The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

THE MIRACLE OF REPARATION 397
swashbuckler type of Christianity ready to resent
offence as a London apprentice of the Middle Ages.
We belong to Moses, who slew the Egyptian and hid
him in the sand, rather than to the new Deliverer who,
when He was reviled, reviled not again, and when He
suffered, threatened not. We lack the Lord's infinite
capacity for meekness, long-suffering, forgiveness ; and
whilst the lack continues cannot be true to His methods
and promote His kingdom. The brute force brought
to
bear upon men, even in the name of the Christian
religion, always unfits them to become the subjects of
purely spiritual processes. The martinet can never
make ready a people for the Lord. Simon Peter's
sword wounded the soul of this slave much more
gravely than his ear, and but for the miracle which
undid the mischief, Malchus might have been the one
man in the world who would have been produced as a
witness to discredit Jesus Christ. This healing act
of gentleness not only made him a friend, but may
have prepared him to hear the evangel of the Pentecost,
and to feel its great magnetic tides of influence.
In those unseen atmospheres which insphere us, the
Spirit of Jesus still moves as it listeth, creating
benign counteractions to our evil and intolerant
tempers, repairing the tragic errors
into which we are
rushed by our passion for righteousness, and showing
that mercy to offenders against the honour of Christ
in which we so often fall short. Every age has its
rash, impetuous Simons to whom our hearts go out,
and it is strange they have not utterly destroyed the
faith. They do more towards that end than the
persecutor.
and the miracle is
But Christianity is kept alive by miracle,
a repetition in varied form of that