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the multitude, and put His fingers
into his ears, and spit, and touched
his tongue. Then He looked up to
Heaven, and sighed, and said to the
man, “ Be opened.” Why did Jesus
sigh? Perhaps He sighed to think
what sorrow and trouble sin had
brought into the world. There
would have been no deaf and dumb,
no lame and blind, if there had been
no sin.

But what happened when Jesus
said, “ Be opened?” The ears of
the man were opened, and his
tongue was loosed, and he spoke
plain. The people wondered very
much at the miracle which Jesus had
done, and cried, saying, “ He hath
done all things well; He maketh
both the deaf to hear, and the dumb
to speak.”

There are many deaf and dumb
people in the world now; and some
of them have friends who try to
bring them to Jesus, as the friends
of this poor man did. They do not
bring them to have their bodies
cured, but to have their souls cured.
The deaf and dumb have a much
worse disease than deafness ;—the
disease of sin; and they cannot
know of themselves how this dis-

THE DEAF AND DUMB MAN.

ease may be cured. But their king
friends teach them how. They try
to make them understand what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done to gaye
sinners; and teach them to pray to
Him in faith, and ask to have their —
sins washed away in His blood, and
their hearts made new by the Holy
Spirit, that they may be taken to be
with Him in Heaven when they
die. We cannot hope that their ears
will be opened in this world; for
Jesus is not now walking upon the
earth, and working miracles; but
they may read of Him though they
cannot hear of Him; and they may
learn to praise Him in their hearts,
though they cannot speak of Him
with their tongues. But they will
not always be deaf and dumb. If
they learn really to believe in Jesus,
and to love Him here, they will go,
when they die, to that world where
“the ears of the deaf shall be un-
stopped, and the tongue of the
dumb sing.” Jsaiah xxxv. 5, 6.
And then they will know why God
made them deaf and dumb upon
earth ; and feel that He made them
so In Wisdom and in love, and that |
“He hath done all things well.”