effort to touch CHRIST! You are, as you feel, no better, no wiser, than if there were no CHRIST, or you had never been near Him! And you will never be wiser and better, however much you press and throng, till you realise your want, and are convinced that CHRIST alone can relieve it, and come to Him faithfully, resolutely, humbly, to touch the hem of His garment, and be healed of your plague. First, then, strive to know what you want, and to be convinced that CHRIST can and will grant it; and, then, feeling the desire of it, being sure from Whom alone it can be had, and how it must be sought, draw near—with the feeling of necessity, with the perseverance of desire, with the consciousness of unworthiness—and effect the touch of faith. You shall not, in that case, remain unblessed; your plague shall be stayed, your faith shall be commended, your effort crowned, your humility exalted; you shall have more than you sought; enlarge your desire as you will, it shall be more than satisfied: and He whom you would but touch, and then shrink away, shall call you forth, and own, and bless you, and give you everlasting peace and perfect salvation. Next, let us observe, that nothing can keep back and nothing hide from CHRIST. We are sometimes tempted, in the deep sense of our unworthiness, in review of the distance between us and the Healer, of the many obstacles which intervene, to give up in despair, and say to ourselves, “It is of no use trying, I am not fit for such a blessing, and if I were, I cannot reach it.” Now, consider, who could be more unfit, and who more unable to approach CHRIST than this poor woman. There was a positive law which forbade her coming; her touch was pollution: yet CHRIST reproached her not with disregarding that law, nor refused her because of it; and when she touched He did not recoil, but encouraged her. For _us_ there is no excommunicating law. From us CHRIST is pledged not to recoil. “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden,” is an invitation, a positive command. “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out,” is a most solemn pledge. Why, then, should we shrink? What shall we fear? And as for difficulties and hindrances, our own infirmities, the opposition of the world or the Devil, the sneers of despisers, the distance, the crowd, the hurrying on, can aught compare with what threatened this woman, and what she overcame? O are we not ashamed to forego salvation, to keep away from CHRIST, to desist from determination to reach Him, by any plea of personal infirmity, or of difficulty in the way? What in ourselves is worse than the twelve years’ growing, enfeebling, overwhelming malady of this woman? What in aught around us is more impenetrable than the great crowd? and whenever was CHRIST as distant from us as He was from her? And then as to the discouragement which Satan would suggest to us, that in our age we cannot, like this