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My Dear Father:—I have received with joy your
letter, in which you say you shall leave Egypt with
the next passover caravan, in order to visit Jerusalem.
Already you must be on the way, and are by this time
near Gaza, where my uncle Amos says the caravan will
halt to-morrow night. My heart bounds to embrace you,
and my eyes fill with bright tears at the thought that I
shall once more gaze upon your noble countenance, and
hear the loved tones of your paternal voice. My happiness
is augmented to know that you will be here while Jesus
is in the city; for it is said, and John, Mary's cousin,
asserts it, that he will certainly be at the Passover. I
wish, dear father, oh, I wish you to see him, because I feel
that you would be unable to resist the conviction that he
is the very Messias of God, of whom Moses and the
Prophets wrote. But if his words, that divine eloquence
and wisdom which flow from his sacred lips, do not convince
you, the miracles he will do in proof of his mission
will be resistless. These miracles are daily becoming more
and more mighty and amazing. For himself, for his own
aggrandizement, and personal safety, (for often has his life
been put in peril by his foes,) he never resorts to this divine
power; but to give attestation to his words of truth that

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he came from God, to heal the suffering, to relieve the distressed,
he daily performs them. If man never spake like
him, man never worked wonders such as he works. He
has converted water into wine; healed by a word the dying
son of the nobleman, Chuza, Herod's first officer of his
household, though many leagues from him at the time; he
stilled a fearful tempest on the sea of Tiberius, by speaking
to it and commanding peace! In the country of the Gadarenes
he cast out unclean spirits from many demoniacs,
who, in coming out of the bodies of those they had possessed,
acknowledged his power, and confessed him, as if
against their will, to be the Christ, the son of David. Of
the raising of the daughter of the ruler Jairus, and of the
son of the widow at Nain, I have already written you.
Besides these miracles of healing and raising from the dead,
he has been seen walking upon the sea a league from the
shore, as firmly as if he trode upon a floor of porphyry;
which many of the fishermen seeing, they were filled with
terror, and made all sail to flee to the land, where they
spread it abroad. He has restored sight to the blind, whose
eyes were wholly gone; and created new limbs where legs
and arms had been lost for years. Last week, Eli, the
paralytic, whom you knew, a scribe of the Levites, whose
hand has been withered nine years, so that he had been
dependent on the alms of the worshipers in the Temple
for his bread, hearing of the power of Jesus, sought him at
the house of uncle Amos, where he was abiding; for it
was our blessed privilege to have him our guest, for John,
his beloved disciple, being betrothed to the fair daughter
of uncle Amos, my gentle cousin Mary, always led the
Prophet to our house.

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Jesus was reclining with our family at the evening
meal, at the close of the day on which the uproar had
taken place in the Temple, as described in my last letter
but one, when Eli came and stood within the door. Humble
and doubting, his knees trembled, and he timidly and
wistfully looked towards Jesus, but did not speak. I knew
at once what the afflicted man came for, and approached
him, saying, “Fear not, Eli; ask him, and he will make
thee whole!”

“Ah, lady, I fear it is too much happiness for me to
expect. It is more than I dare dream of. But I have
come to him, hoping.” His voice trembled, and tears
dropped from his eyes, as he thought of his family in poverty,
and of his own helplessness. “How shall I speak
to the great Prophet, daughter—I, a beggar at the gate of
the Temple? Speak for me, and the Lord shall bless thee,
child. My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth!”

Jesus did not see the poor man, his face being turned
towards Rabbi Amos, to whom he was explaining the
meaning of the sacrifice of Abel. But leaving this conversation,
he said, in a gentle voice, without turning round:

“Come to me, Eli, and ask what is in thy heart,
and fear not; for if thou believest, thou shalt receive all
thy wish!”

At this Eli ran forward, and casting himself at Jesus'
feet, kissed them and said: “Rabbi, I am a poor, sinful
man; I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of the
Blessed!”

“Dost thou believe, Eli, that I have power to make
thee whole?” asked Jesus, looking steadily upon him.

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“I believe, my Lord,” answered Eli, bowing his face to
the ground.

“Thy sins, then, be forgiven thee. Rise and go to thy
house, and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon
thee.”

“This man! forgiveth he sins also?” cried the venerable
priest, Manasses, who was at the table. “He is a
blasphemer! for God alone forgiveth sins. Will he call
himself God?” And he rose quickly up and rent his
robe, and spat upon the floor in detestation.

“Manasses,” said Jesus, mildly, “tell me whether is it
an easier thing to do: to say to this man kneeling here,
`Thy sins be forgiven thee,' or to say, `Stretch forth thine
hand whole as the other?”

“It would be more difficult to do the latter,” answered
Manasses, surprised at the question.

“Who alone can do the latter, oh, priest?”

“God alone, who first made him,” answered Manasses,
gazing upon the withered arm, which, shriveled to the
bone, hung useless at his side.

“If, then, God alone heals, and God alone forgiveth sins,
both acts, Manasses, would be of God! Therefore,” said
Jesus to the paralytic, “I say unto thee, Eli, stretch forth
thy hand whole!”

The man, looking upon Jesus' face, and seeming to
derive confidence from its expression of power, made a convulsive
movement with his arm, which, his mantle falling
off, was bared to the shoulder, exhibiting all its hideous
deformity, and stretched it forth at full length. Immediately
the arm was rounded with flesh and muscles; the
pulse filled and leaped with the warm life-blood, and it

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became whole as the other. The change was so instantaneous
that it was done before we could see how it was
done. The amazed and wonderingly delighted Eli bent
his elbow, expanded and contracted the fingers, felt the
flesh and pressed it with his other hand, before he could
realize that he was healed. And he then lifted up his
voice in praise to Jehovah, and casting himself at the feet
of the Prophet, cried:

“My Lord, and my God!”

“Thou art now healed, Eli,” said Jesus, impressively;
“go, and sin no more!”

“Master, thou knowest all things! Lo! my sin even
was not hid from thee, though I believed no eye beheld it.
Men and brethren,” he continued, addressing those who
were assembled, “well did this holy Prophet of God say
unto me, at the first, `my sins were forgiven,' instead of
bidding me stretch forth my hand; for it was a sin that
brought on my paralysis, as a punishment for it. I had
copied a parchment for the Levite, Phineas, the tax-gatherer
for the Temple service, and wickedly altered a figure
in an amount, by which I should be a gainer of four
shekels of silver. Instantly upon writing the last figure,
I felt a stroke of palsy, and my arm fell dead at my side.
It was God's punishment. This was eight years ago.
No eye knew the deed but God's and my own; but I have
repented it in deep humiliation. Therefore, as my withered
arm was for the punishment of my sin, well did my
Lord, the mighty Prophet, say unto me, `my sin was forgiven,
' for then would my punishment have been removed;
for I felt already at his word the blood coursing through
my parched veins!”

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Upon this frank acknowledgment, Manasses cried in
amazement, “Truly, God is good to Israel. The hour of
his promise is come. Verily, oh, Jesus of Nazareth, thou
art the Son of the Highest! Forgive a worm of the dust,
and my sins also!” And the proud priest fell at Jesus'
feet, and bowed his snow-white locks upon them in adoration
and reverence.

If, then, dear father, the secret sins of men are known
to Jesus; if he forgives sins as well as heals; if he
removes the temporal penalties which God inflicts upon
men for their iniquities, what name, what power, what
excellence shall we give to him? Shall we not, with
Esaias, call him “the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the
Mighty God, the Prince of Peace, who shall sit upon the
throne of David to establish it with justice and judgment
henceforth, even for ever?” “Who,” I repeat with
Manasses, “who forgiveth sins but God alone?”

How shall I be able to remember and repeat all the
other mighty works which Jesus has done in proof of his
divine power! You must have heard how he fed, from a
small basket of bread, (the frugal provision which a lad
had brought into the desert for his mother and his brothers,)
no less than five thousand men, not naming the
women and children. This vast multitude had followed
him far from the cities to listen to his teachings; people
of all classes and tongues, including not a few Roman
captains. When the mighty host was an hungered, he
caused them to sit down on the grass, and from the basket
he took forth bread, inexhaustibly increasing unto his hand
as he distributed; so that when all had eaten, there were
gathered twelve times as much in fragments as the little

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basket originally held. Who, dear father, but Messias
could do this miracle? He who could thus create bread
at his will, is He not the Lord of the harvests of the earth?
My mind is overwhelmed, my dear father—I am filled
with astonishment and awe, when I reflect upon the
might, power, and majesty of Jesus, and I fear to ask myself,—
who more than man is he? Is he verily the awful
and terrible Jehovah of Sinai, visible in the human form?
Oh, wondrous and incomprehensible mystery! a man with
Almighty power, and manifesting the very attributes of
Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, walking the earth, conversing
with men, dwelling in our habitations, eating and drinking
with us, and sleeping with the peaceful helplessness of an
infant beneath our roofs. I dare not trust my thoughts to
penetrate the mystery in which he walks among us in the
veiled Godhead of power. His beloved disciple, John,
says that Jesus has promised the day is not far off when
this veil will be removed, and we shall then know him, who
he is, and wherefore he has come into the world, and the
infinite results to men of his mission.

The Passover is nigh at hand, when we shall again behold
the majesty of his presence. I have just heard that
Lazarus, the amiable brother of our cousins Mary and
Martha, is taken suddenly ill, and I close this letter in
order to accompany my cousin Mary and her father to
Bethany, from whence they have sent us an earnest message
of entreaty. May God preserve his life.

p612-291

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