'And a woman, having an issue of blood twelve years,
which had spent all her living upon physicians,
neither could be healed of any, 44. Came behind Him,
and touched the border of His garment: and immediately
her issue of blood stanched. 45. And Jesus said, Who
touched Me? When all denied, Peter, and they that were
with Him, said, Master, the multitude throng Thee and
press Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me? 46. And
Jesus said, Somebody hath touched Me: for I perceive
that virtue is gone out of Me. 47. And when the woman
saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and,
falling down before Him, she declared unto Him before
all the people for what cause she had touched Him, and
how she was healed immediately. 48. And He said unto
her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made
thee whole; go in peace.'--LUKE viii. 43-48.

The story of Jairus's daughter is, as it were, cut in two by that of the poor invalid woman. What an impression of calm consciousness of power and of leisurely dignity is made by Christ's having time to pause, even on His way to a dying sufferer, in order to heal, as if parenthetically, this other afflicted one! How Jairus must have chafed at the delay! He had left his child 'at the point of death' and here was the Healer loitering, as it must have seemed to a father's agony of impatience.

But Jesus, with His infinite calm and as infinite power, can afford to let the one wait and even die, while He tends the other. The child shall receive no harm, and her sister in sorrow has as great a claim on Him as she. He has leisure of heart to feel for each, and power for both. We do not rob one another of His gifts. Attending to one, He does not neglect another.

This miracle illustrates the genuineness and power of feeble and erroneous faith, and Christ's merciful way of strengthening and upholding it. The woman, a poor, shrinking creature, has been made more timid by long illness, disappointed hopes of cure, and by poverty. She does not venture to stop Jesus, as He goes with an important official of the synagogue to heal his daughter, but creeps up in the crowd behind Him, puts out a wasted, trembling hand to touch the tasselled fringe of His robe--and she is whole.

She would fain have glided away with a stolen cure, but Jesus forced her to stand out before the throng, and with all their eyes on her, to conquer diffidence and womanly reticence, and tell all the truth. Strange contrast, this, to His usual avoidance of notoriety and regard for shrinking weakness! But it was true kindness, for it was the discipline by which her imperfect faith was cleared and confirmed.