In Galilee

Circuit of Galilee. Effect.

(The Gospel History, Section 32)

And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose up, and went out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed. And Simon and they that were with him followed after him; and they found him, and say unto him, All are seeking thee. For the multitudes sought after him and came unto him, and would have stayed him, that he should not go from them. But he said unto them, Let us go elsewhere into the next towns, for I must preach the good tidings of the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for to this end came I forth.

And Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and casting out devils, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness among the people. And the report of him went forth into all Syria: and they brought unto him all that were sick, holden with divers diseases and torments, possessed with devils, and epileptic, and palsied; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judæa and from beyond Jordan.

In Galilee

(The Saviour of the World, Vol II Book I Poem IX)

The Lord had need of all the grace of God,
Patience, strength, hope and courage for His work—
Those tempers that renew our mortal frame—
For Simon sought Him, with the rest, and cried,
Eager with spirit of the world’s success,
“All men are seeking Thee!” How good to him
That men should seek His master! Lo, he thought,
The work is half accomplished, Christ made King!
The multitudes arrive in desert place,
Claim property in Him, would hold Him back;
Nay, was He not their own? Had they not seen
First among men, Authority in Act?
The disciples standing by with swelling hearts
Augured great things from the crowd’s urgency;
But Christ, who ne’er refused one suppliant’s prayer,
Yet never yielded to the popular voice:
He knew what was in man, the frothy stuff
That goes to swell a crowd, a clamour raise:

Turning to His disciples,—“Let us go
“To all the towns about, that they may hear
“Good tidings of the kingdom; I must preach
“To other cities, too; for this, I came.”
And Jesus went about in Galilee,
Taught in their synagogues and healed their sick.
Full many sick they brought Him, sore diseased,
Tormented, palsied, or of fiends possessed,
And all of them He healed—all grievous ills
And loathsome, that destroyed men’s soul or flesh—
He took the infirmities, the sickness bare,
In that new strength got in the desert place
Where power of God He sought for mortal frame
Exhausted under burden of men’s ills.
Where’er He went, great multitudes pursued,
From Galilee, Judæa, Decapolis,
From beyond Jordan and Jerusalem;
All men had heard report of Him and came
So they might taste the sweetness of His words,
Might see the signs He wrought, and know for sure,
“Lo, God hath sent Messias unto men!”

St. Mark i. 36-39;
St. Luke iv. 42, 43, 44;
St. Matthew iv. 23-25