Compassion for the many,
I. CHRIST'S COMPASSION FOR THE MANY CONTRASTED WITH THE NARROW HEARTS OF THE DISCIPLES.
1. Narrow hearts often are caused by narrow means. Alas! grinding poverty makes even naturally kind hearts indifferent to others' sufferings. Where there is "little to earn and many to keep," this will be so. There are circumstances in which the whole kindly current of the man's being is frozen, and he becomes utterly egotistic.
2. The Divine heart is of boundless compassion. All those ancient pictures of God as unwearied and unworn after all his creative activity, may be used of his redemptive activity. There is no exhausting the Divine intelligence, no draining the resources of the Divine heart.
II. CHRIST'S ACTION ON THIS OCCASION A PARABLE OF THE CALL OF THE GENTILES. The present feeding of the multitude differs from the former; the numbers given are different. Again, the present work was done after a long journey in heathen lands. "The one miracle was chiefly, if not entirely, for Jews; the other chiefly, if not entirely, for Gentiles. The feeding of the five thousand was an exceptional miracle, which Jesus had refused to repeat on behalf of Jews. It was therefore quite natural that the apostles should not at once receive the intimation of Jesus respecting what he was willing to do for the multitude. They spoke only of their own inability to supply the wants of the people; but they did not forget what he had done a few weeks before. There were only a few miraculous cures for the Gentiles, while those for the Jews were innumerable; and it might therefore be doubted if Jesus would now do for Gentiles what he had only once done for Jews" (J. H. Godwin). The Divine compassion and love exceed our noblest and largest thoughts, and are extended alike to all peoples.—J.