"Go back and tell John in his prison what you have seen and heard. Here are men once blind who now can see; lame men who now can walk; leprous men who have been made clean; deaf men made to hear; men having in them evil spirits, who are now free from their power. You have heard too of dead men raised to life; and you have listened while the gospel has been preached to the poor. You go and tell John all these things that you have seen and heard. Then let John think about these things and judge whether I am not the One whom he promised should come." That was a far better way to bring John the Baptist back to believing fully in Jesus as the promised King of Israel and the Saviour of the world than to send the answer back, "Go and tell John that I am the Saviour." For John's faith would be the stronger, because he would now have the proofs that Jesus was the promised Lord. After these messengers from John the Baptist had left, Jesus began to talk to the people about John. Some may have thought that in sending this question to Jesus, John had showed weakness and a change of his mind. Jesus said to the people: "What was it that you went out to the desert to see? Was it a reed swayed to and fro by the wind? No, this man John was no weak, wind-shaken reed. Did you go out to look at a man clothed in the robes of a prince, and eating delicate food? No, that skin-clad man in the desert was no such princely person. To see such people you go to the palaces of kings. Come, what _did_ you go out to see? Was it a prophet, a man sent from God? Yes, I tell you, John the Baptist was indeed a prophet, and more than a prophet. He was the King's messenger, to prepare the way for the King himself. Of a truth, I tell you all that no greater man was ever born into this world than John the Baptist. And yet he that is least in the Kingdom of God is higher even than John." Jesus meant that those who could come into the Kingdom of God, as those who heard the gospel might come, were higher than even the greatest of those who prepare the way for the Kingdom. [Illustration: The Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem] The Sinful Woman Forgiven CHAPTER 32 WHILE JESUS was passing through southern Galilee, in one place a Pharisee named Simon invited him to his house for dinner. The Pharisees, you remember, were people who were supposed to be very religious, because they carefully followed all the rules about praying at regular hours every day, whether on the street or in their homes; fasting, or not taking food, on certain days; going to church three times every week, and doing many things to be seen by others, while they were often sharp and hard in their dealings with men. They seemed to be good, but often were not as good as they seemed. Everywhere the Pharisees were at heart enemies of Jesus. They watched him, but in no friendly spirit.