whose roof is heaven and whose organ-music is the sea, is thronged with a vast and eager congregation. Then Jesus heals, and teaches, and in the evening feeds them. Which done, the stars come out, and the crowds are scattered, and the disciples are rowing homeward to Capernaum, and Jesus is on the mountain-side in prayer.

NOTE first that this miracle had its roots in Christ's compassion. When He stepped ashore and saw much people, we read that He was moved with compassion towards them. And all the healing, and teaching, and feeding of that memorable day sprang from that pity in the heart of Christ. And that is the glory of divine compassion—it is the source and spring of noble deeds. Often we pity where we cannot help. But the compassion of Jesus sprang into action always. It set Him healing, teaching, feeding hungry men, and it still draws Him to the same service. Is Christ my compassionate High-priest to-day? Then He will help me in my struggle to be true. He will lift me up when I have failed and fallen. He will feed me when my soul is starving.

MARK, too, there was but one food for all these thousands. The rich were there, journeying to Jerusalem, and the poorest of the poor were there, from the rude huts by the lochside. Yonder were the quick merchants from the cities, here lolled the farm-hands from the carse. There was a mother crooning to her babe, and here were the children romping on the green. Old men were there with the first glow of heaven about them, and young men with the first glow of earth. Yet Jesus fed them all with the same bread. The strange thing is that no one scorned the victual. All ate, and all were filled. No swift relays of courses had ever been so sweet as the single dish with Jesus on the hill.

Now the wonderful thing about Christ-the living

bread-is that He satisfies us all. What a great gulf between the Jew of Tarsus and the ignorant fishers of Bethsaida! What a world between the gentle Lydia and the rude jailer at Philippi! Yet the power of Christ that made a man of Peter was no less mighty in the heart of Paul; and the love of God that won the love of Lydia conquered the jailor too. In all love, says a thinker, there is something levelling; and the love of God is the great leveller of the ages. It knows no social barriers. It is not powerless where temperaments differ. It comes to all, this one glorious Gospel of the grace of God, and all may feed and be satisfied.

AGAIN note, that in satisfying the needs of men Christ

uses the gifts which men bring Him. Had Jesus willed it so, He could have brought bread out of the mountain stones. Once, God had called water from the rock, and brought manna from the windows of heaven, and I do not know why God in Christ might not have summoned these hidden stores again. But Jesus' miracles were acted parables. They were not wrought to amaze, but to instruct. And so He takes what the disciples give Him, and uses that to feed the crowd. I learn then that it is Christ's way to help the world through men. It is His plan to bring the Kingdom in through us. And if we take our gifts, however poor and humble, and lay them freely at the feet of Jesus, He will so bless and multiply and use them that we shall be amazed, and recognise, as in this miracle, His hand.

I SEE, too, that it was in the breaking that the bread Ι increased. A wonder-worker would have touched

the loaves, and made them swell and multiply before the crowd. But Jesus blessed, and brake, and gave to the disciples, and ever as they brake the bread increased. It was through the blessing the miracle was wrought, and through the breaking it was realised. And ever, through

the breaking, comes the increase, and in the using of our gifts, with God's blessing, are our gifts enlarged. Trade with your talent bravely, and it shall be five. Power springs from power, and service out of service. try to do good, and you will find no good to do. the little good you can, and every day will bring a fresh capacity and a new opportunity, until you find that 'there is that scattereth and yet increaseth.'

Never

Do all

AND lastly, note that Jesus was very careful of the fragments. One would have thought that Jesus was too rich to trouble Himself about the fragments. Surely it was but labour lost to sweat and stoop and stumble in the gloaming, to fill their wicker-baskets with the scraps. But Jesus is imperious. 'Gather the fragments that remain,' is His command. And the twelve disciples, who a little before had been sent out to heal and teach and preach the Gospel, had now, in the presence of the thousands, to set about sweeping the crumbs. It was a splendid discipline. Some one has said that if two angels came to earth, the one to rule an empire, and the other to sweep a crossing, they would never seek to interchange their tasks. And our own poet has told

us that

'A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine,

Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,

Makes that and the action fine.'

But was that all? I think not. It was not merely to discipline the disciples that Jesus commanded the fragments to be gathered. We cannot read the story of His life, but we detect a care for the fragments through it all. The fragment of a day, how He employed it! The fragment of a life, how He redeemed it! The fragment of a character, how He ennobled it! Yes, that is His great passion-to love and lift our fragmentary lives till they are brought into the image of His own.

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY

Morning

JACOB'S WRESTLING AT PENIEL

YEAR

Passages to be read: Gen. xxxii. 1-5, 13-32.

́EARS have gone since we last saw Jacob, on the night of his memorable dream at Bethel. He

has passed through many of life's greatest hours, since the day when he left his father's and his mother's tent. He is no longer a solitary fugitive; he is a rich man with a great company around him. And now with wife and children, and with all his vast possessions, he is marching back to the scenes of his early life. But his heart is still doubtful about meeting Esau. What welcome will he get after these years? Will his brother have forgiven, if not forgotten, the sin that made such havoc at home in the old days? It is an hour of dark foreboding for rich Jacob. At least, he can do all in his power to propitiate Esau. He can send him such gifts, and in such artful relays, as will subdue, if they will not soften, his brother's heart. And of such schemes and worldly devices and wise plans the brain of Jacob is full, as he halts on the north bank of the rushing Jabbok. Then in the night time comes his strange encounter. There is no eye to see it, Jacob is left alone. But in the morning as he comes limping down the hill, while the sun rises in the East in fiery splendour, there is not an eye so blind but sees in a moment that some great thing has happened to their leader. The champion

G

of the wronged had met with him. He had learned that there was a mightier antagonist than Esau to encounter, and that plans and schemes were of small avail with God. He had been won, in the dark hours of loneliness, from trust in self to victorious dependence on Jehovah's arm. How he had fought for his own hand we know. We know, too, how a touch had overcome him. Baffled and beaten in his fight for self-dependence, Jacob was more than conqueror in his failure. For he yielded himself up to Him who had overcome him; in an obedience far larger and purer than before, he became the servant of the God of Bethel; he was no longer, either in name or temper, Jacob the supplanter; but he was Israel, the prince with God.

NOW among the lessons of this rich, if mysterious, story, let us note first the reserve-strength of heaven. All night long the wrestling was continued, perhaps with very varying fortunes. Jacob was no mean antagonist, even for this midnight visitant. At one moment it seemed as if Jacob must conquer; at another he was perilously near a fall; and if any cry arose in the long night, such as might have startled the camp across the stream, it was drowned in the brawling of the Jabbok. Now the point to note is that all through this long struggle, the unknown stranger had mighty powers in reserve. He had only to touch the thigh of Jacob with His finger, and the power of the brave wrestler was gone. He did not use these powers in the dreary night; he did not call on them till the dawn was breaking; but all the time that the struggle was raging, they were there, and He might have used them had He chose. Do we not see something closely akin to that, in the life and sufferings of Jesus Christ? Are we not conscious, in His wrestling with all supplanters, of slumbering powers that He would not employ? He could have called on His Father, He tells us in one place, and He would have