Dear friends, this poor woman represents us all. Like her, we are sick of a sore sickness, we have spent our substance in trying physicians of no value, and are 'nothing the better, but rather the worse.' Oh! is it not strange that you should need to be urged to go to the Healer to whom she went? Do not be afraid, my brother, of telling Him all your pain and pining--He knows it already. Do not be afraid that your hand may not reach Him for the crowd, or that your voice may fail to fall on His ear. Do not be afraid of your ignorance, do not be afraid of your wavering confidence and many doubts. All these cannot separate you from Him who 'Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.' Fear but one thing--that He pass on to carry life and health to other souls, ere you resolve to press to His feet. Fear but one thing--that whilst you delay, the hem of the garment may be swept beyond the reach of your slow hand. Imperfect faith may bring salvation to a soul: hesitation may ruin and wreck a life. TOUCH OR FAITH? 'If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole.... Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole.'--Mark v. 28,34. I. The erroneous faith.--In general terms there is here an illustration of how intellectual error may coexist with sincere faith. The precise form of error is clearly that she looked on the physical contact with the material garment as the vehicle of healing--the very same thing which we find ever since running through the whole history of the Church, _e.g._ the exaltation of externals, rites, ordinances, sacraments, etc. Take two or three phases of it-- 1. You get it formularised into a system in sacramentarianism. (a) Baptismal regeneration, (b) Holy Communion. Religion becomes largely a thing of rites and ceremonies. 2. You get it in Protestant form among Dissenters in the importance attached to Church membership. Outward acts of worship. There is abroad a vague idea that somehow we get good from external association with religious acts, and so on. This feeling is deep in human nature, is not confined to the Roman Catholic Church, and is not the work of priests. There is a strange revival of it to-day, and so there is need of protest against it in every form. II. The blessing that comes to an erroneous faith.--The woman here was too 'ritualistic.' How many good people there are in that same school to-day! Yet how blessed for us all, that, even along with many errors, if we grasp _Him_ we shall not lose the grace. III. Christ's gentle enlightenment on the error.--'Thy faith hath saved thee.' How wonderfully beautiful! He cures by giving the blessing and leading on to the full truth. In regard to the woman, it might have been that her touch _did_ heal; but even there in the physical realm, since it was He, not His robe, that healed, it was her faith, not her hand, that procured the blessing. This is universally true in the spiritual realm.