Correspondence.

E.H.B.— Had Demas forsaken God, as well as Paul (2 Tim. 4:1010For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. (2 Timothy 4:10))? It would be going beyond what is written to suppose so. Nevertheless his was a grievous failure. In former epistles (Col. 4:1414Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you. (Colossians 4:14); Philem. 2424Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellowlaborers. (Philemon 24)) he was described as the apostle’s fellow laborer. Now he had forsaken the apostle, having loved this present age. Here was the secret. Desire for some worldly advantage led him to abandon the aged and honored servant of Christ. Testimony for the Lord is always costly, and there is the constant temptation to leave the tent and the altar, like Lot, and seek more comfortable quarters in Sodom. The Demases, to their own dishonor, always yield to this temptation.
C.N. on Luke 8:42, 4342For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him. 43And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, (Luke 8:42‑43) (see former query, page 60). There is no doubt, as you say, that the case of the woman with an issue of blood has a reference to the present blessing of every soul who believes in Christ, while the raising of Jairus’ daughter represents the restoration of dead Israel in a future day (Isa. 26:1919Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. (Isaiah 26:19); Ezek. 37; Dan. 12 But D.T. inquired what significance there is in the fact that the length of the woman’s illness and the age of the damsel were both twelve years. This, therefore still remains unanswered.