But the daughter of Jairus was not the only sufferer in that city. We read, there was “a certain woman which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.” Surely she was in a sorrowful condition, had suffered many things, besides the disease which was wasting her life away, for medicine in that age was but imperfectly understood, and diseases were often exorcised by charms, and, doubtless her “many physicians” practiced all sorts of charms and resorted to every kind of omen, until her money was gone, and she was not only poverty-stricken, but daily growing worse under her affliction. One almost wonders, since Jesus had now been for a year and a half a resident of Capernaum, that she had not sooner appealed to Him for help. Perhaps his work had been in another part of the city, or she may have been deterred from asking His help because of the nature of her malady, or she may have thought within herself that she could do in the throng what she had not the courage to do openly, for she said, “If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole.” And now was her opportunity, for “much people followed Him, and thronged Him.” Besides, on this occasion, Jesus may have passed through the street on which she lived, since He has such a way of passing by the door of helpless, suffering humanity, for He is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” This woman at first does not impress us as having a very exalted idea of the Saviour or faith in His ability to heal. Doubtless she shared the superstition of her people, and imagined that Christ healed by a sort of magic or magnetism, for, as she mingled in the throng, she said to herself, if I come “in the press,” if I can only get near enough to “touch the hem of His garment,” I will be healed. These seem to be the thoughts passing through her mind as she ventured out on her errand of being healed. It is important, however, though difficult, to realize her situation, for she had become impoverished, diseased, and almost helpless. Once she was possessed of health, and some means at least, and, no doubt moved in respectable society. Her changed relations to her former surroundings made it all the harder to be publicly recognized, and so she timidly permits herself to be absorbed by the multitude as they pressed their way through the crowded street that morning. There may be another reason of which she was fully conscious, namely, according to the Mosaic law, such a sufferer was unclean, and was required, after the cure was wrought, to bring an offering for purification. Orientals had a perfect abhorrence of such a person, for her very touch would render them unclean. Perhaps could we know all the circumstances which shaped her actions, the wonder would be, that she came at all, and that her courage was greater than her faith.