after years every moonlight night, and every fresh burst of life's storm, would bring to their minds. They, looking across the stormy waves, beheld Him walking towards them on the sea; and they cried aloud with fear and trouble, for their Lord was coming to them strangely, in no familiar manner. Peter, bolder than the rest, attempted to go to meet Him, but his courage failed, and he would have sunk but for the outstretched hand of his Master. When they entered into the boat, the wind ceased, and they, not considering the miracle of the loaves and fishes, were sore amazed within themselves, beyond measure. Their Master, possessing this marvellous power, still refused to be made a king! Their hearts, too hard yet to understand, could not perceive why He steadily opposed all such ambition.

They landed on the plain of Gennesaret, and walked northward to Capernaum, where they were met by numbers of those who had been fed in the desert the day before. It was the first day of the passover, a solemn Sabbath, and Jesus taught in the synagogue openly, and without any opposition, except the murmurs of those who were disappointed by His steady rejection of their desire to proclaim Him king. His most hostile enemies, the Pharisees, were necessarily absent at the passover in Jerusalem. But from that day many of His disciples in Galilee left Him, not being able to hear or rather to understand the hard sayings, and the reproaches with which He met them. 'Ye seek Me,' He said, 'because

ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.' Their love for Him was too earthy to bear the test He proposed to them, so they went back, and walked no more with Him. 'Will ye also go away?' asked Jesus, sadly, of His twelve apostles. 'Lord, to whom should we go?' cried Peter; Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.' 'Not all,' He answered; 'have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?' Already He could point out the traitor in His little camp. Probably Judas had made himself unusually busy the day before in urging on the crowd to make Him king by force. They all longed for Him to assert His claims; His brethren were constantly urging Him to manifest Himself; John and James asked Him to promise them the chief places in His kingdom; but Judas looked forward to be the treasurer of all the wealth of the Messiah King of Judea, and no voice had been louder the day before, and no disciple so reluctant to obey, when He constrained them to set sail and leave Him alone with the multitude. 'Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?' Judas was to live in close fellowship with Him for a whole year longer; but even Christ could not cast out of him this demon of covetousness, whilst he was cherishing it in his secret heart.

CHAPTER XII.

IN THE NORTH.

DURING this quiet week, with His enemies away, Jesus was busily occupied in the plain of Gennesaret and the region lying about, where, as He passed along the roads or through the streets, sick people were laid, that they might touch if it were but the hem of His garment. But this undisturbed, unopposed course of kindly healing and of teaching ended as soon as the Pharisees hastened back from Jerusalem, not willing to remain at home until they had got Him into their power. They began by accusing Him of setting aside the tradition of the eldersan accusation He did not deny. But He answered them sternly, calling them hypocrites, and pointing out how they set aside the commandments of God. He deeply offended them by this reply, and the old danger of dwelling in Capernaum revived in greater force. Besides this, it was well known that Herod, the murderer of John, had a great desire to see Jesus; Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, probably warning Him of this danger.

Herod's city, Tiberias, was on the western coast of the lake, south of the plain of Gennesaret, where Jesus had lately been journeying. It was not more than ten miles from Capernaum; and our Lord must often have been very near it, though it does not seem that He ever entered it.

It was only a few weeks since Jesus had been compelled to quit Jerusalem and Judea; and now He found it needful to withdraw from the busy, crowded coasts of the Lake of Galilee, and to seek the west of Galilee, where He was less known, and where He could quietly instruct His apostles, who as yet knew little of the message they were to teach when He was gone. He went farther north than He had ever travelled, to the very confines of the Holy Land, and to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, so vast and limitless, compared with the little Lake of Galilee. But even here He could not be hid; for a certain woman, no Jewess, but a Gentile, who had already become acquainted with His name, no sooner heard of Him than she came, and, falling at His feet, besought Him to heal her daughter, who was possessed by a devil. Jesus did so, as a recompense of her own faith, praising it, as He had done the faith of the Roman centurion, no doubt to the bewilderment of His disciples, who did not yet know, what the Samaritans had known, that He was the Saviour of the world.

From this north-western limit Jesus and His disciples, probably never staying long in the same place, made their

way gradually back to the eastern shore of the Lake of Galilee, where they were in the tetrarchy of Philip. The country through which they passed was still more beautiful than the more southern parts of Galilee. They journeyed under the range of Hermon, and past the high hill of Bashan, with the Upper Jordan and the waters of Merom on their left hand, in the month of May, whilst the harvest was going on. A time of rest and possible happiness. Who was there besides the chosen twelve we do not know. Where they tarried and lodged, what route they took, we do not know. But at length they reached that inhospitable coast, where once before the inhabitants had besought the Lord not to sojourn with them.

But the fierce demoniac, whom Jesus had left to bear witness of Him, had changed the minds of the people with regard to a second visit from this mighty prophet. They were now-willing to receive Him, and they brought to Him a man who was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech. He led him away from the crowd, who in this country must have been half of them heathen, with no motive influencing their coming to Him save that of curiosity. For the same reason, probably, to avoid the danger and distraction of a number of curious followers, He bade the man and his friends to tell no one of his cure; but they, not at all understanding His motive, proclaimed the miracle about all that region. Great multitudes in consequence came unto Him, having with them the lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many