CHAPTER XIV.

THE GADARENE DEMONIAC.

MATT. viii. 28; MARK v. I; LUKE Vii. 26.

GADARA, or Gergesa, is on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. Its modern name is Khersa, which is believed to be a shortened form of Gergesa. I have visited it twice, and each time the story of the demoniac rose vividly before my mind. I saw many tombs in the hillside there, and the people sometimes still use them for shelter-" cave life is still common in Palestine. The slope to the lake is steep, and the water is deep at the shore; along the neighbouring river Yarmuk there is still such pasture as suits swine; and the ground had been dug up, as we were told, by the wild swine searching for roots and earthnuts. The swine are very fond of the liquorice root, which abounds there. All these features, you see, agree exactly with this story.

Our Saviour had just crossed the lake in a great storm which had almost sent the little craft to the bottom. The Divine Passenger was sound asleep; but, though the fury of the storm did not awake Him, the cry of His distressed disciples did. He arose and rebuked the storm. Having just stilled

the storm on the lake, He now stills the fiercer storm in the heart of this poor madman. For He blesses men equally by sea and land.

As this strange scene rises before us, we fix our

eye upon

I. The Madman.

II. The Christ.

III. The New Man.

I. The Madman.

This

His was no ordinary case of madness, for he was under the power of devils. So thoroughly was he their slave, that when Christ asked his name they replied for him, "My name is legion, for we are many." They thus claimed him as completely their own. So strong were they that they likened themselves to a legion—that is, a company of 6000 Roman soldiers. They had dethroned his reason, and mastered both his soul and his body. This is a very dark subject, and some parts of it we cannot in the least explain. Some modern doctors, who can speak with authority upon this subject, believe that in our day men are possessed by evil spirits; and a dragoman told me that a native of Palestine near the Sea of Galilee said to him in a rage, "You are devil-possessed." This poor man had become wild and lonely, and he was often wounding his own flesh. He had enormous strength, as madmen often have. His madness was increased by the harsh usage men like him then

received.

Madness was very common in that age,

as it always is in times of revolution.

That man is a true picture of the mischief sin works when it gains perfect mastery. I am sure that I have known men who were exactly like him in all the main features of his case. It fills the soul with awe to think how gently and insensibly the power of sin may grow, till at last it makes the sinner a helpless slave. The child who might have brightened into an angel sometimes darkens into a fiend. For the Evil One, man's great enemy, still tempts men, and binds his chains about them. If a boy has been tempted into a dark sin by a boy older and craftier than himself, I have more hope of that boy than I should have if he had gone into the sin without any companion. So if there be not an Evil One, I must regard man as a devil. I am very sure that sin still makes men perfectly mad. Many of the best men and women by some mysterious affliction lose their reason, but thousands lose it by yielding to evil passions. Like this man, they are unfit for work; they hate their fellows; they bleed from self-made wounds; and they have lost their manhood and their liberty, and are the mere football of their passions. If Christ made us suffer in His service what sinners bring upon themselves, heaven and earth should soon hear our piteous complaints. All sin seems madness when we think rightly about it. An advocate, lately defending a man charged with murder, urged that no adequate reason

had been assigned for the crime. The judge, in summing up, replied that there never could be an adequate reason for such a crime, as murder was always a moral madness. We may say the same of all sins. We call confirmed drunkards dipsomaniacs, that is, thirst-madmen; and the old Scotch law calls. a drunkard a voluntary demon. Only last week a young man who has come under the power of strong drink told me that he had had an awful struggle during the whole night, and that he felt "in the very grip of the devil." I was in a sad mood when I left him, but at once there struck my ear the joyous laughter and loud shoutings of hundreds of children in the playground. How bright and happy these boys and girls were, I thought, and what splendid promise for the days to come. But I reflected that the young thirst-madman I had left was once as fine a boy as any in that bright throng, and I feared that, unless the drinking habits of our country greatly change, many of these beautiful boys and girls would one day be in the grasp of the drink-fiend. There was a strange idea very common in the Middle Ages, that some people made a covenant with Satan, which was duly signed and sealed. He was to give them the run of all earth's pleasures, and in the end he was to have their soul for his own. In spite of a thousand miseries and warnings, some live under our eyes as if they had really made such a bargain, and had resolved not to break it, come what might. Other sins besides drunkenness make many like this poor

maniac in his rags and sweltering wounds. You can scarcely believe how far a sinful man may fall, and how utterly he may lose all his will-power, and become like a rudderless ship in a stormy sea. I state these sorrowful facts not to sadden you, but to fill you with a horror of all sin, even of its gentle and little-noticed beginnings. Behold in this madman a lifelike picture of what any boy or girl may become by yielding to the evil around and within.

Turn your gaze now upon

II. The Christ.

Christ and the madman stand face to face. What a difference!

And yet both are men. Two kingdoms meet here. Christ fully represents the kingdom of light, the miserable madman the kingdom of darkness. The one hopeful thing about the madman was Christ's presence. "For the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil." Christ has a medicine equal to the malady.

Amid the world's sins and miseries, of which we have a share, our hope for ourselves and others is to get as near Christ as ever we can, to appeal to Him, to listen to His words, and to know His healing power. Often Christ meets us when we do not seek Him, as He met this Gadarene. But we can seek Him, as there are ever so many ways of coming near Him. I will give you a small bunch of flowers gathered during my holidays. I have just been reading the life of Colonel Gardiner, as I am now (while writing this sermon)