But the case is different when our Lord speaks to others, and not to the demoniacs themselves. His observations to the Pharisees on this subject I have already considered. There remains the striking one addressed to the disciples: “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” The circumstances of the case are these. The disciples had failed to cure the youth, whether a demoniac or a simple lunatic. They ask our Lord why it was that they had failed. He tells them that it was because of their unbelief. Now it is impossible for us to say what was the nature of the influence of faith in affecting miraculous cures, and why the want of it prevented success. It is sufficient to draw attention to the fact that it is uniformly laid down in the New Testament, that in the case of subordinate agents working miracles faith was necessary for their accomplishment. Our Lord also usually required faith in the recipients of his cures, but not always. But to his disciples when they attempted to perform a miracle faith was indispensable to their success. The question was not what was the nature of the disease, but why in this particular case they had failed to cure it. Our Lord replied that in this instance not only was faith necessary to effect the cure, but a very unusual degree of it. If the question had been what was the cause of the child’s disease, and if our Lord know that it was not possession, but mania, it is quite possible that He would have refused to answer it, as He did on other occasions when curious questions were put to him, and would have deduced some moral lesson from the fact. This it will be remembered was the course which He pursued when He was asked whether only a few would be saved. But the inquiry was not what caused the disease, but why the attempt to cure it had proved a failure. Such being the question, there is nothing inconsistent with truthfulness in our Lord’s answer. He avoided entering into an explanation as to what was a physical cause of the disease, which was quite foreign to his divine mission. He therefore simply told them that their failure was owing to their unbelief, and then added, in language couched in their own forms of thought, and which would not therefore open a discussion on subjects foreign to the purposes of his mission, “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”