So they went their way to the city, to tell the masters what had happened. “John, where are you going,” exclaimed one of the masters. “Sir, did you know the demoniac that was among the tombs there?” “Demoniac among the tombs! Where did you leave the hogs?” “That madman, sir—” “Madman!—Why do you come home without the hogs?” “That wild and furious man, sir, that mistress was afraid of so much—” “Why John, I ask you a plain and simple question—why don’t you answer me? Where are the hogs?” “That man who was possessed with the devils, sir—” “Why, sure enough, you are crazy!—you look wild!—tell me your story, if you can, let it be what it may.” “Jesus Christ, sir, has cast out the unclean spirits out of the demoniac; they are gone into the swine; and they are all drowned in the sea; for I saw the tail of the last one!” The Gadarenes went out to see what was done, and finding that it was even so, they were afraid, and besought Jesus to depart from them.
How awful must be the condition of those men who love the things of this world more than Jesus Christ!
The man out of whom the unclean spirits were cast, besought Jesus that he might be with him. But he told him to return to his own house, and show how great things God had done unto him. And he went his way and published throughout the whole city of Decapolis, how great things Jesus had done unto him. The act of Jesus casting so many devils out of him, was sufficient to persuade him that Jesus was God as well as man.
I imagine I see him going through the city, crying—“O yes! O yes! O yes!—Please to take notice of me, the demoniac among the tombs. I am the man who was a terror to the citizens of this place—that wild man, who would wear no clothes, and that no man could bind. Here am I, now, in my right mind. Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners, had compassion on me. He remembered me when I was in my low estate—when there was no eye to pity, and no hand to save. He cast out the devils and redeemed my soul from destruction.”
Most wonderful must have been the surprise of the people, to hear such proclamation. The ladies running to the windows, the shoemakers throwing their lasts one way and their awls another, running out to meet him and to converse with him, that they might be positive there was no imposition, and found it to be a fact that could not be contradicted. “O, the wonder of all wonders! Never was there such a thing!”—must, I think, be the general conversation.