THE FAMILY ALTAR - F.W. Hertzberger

October 2.

"The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.." John 5:7

When the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, walked this

earth, the heavens stood open, and the angels of God attended and

served Him. (John 1, 51.) In His time one of these invisible

ministering spirits stirred the pool of Bethesda and filled it with

healing power, and whoever of the sick first entered the water was

cured of his ailment. So this pool of Bethesda is a type of the

saving water of Holy Baptism and was in its day a silent, yet

forcible witness telling of the presence of the long-promised Savior

in the midst of Israel. But what a fearful accusation lies in the

complaint of the impotent man against his more favored fellow-

men ! Not one of them took pity on him and helped him into the

miraculous healing pool, but, cold and merciless, left him to his

sad fate. "I have no man to take pity on me, to care for my soul !"

That is the complaint, the fearful accusation rising to heaven from

countless lonely and forsaken stricken hearts. Our public charity

institutions in our large cities and our county poor farms number

many such sad cases. Perhaps there are such poor sufferers in our

immediate neighborhood who are forgotten by the selfish world.

Let us do what is in our power that they may hear the cheering

word of their Savior, and let us lighten their burden with our gifts

of sympathetic Christian love. Let us support our blessed Gospel-

missions carried on by our fellow-Christians in many of our large

cities among the sick and afflicted, the paupers and prisoners in

the large public institutions. Then the blessed words of our Savior

will apply to us, too: "I was sick, and ye visited Me; I was in

prison, and ye came unto Me. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto

one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."