Acts 3:2

2. Man lame… was carried Was being carried. He is borne to the spot while they are walking to it. The cripple and his restorers, unknown to each other, are coming to the same point.

Laid daily At a path where troops of the benevolent are supposed to pass. There are many irreligious humanitarians who pretend that the Christian Church preaches a great deal, but does little in the cause of humanity. Such a statement is false in fact. Statistics would show that the great current of liberal giving flows from Christian, evangelically Christian, hands. It is in Christian countries almost alone that great benevolent institutions have heretofore existed.

Lame from his mother’s womb Proof that none but miraculous power could cure him.

Beautiful The gate entering from the Gentile court into the women’s court. It is remarkable that there was in the city of Constantinople a gate called by the same Greek epithet ‘ Ωραια , beautiful, and Constantinople itself was sometimes called Καλλιπολις , Beauty-city. Such epithets do not usually displace the ordinary name. Leaving the marble floor of the court of the Gentiles, the apostles ascend a flight of steps to a broad platform called chel, a few steps above which stands the Beautiful gate, and upon which probably also lies the lame-born. It is customary even at the present day in the countries of Europe, especially of papal Europe, to place beggars, sometimes even by public authority, at the doors and gates of churches, hotels, and bridges. Such should never be the case in a well-ordered government, in which Christian principle requires that ample provision, to which all should contribute in proportion to their means, should be legally made for all the truly and necessarily poor. The same Christian principle which in our Saviour’s time required a limitless individual benevolence, requires of Christian governments to make such provisions as shall as far as possible render individual alms-giving unnecessary.