HOW LITTLE WILL DO! "SHE ONLY
TOUCHED."

A Sermon

PREACHED AT REGENT SQUARE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,

BY THE

REV. JOHN MCNEILL.

I AM to speak from an incident in the chapter we read the 5th of Mark. I read the story of the demoniac, the man possessed of the legion of devils; but I am going to preach on the healing of the woman who had so long been suffering from secret wasting sickness. I cannot preach from both at once, although it would be interesting to lay these subjects alongside of each other, making the madman a type of the reckless, wicked, out-and-out sinner, and this poor pallid creature a type of quite another kind. Thus should we see how wonderfully the Lord Jesus Christ can adapt His grace to extreme cases, as also to all the grades that lie between such extremes. The most widely opposite contrasts are all equally easy; and lie within the scope of His power and love. Let us get the record of this woman in our minds. Read from the 25th

verse:

Vol. II.-No. 12.

"And a certain woman who had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched His garment" [the tassel very likely at the end of the flowing robe]. "For she said, If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus immediately knowing in Himself that virtue had gone out of Him, turned Him about in the press, and said, Who touched My clothes? And His disciples said unto Him, Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me? And He looked round about to see her that had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth. And He said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.”

Now, look at that woman and at THAT MAN, and remember that all these miracles of healing are parables of grace Each, in its own way, is a sermon about salvation, not from bodily disease, but from the malady of sin in your soul and mine; each, in its own way, reveals Jesus as the Great Physician. He is able to do for you what no doctor can do. That which is the root and spring of all trouble your sinful nature, namely-He can heal. Christ can save; and faith in Him is the channel through which the healing virtue flows. 'Tis a trite remark; indeed it is. We have heard something like it before. But maybe, through the blessing of God, the commonplaces of sin and grace may fall with new meaning on some mad or sad, some demented or dejected sinner here. Look at the woman, I say, as here described. If you want to find an incident particularly well pictured, go to Mark's Gospel. Here is the woman, and you think you can

almost hear her heavy sighs. Look at the wasted creature; think what she was twelve years before-quite likely one of the fairest of Israel's daughters; at least, so we may think of her. Twelve years ago she was, perhaps, in opening womanhood-young and bright and gay. Life's doors of hope and promise were opening before her, just as they opened before ourselves when we were in our morning manhood and womanhood. Suddenly there came this weary blight, with its drain upon the body, its deep and deepening dejection to the spirit, and, pretty much as if she had been a leper, its shame and “ separation." She was "unclean." One doctor was tried, and then another; but as the weary years rolled on hope died away, and now there was nothing before her but the opening grave, not very far ahead.

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But enough of sadness. For, oh, I like to think that all through those twelve years she was being prepared unconsciously for Christ. She was not ripening for the grave; she was ripening for Jesus. If you had afterwards gone and said to her that through those twelve years she was growing to her grave, she would have contradicted you. "I thought that once, myself," she would have said; and if there had been no Jesus, no Incarnate Saviour born into the world in my own day and generation, I would have perished ere the prime but His coming has made all the difference. I was ripening for Him, bless His holy name." Let me at the very beginning preach the gospel of hope. I may be speaking to some sad, almost despairing sinner, but I dare to say to you now, "Don't despair; do not begin to say, 'There is no

help for me.'" This woman might well have said so, and yet, oh wonder of wonders, the day came when she and Jesus met together. Her burden was lifted; she was restored, not only physically, but spiritually to that simple faith in the Blessed Redeemer which brings into the heart Eternal Life.

Now, that is my hope for some of you. If Christ had come past this woman's door twelve years earlier, when she was a fresh, blooming damsel, He might have come and gone, with very little regard from her. So I say of some of you. If I had preached this sermon twelve years ago, let us say, you, although close by, would not have been here to listen. What did you then care for the Gospel? You were young and healthy, maybe wealthy, and you tossed your head at religion. It might serve for other people; but not for you. Time might write wrinkles and trace crow's feet on certain faces; it might bend some backs, and bring to some sickness and poverty; but all this was far from you. Religion and preachers, they might be all very well for aged, sick, and care-worn people; they had a very slender interest for you. The pride of life was at its height. But it is otherwise tonight. Twelve years have made a difference. In twelve years this woman bent like other folks; and for some time back you also are beginning to find out that life is not so rosy and springing as you had imagined. No; your steps are heavier, your brows more clouded, and the light in your eyes has grown dim. If I had only overheard you, this very day you were heaving great sighs like your sorrowful neighbours. And yet I rejoice to think that, although

painfully disillusionizing, this experience is working itself out to make you ready for Jesus. It enables you to see through the world, so that you may turn from it, and turn to the only help, the only hope that never fails-the Lord Jesus Christ.

You are here to-night because "your strength is weakened in the way, your days of life are shortened." Well, bless God for anything that takes out of us the pride of life, the false strength, and makes us come tottering, at last, to Jesus.

How true to fact is this item: "She had suffered many things of many physicians, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse." If I could only total up the bright money you have paid in order to lift away your weariness, your mortal sickness, that will not shake off! Why, for example, are theatres full in London every night in the week? They are filled to a considerable extent with people who are trying to get rid of a gnawing weariness. They will pay this clown, or that actor, saying, "Make me surmount this secret and growing sadness." They say to this prima donna, "Sing to me, and I will pay much. money, if you will drive from my soul, aye, for one hour, this mortal weariness, this ghastly sickness, that is killing all my joy. Rid me of this palsy, this white-facedness, this death begun. Ease me of mine adversary.'"

In vain you go into society, or into business, to shake yourself clear; charm the charmers never so wisely, the sigh comes back, the wound is but slightly healed by saying, "Peace, Peace," when there is no peace; and as the