43 "AND after the two days He went forth from thence into Galilee. For Jesus Himself testified, that a prophet hath no honor in His own country. So when He came into Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they also went unto the feast.
46 "He came therefore again unto Cana of Galilee, where He made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, 47 whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto Him, and besought Him that He would come down, and heal his 48 son; for he was at the point of death. Jesus therefore said unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in nowise 49 believe. The nobleman saith unto Him, Sir, come down ere 50 my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. The man believed the word that Jesus spake unto him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his 51 servants met him, saying, that his son lived. So he inquired 52 of them the hour when he began to amend. They said therefore unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left 53 him. So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth; and himself believed, and 54 his whole house. This is again the second sign that Jesus did, having come out of Judea into Galilee."
Golden Text.—"Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth; and himself believed, and his whole house." Verse 53.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.
(1) Two days after Jesus' talk with the woman at Jacob's well, where did He go? V. 43. (2) What had He been doing during those two days? Note 1. (3) What did he testify concerning prophets? V. 44. (4) What was His experience on arriving in Galilee? Why was He so readily received? V. 45. Note 2. (5) To what place in Galilee did He first come? What had He done in Cana before this time? V. 46. (6) What noted man came to Jesus at Cana? What request did this man make? V. 46, last part, and 47. (7) What did Jesus say to him? V. 48. What was the nobleman's anxious reply? V. 49. (8) What command and promise did he receive? In what spirit did he receive these words of Jesus? V. 50. (9) Whom did the nobleman meet as he neared his home? What did they say? V. 51. (10) What inquiry did the nobleman make of his servants? What did they say as to the time? V. 52. Note 3. (11) Then what did the father know? And what was the result? V. 53. Note 4. (12) How many miracles had Jesus now performed in Galilee? V. 54.
NOTES.
1. "After two days."—That is, from His talk with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. Verse 40 states that the Samaritans "besought Him that He would tarry with them; and He abode there two days."
2. Galilee, in the time of Christ, was very populous. Josephus computes the population at not less than three million. There were over two hundred towns which contained fifteen thousand inhabitants or more. Capernaum was the leading trade and travel center of all Palestine. It was no doubt for this reason that Jesus spent much of His time there. While His ministry was primarily for the Jews, the Gentiles heard much of His teaching and carried the Gospel seed to other lands. Because Galilee was more democratic, Christ could get hold of them more readily than He could of the priest-ridden people of Judea. His twelve apostles were Galileans.
3. Yesterday at the seventh hour.—When Jesus had spoken. As of old, "He sent forth His Word and healed." We do not need to see Jesus with the natural eye in order to be assured of His presence, or to know His power. Through the agency of the Spirit He is everywhere where a needy one calls upon His name. He always answers the call of faith, even if there be but one, and distance is of no consideration. "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Matt. 28:20. "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." John 15:7.
4. "Himself believed, and his whole house."—Note the steps that led up to this result: First, there was affliction, a means of turning the attention of the father away from the every-day cares. Anxiety caused him to look for a remedy for his afflicted son. He had heard of Jesus, and had faith enough to seek Him, and of course found Him. ("Seek, and ye shall find.") He heard the Word, and believed. ("Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.") He acted upon his faith, and went home to find it confirmed. Then he confessed Christ before others, and they believed. "All things work together for good to them that love God." Rom. 8:28. The affliction of the son was the means of bringing salvation to the family.
Lessons by Mail on Medical Electricity or How to Use the Battery
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“THEY THAT DO SUCH THINGS.”
By Frances E. Bolton
“I’m not going,” said Ruth Barlow. “I know just how it will be. We’ll get together about the time we ought to go to bed, and then there’ll be joking with no point, and talking to no purpose; neither wit nor wisdom will be manifested. About ten or eleven o’clock refreshments will be served,—cake and ice-cream, fruit, etc. Then there’ll be some more chaff, and in the ‘wee sma’ hours we’ll go home, deluded for the moment with the belief that we have had a good time.”
“O, you’ll go all right when the time comes!” said Cousin Arthur.
Ruth thought she would not go, but she did; for, at the very last hour before the party, a temptation rose she did not wish to resist, for Mr. Alston was to be there, and Ruth had long desired to meet him. She had heard of his devotion to Christ, of his purpose to be a missionary to some foreign field, and, tho Ruth was a vacillating Christian, with high ideals and wavering practise, she admired a strong, determined Christian, and thought Mr. Alston was of this very character.
Of course it was just as Ruth had said, for it was really nine o’clock before the company assembled, and it was evident that they had come together for the glory and pleasure of self, rather than to glorify God. One need not judge thus because they were merry. The glory of God is the glory of His creatures. As a noble son honors his father, and his father’s honor shines out in the honor of his son, so does the glory of God reveal itself in the nobility of His creatures.
But somehow, these very people, who seemed so simple and natural in their homes, seemed less natural and dignified here. They laughed loud and harshly at jests that seemed trivial and pointless. Tho they were all intelligent young people, no topic of conversation was started but the most commonplace and trivial. Instead of that spontaneous outflow of thought that makes real fellowship, there was a jerky kind of conversation, consisting in the saying of smart things, and one could realize that there was an effort of mind to think of what must next be said or done. Uncomfortable pauses came that had to be filled up with chaff. And Ruth thought to herself, “How soon we come to the end of each other in these party gatherings!” Yet Ruth herself was no better than the rest. Her eyes shone with unnatural light, and her actions were excited, her words frivolous and light.
Some one proposed music, and all grasped at this diversion as a relief from the commonplace, but, alas! the heavenly muse was degraded in the songs they sang, and no higher thought was found than before.
Think of young men and women, well-read and intelligent, and most of them professing to be Christians, singing:—
“The man that has plenty of good peanuts,
And giveth his neighbor none,
He can’t have any of my peanuts,
When his peanuts are gone.”
“There was a man in our town,
And he was wondrous wise;
He jumped into a bramble bush
And scratched out both his eyes.
And when he saw his eyes were out,
He jumped with might and main
Into another bramble bush,
And scratched, and scratched, and scratched, and scratched,
And scratched, and scratched, and scratched, and scratched,
Them in again.”
Pliable, the pair to one another, but in fear and ...
A sudden shadow fell in Ruth’s face as this song was sung.
“What’s the matter, Ruth?” said one. “Have you got the blues?”
“Well, I don’t see why people want to set such words to a religious tune. It seems sacrilegious to sing such words to sacred music.”
For the rest of the evening Ruth said but little. The old sense of disappointment that she had experienced again and again, came creeping upon her.
The atmosphere of the party did not seem of the order to bring out precious thoughts in. Tho so many were professing Christians, no word was spoken of Him who is altogether lovely. Those, who might have had a heavenly sitting together, had only an earthly sitting together after all.
Ruth was disappointed in Mr. Alston too. Had he not promised to make dark Africa his field of labor? and had she not revered him as a young man of noble, self-sacrificing spirit, and hoped his influence would bring Babylon into peace and beauty? But he was as trivial as the others, for it was in the atmosphere. And he was not less disappointed in Ruth; for he had thought her a noble girl, and indeed had even taken his cue from her in regard to his actions of that evening.
As there was no feast of reason or flow of soul, the lack had to be supplied with more earthly material, and refreshments were brought in. At a late hour the company ate ice-cream and cake, fruit, etc.
Ruth could not help but notice how the light had left the countenance. Strange thoughts passed through her mind in a panoramic way. She had been reading Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and now she thought of Satan at the council, suddenly turned into the likeness of the medium he had used for the fall of Adam and Eve:—
“His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare;
His arms clung to his ribs, his legs entwining each other,
Till supplanted down he fell, a monstrous serpent.
. . . A greater power now ruled him,
Punished in the shape he sinned,
According to his doom.”
And Ruth wondered if they too were not changed into the image of the temptation, lowering to what they had stooped to. She wondered how Adam and Eve had felt when they had sinned and looked into each other’s eyes when first they knew they had lost their robe of light. What was there now between these friends of hers and herself? Was the disappointment on both sides? Was not the unsatisfied longing in other hearts, and all this far below what they had thought of her, and below what she had thought of them?
“Ruth, come, what are you thinking of?” said one to her.
“I was thinking,” said Ruth slowly, “of how we all lose our gardens of Eden.”
“Well, how?” said the questioner.
“O, just by falling in little things, and finding all of a sudden that the glory is gone, and an angel stands with a flaming sword, barring us out of our lost innocence!”
“Well, I shall be barred out of my boarding-house,” said one gentleman, “if I don’t go home.”
So the party broke up with a laugh, and the revelers separated.
Ruth’s head and heart were both aching, but had ached before on similar occasions. She lay down to sleep, but neither her thoughts nor her late supper were conducive to sleep.
What went through her mind?—Passages of Scripture that condemned her, and condemnation is not best for health. She knew she had dishonored God. Almost horrified, she thought of those who were at the party, and of her profession. There were several who did not know, as she did, that the end of all things was at hand, when the apostle exhorts “to be sober and watch unto prayer;” when he asks, “What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,” “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” And she wondered what thoughts had passed through their minds, and what would be the result of her influence upon them.
FRANCES E. BOLTON.
(Concluded next week.)
LEARN TO GIVE.
By Anon.
LEARN to give, and thou shalt bind
Countless treasures to thy breast;
Learn to love, and thou shalt find
Only those who love are blest.
Learn to give, and thou shalt know
They the poorest are who hoard;
Learn to love; thy love shall flow
Deeper for the wealth outpoured.
Learn to give, and learn to love;
Only thus thy life can be
Foretaste of the life above,
Tinged with immortality.
Give, for God to thee hath given;
Love, for He by love is known.
Child of God and heir of heaven,
Let thy parentage be known.
—Anon.
BILL PAID.
A WELL-TO-DO deacon in an Eastern State was one morning accosted by his pastor, who said: "Poor Widow Green's wood is out. Can you not take her a cord?"
"Well," answered the deacon, "I have the wood and I have the team; but who is to pay me for it?"
The pastor replied, "I will pay you for it, on condition that you read the first three verses of the forty-first psalm before you go to bed to-night."
The deacon consented, delivered the wood, and at night opened the Word of God and read the passage:—
"Blessed is he that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth; and Thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing; Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness."
A few days afterwards the pastor met him again.
"How much do I owe you, deacon, for that cord of wood?"
"O!" said the now-enlightened man, "do not speak of payment; I did not know those promises were in the Bible. I would not take money for supplying the widow's wants."—Anonymous.
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THE YOUNG CHRISTIAN
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will find "Steps to Christ" one of the most instructive and precious volumes he has ever read.
Its object is to trace the different steps necessary to "rejoicing in the Lord," which is the title of the last chapter. It has enjoyed an enormous circulation, and is now published in ten different languages.
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PERSONAL IDENTITY.
THERE is probably not in fact a more marvelous story of mistaken identity than that in the case of the recent Bridgeport, Mass., tragedy. Neither Poe nor any of his imitators, from Gaboriau to Conan Doyle, has been able to fabricate anything to compare with it.
A girl's mutilated body was found in the water. Two men just at that time were anxiously searching each for a missing daughter.
Both examined the murdered girl's head minutely. Each swore positively that it was the head of his missing daughter.
One of them, the father of missing Marion Grace Perkins, not only recognized a photograph of the dead girl's head, but described a minute mark that would be found over the right eye if the corpse was really that of his daughter. Nobody had observed any such mark, but upon examination it was found precisely where he had said.
The body was delivered to Mr. Perkins, who started home with it for burial.
Then Marion Grace Perkins arrived at home alive and well, passing on the way from the station the open grave that had been prepared to receive her, and meeting at her father's door the undertaker's wagon.
The missing daughter of the other identifier has also turned up in full vigor of life.
The annals of the law are full of strange cases of mistaken identity. But we can not recall one which so strongly illustrates as this one does the difficulty of personal identification and the danger of trusting to it where crime is concerned and human life imperiled. It would be easy to hang an innocent person upon testimony greatly weaker than that which proved so mistaken in this case.—Thrice-a-week World.
TRUE REST.
By Henry Drummond
TWO PAINTERS each painted a picture to illustrate his conception of rest. The first chose for his scene a still, lone lake among the far-off mountains. The second threw on his canvas a thundering waterfall, with a fragile birch tree bending over the foam; at the fork of the branch, almost wet with the cataract's spray, a robin sat on its nest. The first was only stagnation; the last was rest. . . .
Christ's life outwardly was one of the most troubled lives that was ever lived; tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time till the worn body was laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea of glass. The great calm was always there. At any moment you might have gone to Him and found rest. And even when His enemies were dogging Him in the streets of Jerusalem, He turned to His disciples and offered them, as a last legacy, "My peace."—Drummond.
EATING THE BREAD OF IDLENESS.
Most people forget to take a meal off from their bill of fare when they stop work for a day. Many men who have led active lives on their farms, and have so developed their financial resources that they can "settle down" and are not obliged to work so hard, forget that they should reduce their bill of fare when they stop manual work, and the result is chronic indigestion. Many a man gets into a condition called "softening of the brain," just because he retires from active work, moves to town, and forgets to diminish his bill of fare. He not only eats too much, but he eats indigestible food, as the result of which he suffers from indigestion, and wishes himself back on his farm again.—Good Health.
DON'T AND DO.
"I AM tired of 'don'ts,'" said Margaret B.,
"As tired of 'don'ts' as I can be,
For it's, 'Don't do this,' and, 'Don't do that,'
Don't hurt the dog, don't scare the cat.
Don't be untidy, and don't be vain.
Don't interfere, don't do it again.
Don't bite your nails, don't gobble your food.
Don't speak so loud—it's dreadfully rude.
Don't mumble your words, don't say, 'I won't,'
O! all the day long its nothing but don't.
Some time or other I hope—don't you?-
Some one or other will say, 'Please do.'"
—Anon.
A BREAKFAST MENU AND RECIPES.
By J. E. Patterson
Fresh Fruits
Granola Mush and Cream American Rarebit
GRANOLA MUSH.
Three tablespoonfuls of granola; pour warm or cold milk enough over it to make a gruel; add a little salt and serve.
AMERICAN RAREBIT.
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The mixture should not boil after the eggs are added, or it will curdle. Cost, 30 cents. Sufficient for eight. J. E. PATTERSON.
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