After devoting several days in this retreat to solitude and devotion, Jesus, in whose character the serious, thoughtful, pensive temperament so wonderfully predominated, returned to Capernaum. The tidings spread rapidly throughout the city. An immense concourse soon thronged the street on which the house was situated which he had entered. Jesus addressed the vast concourse,――the door-sill, perhaps, his pulpit, the overarching skies his temple, and his audience a motley assemblage crowding the pavements. Proud Pharisees and self-conceited doctors of the law had come, drawn from the surrounding cities to the spot by the fame of Jesus. While Jesus was speaking, some men brought a paralytic patient on a couch to be healed. But the concourse was so dense, that they could not force their way through to his feet. The roof of the house was flat, surrounded by a battlement, to prevent any one from falling off. By a back way they entered the house, ascended to the roof, broke away a portion of the battlement, and with cords lowered the man on his couch down before Jesus. Palsy is often the result of an intemperate life, of sinful habits: it is not improbable that it was so in this case. In healing the leper, Jesus had merely said, in the exercise of his own divine power, “I will: be thou clean.” Now, in the exercise of that same divine power, he assumed the prerogative of forgiving sin. “When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” The Pharisees and the doctors of the law, offended at this assumption, said one to another, “Who is this who speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? “Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee? or to say, Arise and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of the palsy), Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all.” The amazed people exclaimed, “We have seen strange things to-day!” Leaving the thronged city, Jesus, who seems ever to have cherished a great fondness for the country, went out to some favorite spot upon the shore of the lake; but the excited multitude followed him. As they were leaving the city, Jesus saw a man named Matthew, also called Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the door of a custom-house, where he was collecting the taxes which were levied by the Roman government. The tax-gatherer was exceedingly unpopular with the Jews. No intimation is given us respecting the character of Matthew, or whether he had previously manifested any interest in Jesus. But, for some reason, Jesus deemed him worthy of being called as one of his apostles. The fact is announced in the brief words, “And he saith unto him, Follow me; and he left all, rose up, and followed him.”