Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/157

Rh so that the brightness thereof passed like purifying fire into my soul; and he looked up unto heaven and then down upon me, and it was as if he had been wrestling with the evil spirit of faithlessness in my heart and had quite driven it out. For now, behold, of a sudden, my doubts and fears and troubles were all clean gone, and my heart was as light as air, and a certain irresistible faith possessed me; insomuch that, though I lay still on my bed, I knew that I had been made whole and that I needed naught save the bidding of Jesus to tell me when to arise. And when the word came, I arose.' Now," said Nathaniel, "thus spake Mattathias to me. But if he spake aright, then methinks Jesus hath a power to create faith in the heart as well as to heal the diseases of the body."

All that night I meditated upon the words of Nathaniel and upon the story of Mattathias: for that a prophet should cure diseases seemed possible, though wonderful; but that any one, yea, even though he were the Redeemer of Israel himself, should have power to create peace and faith, this indeed seemed a marvellous and almost an impossible thing. But it came to pass that on the morning of the very next day, as I remember, we went into the house of a certain rich man with Jesus; and a great company was assembled (some because of the mighty work that Jesus had wrought on the Gadarene, but others, of the richer sort, because they desired to abet the plotting of the Pharisees against him), and Jesus was now on the point to speak to the people, when a noise was heard from the roof above. There had been no small stir, even before, near the door of the house, and none had taken heed thereof; but now we looked up, and behold, one sick of the palsy in a bed was let down by ropes, until the bed reached the place where Jesus was; for he sat in the