These statements, which are true, account for the miracles wrought by the Lord. In working them, however, he had a two-fold purpose. The first was to arouse the people from their dormant state to one of consciousness that a Being of superior power was among them. This they were made to feel by his healing touch, his cleansing hand, and his life-restoring virtue. And what was the effect of all this? It had very much the same effect in one way that kindness toward children in the way of giving them little presents, and gentleness and tenderness in the way of gratifying their bodily desires and wishes, has upon them. They love the one who treats them in such ways. Now, the Lord healed the people. He healed all that came to him, of whatever bodily ill they were suffering. He fed them, too, and did it all so lovingly that they believed him to be the best and most powerful Friend they had ever known. They followed him in throngs. They felt secure, bodily secure and safe when they were with him. But we must not forget that they followed him, not on account of the words he had spoken to them, the instructions he had imparted, but "for the loaves and the fishes." We almost instinctively say, in our meditations upon these things: What a pity they could not discover in him something higher to believe in and love than the mere power and will to heal their bodily ills and minister to their bodily wants! This strong faith in his power and readiness to minister in a miraculous way to their external, worldly enjoyments and comforts is what led them to try to take him by force and make him their king. Having now given you his first object in working miracles, I turn to the second. Here a great field for thought opens to our view, from which a volume could be written. Every miracle the Lord wrought, just like every parable he spoke, has a double line of truth, an inner and an outer sense. These are related to each other as the soul and body are related. Jesus says: "My words are spirit, and they are life." His miracles, when rightly understood, are the same. "They are spirit and they are life." Their spirit and life enter us through the light they contain. Let us look at one or two with a view to find what spirit and life we can: One Sabbath day Jesus met a man in a Jewish house of worship, called a synagogue, whose right hand was WITHERED. Notice, the man's hand was withered. This means that it was dead, just as we mean that a plant is dead when it is withered, or so nearly dead that its life is almost gone. This man's hand must have been powerless. He could not use it to do anything; and it was his right hand. He could not move a joint of it. It was simply powerless.