they do? They must take example from the blind beggar in the Gospel. When the crowd rebuked him he cried out _much more:_ "Son of David, have mercy on me!" He knew that he must cry out louder to make his voice drown the buzzing murmurs of the crowd. Jesus did not seem to hear him, so he shouted louder. O you that are blind from temptation, you that are blind in sin, you that have given the first cry, and whose voices seem about to be drowned by the voice of the crowd of old habits and want of trust, cry louder, cry much more: "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Then, no matter if your blindness be never so dark, Jesus will stand still; he will command you to be brought to him; he will say to you: "What wilt thou that I do to you?" And then will be the time for you to pray: "Lord, that I may _see_." O my God! grant that all the tempted and all the sinners may have the grace to make that petition. May God "enlighten all our eyes, that we sleep not in death," and bring us all "to _see_ the God of Gods in Sion"! Rev. Algernon A. Brown. ----------------------------- {145} Sermon XXXIX. _And they understood none of these things, and this word was hid from them, and they understood not the things that were said._ --St. Luke xviii. 34. If you have listened attentively to this Gospel, my dear brethren, it seems to me that you must have been astonished at this part of it. For our Lord certainly could not have told his apostles more clearly about what was going to happen to him than he had told them in the words which immediately preceded these. "The Son of Man," he says, "shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and scourged and spit upon; and after they have scourged him they will put him to death, and the third day he shall rise again." What more clear account could he have given them of his approaching passion, death, and resurrection? And yet it made no impression on them at all. When the time of his Passion actually came they were quite unprepared for it, as much so as if he had said nothing about it beforehand. How can we account for this? What reason can we give for this blindness to what was put so plainly before their eyes? It was as complete a blindness as that of the poor man whose cure is told in the latter part of the Gospel. {146}