THE GADARENE DEMONIAC.

"And they came over unto the other side of

the sea,

into the country of the Gada

renes," &c. &c.-ST. MARK V. 1-20.

AFTER a night of storm, in which our Lord dis

played his power as the King of Nature, by

stilling the winds and the waves, so that there was a great calm, He landed on the shore of the inland sea of Tiberias, there to manifest his power as the Lord of the human spirit and the King of grace, by giving peace to the tempest-tossed soul of a miserable man.

On landing He was immediately met by one who seemed scarcely human. His body was bronzed by summer's heat, emaciated by hunger, and bleeding from self-inflicted torture. His eyes were fierce and fiery, his hair long and matted, and

there hung around him a savage wildness which at

once inspired fear and pity.

His dwelling was

There he might be

among the caves of the dead. seen prowling by day like a wild beast, and there he might be heard howling by night; and how he lived was known alone to Him who feeds the beasts of the desert!

Such was the strange being who met Jesus Christ. And what a meeting it was! The contrast between the rugged shore and the calm sea was not so striking as that between the wild Demoniac and the calm and peaceful Son of God. This was a meeting of the representatives of two different kingdoms-the kingdom of darkness and that of light; of hate, and of love; of evil, and of good; of misery, and of peace.

The Gadarene knew who Jesus Christ was, yet, full of terror, he cried, "What have I to do with thee?" and implored him to depart. But the Lord had to do with him, and would not therefore depart, but commanded the demons to depart, and they did so; and then the wild man came to his right mind, and sat clothed at the feet of his deliverer meek and calm as a weaned child. He who asked Christ to depart now prayed to be allowed

to follow Him. His prayer was refused; but he was sent back to Decapolis with these words :— "Go to thine own house, and show what things the Lord hath done for thee, and how He hath had compassion upon thee." And he did so, and eventually proclaimed the glad tidings to the whole city.

Such are the leading facts of the marvellous history which I have selected as the subject of my address, and which, by God's blessing, I trust will prove instructive, both as revealing the nature of sin and its remedy, and also those duties towards others which become us for whom the Lord has done such great things.

I notice briefly that we have in this man's history a most instructive evidence of the capacity of an immortal being to sink into the depths of sin and misery. For we have here no speculative question of future sin and suffering in another world, but the fact of misery in this present world; and that, too, from the influence of evil. Unfallen beings in some distant world of purity and bliss, as yet unsullied by the stain of sir, and whose history has been as yet unmarked by the departure of one prodigal from God as his Father, or by the rebellion of one

subject against Him as the King-such holy and happy beings might indeed reject as a mere terrible creation of the imagination, as one not representing a possible reality, the thought of any other world containing any persons who could become wicked and miserable, even for a day, under the benign and loving government of their God. Would not God's almighty power prevent such a calamity, or his boundless love provide against it, or his inexhaustible wisdom contrive innumerable expedients to render it impossible? They might imagine so, but how different is it with us! For here is an immortal being, created after God's image, whose chief end is to glorify Him, and enjoy Him for ever; here he is in this fair world which was declared by God to be very good; here, in the very presence of Jesus Christ, and of his holy apostles; here, in such sin and misery that his only prayer to the Son of God is, "Depart from me,” and his only emotion one of dread terror—“ Art thou come to torment me?" And, alas! this, in its essential features, is not an exceptional case, but one of many. Oh, dread mystery of evil!—but oh, stern fact! Well, indeed may sin terrify us; and well may the thought suggest itself to us on

beholding a spectacle like this, that if such be the devil's service and wages in this world over which Christ reigns, and on which He bestows his blessing, what must sin and suffering be in the world to come, where the sinner is left to himself?

I admit that there were peculiarities in the Demoniac, which to some extent put his history beyond the limits of ordinary experience. Still' his conviction that he was possessed by demons was not a delusion. It is clearly and unquestionably the intention of the narrative to teach this as a fact, however inexplicable and mysterious. Those evil spirits had a distinct and personal existence, for they spoke to Christ through the man; the truthful Christ replied to them; at their own request He sent them into the swine; and, as a sign of the reality of this transaction, the swine rushed down a steep place into the sea. On the other hand, who those demons were; what was their past history in God's kingdom, their creation. in holiness, their fall into confirmed evil, with all God had done to prevent their ruin or to recover them; what was the condition of their present existence; how they could possibly enter into, possess, or leave a human body or soul; and how