St Matthew, St Mark and St Luke speak as though the loaves and fishes belonged to the Apostolic company, while St John says “There is _a lad here_ who has &c.” The supposition that the lad was employed to carry the provisions does not, it is said, agree with the received notions of the poverty of the Apostles. We find, however, that they had the use of various boats, and St Mark speaks of “hired servants” in Zebedee’s boat.(216) I suppose that one of these servants, not being wanted while the boat was ashore, was employed to carry the sack of provisions for the party. It supports my view that the two common articles of diet should _both_ be brought by the same lad, in just such quantity as to suffice for our Lord’s company. The words “How many loaves have ye? Go and see” shew, that our Lord supposed them to have brought a supply;(217) moreover the quantity of provisions was nearly the same and they were of the same kind, as those which the Twelve had with them on the subsequent occasion of the feeding of the four thousand.(218) It is unlike the East, as we now know it, that there should have been no bargaining, and that _one_ lad should have seen the opportunity of selling his commodities and followed from one of the villages, and that no other should have done so. Whether the provisions belonged to the disciples or were(219) purchased at the time, the wants of our Lord’s own party, as I have just said, could have been supplied without miraculous intervention; and the rule, answering to the refusal to turn Stones into Loaves, would hold. These rules, or Laws as I have called them, treated of in Chapter V. are not formally imposed by our Lord on Himself, or alluded to in express terms. They are _uniformities observed_ in his conduct, which harmonise with the course taken in the Temptations. We need not suppose that He said to Himself “I will always adhere to this rule or that,” but He observed the rule because to follow it best forwarded in each case the end in view. Our Lord’s company are never in straits for food, but our Lord once implies that if they had been so His power might always be trusted as a means of supply.(220) He would not have adhered to His practice narrowly, when it would have weakened the lesson of Trust. Philip may have been charged with the care of provisioning the party, just as Judas Iscariot carried the purse; this conjecture would account for our Lord turning to him with the question, “Whence are we to buy bread?”(221)