Matthew 17:14-21 And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,… Whoever has held in his arms his child in delirium, calling to his father for aid as if he were distant far, and beating the air in wild and aimless defence, will be able to enter a little into the trouble of this man's soul. To have the child, and yet see him tormented in some region inaccessible; to hold him to the heart, and yet be unable to reach the thick-coming fancies which distract him; to find himself with a great abyss between him and his child, across which the cry of the child comes, but back across which no answering voice can reach the consciousness of the sufferer — is terror and misery indeed. But imagine in the case before us the intervals as well — the stupidity, the vacant gaze, the hanging lip, the pale flaccid countenance and bloodshot eyes, idiocy alternated with madness — no voice of human speech, only the animal babble of the uneducated dumb — the misery of his falling down anywhere, now in the fire, now in the water, and the Divine shines out as nowhere else — for the father loves his own child even to agony. What was there in such a child to love? Everything. The human was there, else whence the torture of that which was not human? whence the pathos of those eyes, hardly up to the dog's in intelligence, yet omnipotent over the father's heart? God was there. The misery was that the devil was there too. Hence came the crying and tears. "Rescue the Divine; send the devil to the deep," was the unformed prayer in the father's soul. (George Macdonald.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,WEB: When they came to the multitude, a man came to him, kneeling down to him, saying, |
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