others a mysterious stranger who was a god and
had stood face to face with God above the clouds,)
doing strange miracles with crowds of astonished people
for witnesses? Who wonders if the brothers of