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 XXIV.

THE TWELVE.

And now the second Pasch of our Lord's Public Life had come. The country from one end to the other was ringing with the sound of His Name. In the crowded cities, in lonely hamlets, in the synagogues, the bazaars, the streets, the Temple itself, Jesus of Nazareth and His marvellous works were the talk of high and low. Herod Antipas in Galilee, Pontius Pilate in Judea, came to hear of Him, and in their own households He had found adherents. Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, Claudia Procula, the Governor's wife, and many others of rank and influence, either followed Him openly with the crowd or believed in secret. The news of fresh cures sped like wildfire through the land, and kept up an enthusiasm which grew daily. For the miracles of which we are told in the holy Gospels are samples only of the immense numbers wrought. Day after day, in all sorts of places, and at all hours He was amongst the sick and suffering. He "went about doing good," this was the business of His Life.

It was blazed abroad how on one Sabbath He had healed a man whom all Jerusalem knew, the paralytic at the Probatica pond, who for nearly forty years had lain there looking wistfully at the water that would have cured him could he have found a friend to help him into it when it was troubled. Jesus of Nazareth had seen him, and, unasked, had cured him, bidding him take up his bed and go into his house. The people did shout when he swung his bed over his shoulder and walked away. But he had not gone far when some