XXXIX.

The Bed of the Paralytic.

WHEN was a burden ever lifted more joyfully than this was, when at the Saviour's command the light bed was raised by the strong arms that had, but a few moments previously, rested in helpless weakness upon it! How joyfully did the restored paralytic make his way on his own feet through that crowd whose presence had rendered it impossible for his friends to bear him in on his bed! We know not of a single word spoken by the rejoicing pardoned believer in that hour of intense happiness, but surely the utterance of his heart must have been like that of the psalmist.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits! Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies, . . . so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's!"

We would gladly follow the restored sufferer to his home, and hear him recounting to eager listeners there what great things the Lord had done for him; describing his feelings of hope as—borne on that bed—he had approached the house in which the Master was teaching, then the fear, the anxiety, the difficulty which had followed when it was found to be useless to attempt to carry the invalid in. How grateful must he have felt to those friends whom difficulties would not daunt, especially to whoever first offered the suggestion to let him down through the roof!

The sufferer could not help his friends in their labour of love, but how anxiously he had watched it, and, when gently lowered down by kind hands, with what a trembling hope had he found himself in the immediate presence of the Redeemer! To hear such scenes described by those who were the immediate actors in them, may probably be one of the joys reserved for God's children in Heaven.

How would the restored paralytic in the course of his after-life regard that bed on which he had lain perhaps for weary year after year! Would the associations connected with it be those of pain or of pleasure? Would he dwell on the long wearisome days, the dreary nights which he had spent on that bed when he had no power to lift himself from it? Would he sigh when he looked on it from the recollection of all that he had had to endure? We cannot think this, however long, or painful, or trying, his illness may have been; it is far more likely that the sight of that bed would bring to his mind recollections on which memory would dwell with rapture.

"It was when stretched on that bed that I first looked on my Lord, and met His glance of ineffable love and compassion! It was when stretched on that bed that I heard those accents which will thrill delight through my soul to my dying day, yea, and through all eternity,—'Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee!' Oh, God be praised that I ever was sick! I thank, I bless, I adore Him for the weakness, the helplessness, the disease which brought me so close to my Lord, and made me a monument thus of His everlasting mercy and grace!"

And thus will many a dear Christian brother or sister, long afflicted by sickness, look back on the couch of suffering when the Lord has restored health to the feeble frame, or when—through what man calls death—He has bidden the pardoned believer "arise," never more to lie down in pain. Many will doubtless have cause to say, "It was in love and mercy that sickness and suffering were permitted to chain me down to my bed; it was from thence that I first looked through faith on my Saviour—there first I knew that my sins were indeed forgiven. My weakness made me rest in Christ's strength—my sufferings brought me to His feet. I would not exchange the lessons learned, the privileges enjoyed on that sick-bed, for all the wealth of the world!"

The story of the paralytic man is fraught with comfort also to those in sorrow for loved ones afflicted either in body or in mind. It is terrible to watch sufferings which we cannot relieve, to seek aid from physicians but to find that their utmost skill is exerted in vain. Which of us has not known the wearing anxiety, the sickening suspense, when a precious life is at stake? Oh! Let us not then rest on earth, and put down our loved burden in despair. We must "go up higher," we must carry our friend upwards on the strong arms of prayer, we must lay him at the feet of the Saviour. The Son of Man hath still power to say, "Arise, take up thy bed and walk."

Still more earnest should be our efforts when the sickness of him for whom we pray is that of the soul—the sickness of sin. Bodily health and strength and beauty may be united with deadly spiritual paralysis. Some seem as if they would not—could not—come to the Saviour; they have no power to rise, they are chained down by the cares or pleasures and follies of the world; when others are pressing in to hear God's Word, they remain in peril without.

Let us, as it were, carry those who will not or cannot walk, let us bear the burden on our hearts. God is trying our faith and our patience. Have we clambered the outward stair, have we toiled to uncover the roof—to remove as far as we can the obstacles which divide the paralyzed soul from the Lord? And then, using the bands of love, the "cords of a man," have we gently placed our burden even at the feet of our Heavenly Master? He has still power to say to the diseased and paralyzed soul, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," and to bid it arise to walk in newness of life, to tread in the paths of holiness, to run with vigour that blessed race of which Heaven itself is the goal!

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