Luke 8:33

down a steep place Rather, down the precipice. Near Kherza is the only spot on the entire lakewhere a steep slope sweeps down to within a few yards of the sea, into which the herd would certainly have plunged if hurried by any violent impulse down the hill. If it be asked whether this was not a destruction of property, the answer is that the antedating of the death of a herd of unclean animals was nothing compared with the deliverance of a human soul. Our Lord would therefore have had a moral right to act thus even if he had been a mere human Prophet. Besides, to put it on the lowest ground, the freeing of the neighbourhood from the peril and terror of this wild maniac was a greater benefit to the whole city than the loss of this herd. Jesus did not commandthe spirits to go into the swine; if He permittedany thing which resulted in their destruction it was to serve higher and more precious ends. "God the Word," says Lord Bacon, "wished to do nothing which breathed not of grace and beneficence;" and after mentioning the stern miracles of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, St Peter and St Paul, he adds, "but Jesus did nothing of this kind...the spirit of Jesus is the spirit of the Dove. He wrought no miracle of judgment, all of beneficence." Meditt. Sacr.on Mark 12:37. The miracles of Christ were all redemptive actsand spiritual lessons.