crowded street, or the measured tread of the slow-moving mourners, chills the silence of the country path. Men pause and look-0 that they would remember! Since they will not, the lesson is repeated, until to the very heart and home of each the warning comes. God suffers us to fall into the very depth and extremity of affliction, that we may learn that He is ready to save to the uttermost those who call upon Him: that with Him nothing is impossible, and that when all is dark, and seems hopeless, the darkness may be but the forerunner and indication of a brighter, happier day. When we have suffered to the uttermost, and have passed through the phrensy of grief to its humility, and are ready to admit the justice of God and His tender mercy in our affliction, we perceive that He sees us-that He has compassion on us-that He doth not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men-that the command to us, as to the widow of Nain, is Weep not.

It is not that our compassionate Father forbids us natural affection, that through His Son He bids us not to weep. It is not that the Gospel inculcates indifference to God's chastening arm. No, very far is it from encouraging any such heathen philosophy as this. He wills that we should turn to Him with fasting and with weeping, when in the course of His parental government, He finds it necessary by affliction to divert our thoughts and our reliance from earthly objects, and to fasten them on Him who is all and in all. When He has taught us the vanity and the helplessness of the arm of flesh, a ray of heavenly sunlight shoots across our gloom-the presence of God is felt.

Jesus comes to those who have laid help on him, and bids them Weep not. He touched the bier of the son of the widow of Nain, and those who bare him stood still. So when His presence is felt in the circle of sorrow, those around desist from the insufficient means of consolation which they have applied in vain. They acknowledge the power of God, and are still. A holy calm succeeds the tempest of grief, when He who commands the winds and sea, and they obey, is discerned in the hour of mourning. The "much people" of Nain, stood silent and awe-struck:

As they stay'd the bier,

And, at his bidding, laid it at his feet,

He gently drew the pall from out her grasp,

And laid it back in silence from the dead.

With troubled wonder the mute throng drew near,
And gazed on his calm looks. A minute's space
He stood and pray'd. Then taking the cold hand,
He said, "Arise!" And instantly the breast
Heaved in its cerements, and a sudden flush
Ran through the lines of the divided lips,
And with a murmur of his mother's name,
He trembled, and sat upright in his shroud;
And while the mourner hung upon his neck,
Jesus went calmly on his way to Nain.

He had bidden her weep not,-not because she had no cause for grief, but because he was ready with consolation. He imparted relief, and showed forth in the wonderful work, his Divine power, and the glory of the Father. And when the Gospel bids us weep not, it is because we may find consolation too, if we will receive it, in the

knowledge and justice and mercy of God, which his precious volume reveals to us. In wo, our heavenly Father is no less a friend than in joy; and the faithful and obedient shall discover at the last, that the events and bereavements which have seemed most grievous were most beneficial, and of lasting advantage. Sorrow and affliction recall us from error; and when we wander and stray like lost sheep, summon us back to the Good Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. They teach the mercy The heart of the widow.

and loving kindness of our God.

of Nain knew a greater transport of joy than it had ever before experienced, when the Saviour delivered to her the son who had been dead, a living man again. So, often, are we afflicted that we may receive true joy. So when the dead in sin awake to righteousness, there is joy in their own hearts-joy among their kindred. Yea, there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.

The young man of Nain had again to travel the gloomy road in which the Saviour interrupted him. His was a resurrection to a mortal life, which he again surrendered. Once more he passed out of his house upon the bier. But the resurrection to the life eternal, to the knowledge of the true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, involves no such necessity. And he who raised the widow's son bids us awake to righteousness, and sin not. He has compassion on those who are dead in trespasses and sins. He is ever ready to speak the life-giving word. As he brake the cerements of the physically dead, he delivers from the power of Satan, and loosens the bonds of iniquity:

he preaches deliverance to the captive, and bids the oppressed go free.

And the day is coming when ALL who are in the grave shall hear that voice: when they who have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of damnation. The earth and the sea shall give up their dead. Adam, the common father of our race, in whom all die, shall be made alive, with all his myriads of descendants, in the Second Man, the Lord from heaven. The earnest of his power to summon forth the dead of ages, was given in the restoration of the young man of Nain-but above all in his own resurrection. Then shall be fulfilled what was said upon the faith of the centurion: that many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; while the children shall be cast out. Well might there come a fear upon all, when they heard of the raising of the dead; well may there come a fear upon us, when we read of the past, and hear of the future, and of the coming of Christ in power and great glory. "Kiss the son lest he be angry, and so ye perish from the right way: if his wrath be kindled, yea, but for a little, blessed are all they that put their trust in Him."

XV.

The Woman
Woman who

who was a Sinner.

The disciples of John the Baptist, who was imprisoned by Herod, showed him of all these things which Jesus did. And the Baptist sent two of his disciples unto Jesus, saying, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" He desired that his disciples should themselves know of Christ himself, what they had been taught by his Forerunner and that they should transfer to Jesus the attachment which they had felt for him. And this was the more necessary, since they had felt jealousy of the rising fame of the Saviour, the tidings of whose mighty works filled the whole land.

Jesus answered them in that same hour, by fulfilling in their sight the declarations of the prophets respecting the character of the Messiah. And then he said unto the messengers: "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached unto them. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me."

And as the messengers departed,

Jesus encouraged all the people and the publicans: for