C

HERE are some incidents in the life of our Lord that come to us with all the force and power of sympathetic revelations of God's character.

The unpitying, unvarying sternness of natural law -cutting, as it constantly does, across the most exquisite nerves of suffering -presents to us a chilling and repulsive idea of the Being who ordained and who upholds law.

Either he is cruel and means to give pain, or he is insensible and does not care for our suffering, or he is so far off and so high up that he neither sees nor feels, — these are all the conclusions that the facts of human life can lead us to in regard to a Deity, if indeed there be one.

But the Bible declares it was the main object and purpose of Christ's life on earth to manifest to us the interior and hidden heart of God. He was to show us God in a human form, under human conditions, with human sympathies; and in this manifestation we see a constant declaration that it is the desire and wish and intention of God to console men under their sorrows. The miracles of Jesus were all so many testimonies that God pities the sufferings of man, and desires and intends to relieve them. They point forward to a stage of development when there shall be no more pain, nor sorrow, nor sickness, neither any more death, but all the former things shall be passed away. They point to a time when the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and God shall dwell with them, and He shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

The most dreadful, the most hopeless, the most inexorable sorrow is that of death. Nothing is so final, so without hope of retrieval, so utterly full of despair. Yet it was even from

-་་-- --------

this death itself that Jesus at different times snatched the victim, and gave him back to the embraces of friends.

The instances of the raising of the dead by our Lord are three in number, and in each case the subject appears to have been a young person. A little girl in the very dawn of youth was brought back to the embraces of her father and mother; a brother, in the case of Lazarus, was restored to two devoted sisters; and the only son of a widow was given back to his mother.

These actions have more than the force of accidental movements of sympathy. They are to be accepted as protestations from the innermost heart of the great, silent Ruler of Nature, that the anguish and bitterness caused by death among his creatures are not indifferent to him, that it is in his heart finally to put an end to all this sorrow; and this divine representative Man Christ Jesus raises and restores the dead, as a promise of that good time coming when death shall cease and all tears shall be wiped away.

In the first two instances where our Lord is represented as raising the dead, we have no record of anything that he said or did explanatory of the action. When he raised the widow's son at Nain and the ruler's daughter at Capernaum, he said nothing of the philosophy of death or life, and gave no promise of the future. The selecting a widow with an only son as one of the favored instances of mercy was in accordance with the whole spirit of Jewish institutions. By the Mosaic law the widow was made a sacred person. All through the Old Testament, both in the law and the prophets, any act of oppression against a widow is rebuked as the vilest of sins. A special prohibition forbade the taking of a widow's garment as a pledge, and the spirit of this applied to other necessities of life;. in multiplied passages the widow was recommended to the special care and consideration of the community.

The case of the widow of Nain was one of the deepest sorrow. She had lost both her husband, and that only son, who was to be in his father's place the staff and stay of her old age; it was sorrow in its bitterest and most hopeless form.

1

THE WIDOW OF NAIN.

The record of the event is given with the unconscious pathos which everywhere distinguishes the sacred narrative: "And it came to pass that the day after he went into a city called Nain; and and many of his disciples went with him, and much people. Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier; and they that bare him stood still. And he said unto him, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak; and he delivered him unto his mother."

We often hear of the sorrows of Jesus; but beyond all others who have lived, he had his hours of joy, and this was doubtless one. To go out amid human suffering with the right and power to relieve it, to give beauty for ashes and a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, this was the joy of Jesus.

Poor in earth's treasures, without a home or place to lay his head, he had in his hands inestimable riches, which could not be bought, but which he freely gave to all. He was as one poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.

The silent, self-possessed grandeur of this noble miracle impresses us, it was so evidently a movement, pure and simple, of that depth of Divine compassion which is always invisibly waiting and longing for the hour of consolation to come. The only sons of widows are not dead, they are gone into that invisible world which is said to be the especial dominion of Him that liveth and was dead, of him that is alive forevermore; and as he gave this one again to his mother, so in that future life he will lay his healing hand on broken ties, and reunite those whom death has parted here, for he is the resurrection and the life, and whoso believeth in him shall never die!

287

і

THE WIDOW OF NAIN.

HE dust on their sandals lay heavy and white,

Their garments were damp with the tears of the night,
Their hot feet aweary and throbbing with pain,

As they entered the gates of the city of Nain.

But lo! on the pathway a sorrowing throng
Pressed, mournfully chanting the funeral-song,
And like a sad monotone, ceaseless and slow,
The voice of a woman came laden with woe.

What need, stricken mothers, to tell how she wept?

Ye read by the vigils that sorrow hath kept,

Ye know by the travail of anguish and pain,

The desolate grief of the widow of Nain.

As he who was first of the wayfaring men

Advanced, the mute burden was lowered, and then,
As he touched the white grave-cloths that covered the bier,
The bearers shrank back, but the mother drew near.

Her snow-sprinkled tresses had loosened their strands,
Great tears fell unchecked on the tightly clasped hands;
But hushed the wild sobbing, and stifled her cries,
As Jesus of Nazareth lifted his eyes.

Eyes wet with compassion, as softly they fell,
Eyes potent to soften grief's tremulous swell,
As sweetly and tenderly, "Weep not," he said,
And turned to the passionless face of the dead.

White, white gleamed his forehead; loose rippled the hair,
Bronze-tinted, o'er temples transparently fair;

And a glory stole up from the earth to the skies,

As he called to the voiceless one, "Young man, arise!"

THE WIDOW OF NAIN.

The hard, rigid outlines grew fervid with breath,
The dull eyes unclosed from the midnight of death;
Weep, weep, happy mother, and fall at his feet :
Life's pale, blighted promise grown hopeful and sweet.

The morning had passed, and the midday heats burned;
Once more to the pathway the wayfarers turned.
The conqueror of kings had been conquered again;
There was joy in the house of the widow of Nain.