y, and of His sympathy
with the affliction of His brethren; nor can that kind of sympathy
be the highest which can be afforded by all men whose hearts are
not utterly steeled by selfish indifference. Besides, however real
Christ's sympathy was with sorrow of every kind, why did He express it
on this occasion more than on any other? Nay, why did He weep at the
very moment when He purposed, by a miracle of power, to restore the
dead brother to his sisters, and in a few minutes to turn their sorrow
into joy? Why weep with those whose tears were shed in ignorance only
of the coming event which was so soon to dry them? But the Saviour's
tears came from a different and a profounder source! They welled out
of a heart whose deep and tender love was not trusted in, but doubted
even by those whom He loved most deeply and tenderly, and at the very
moment too when He was about to pour forth upon them the richest
treasure of His love, and to do exceeding abundantly above all they
could ask or think. Remember only how He of all men loved; how as a
man He longed for His brother's sympathy, and how as a holy Saviour He
longed for His brother's good. Remember how earnestly He sought for
the one grand result, that of hearty confidence in His goodwill, as
the only restorative of humanity fallen and in ruins through the curse
of unbelief. Remember, too, how lonely He was in the world; how
few understood Him in any degree, or responded even feebly to the
constant, boundless outpouring of His affection; and how many returned
His good with evil, His love with bitterest hate;--remember all
this, and conceive if you can what His feelings must have been when
returning to this home of His heart, to this green spot amidst the
wilderness of hateful distrust, with His whole soul full of such
glorious purposes of love and self-sacrifice, and then at such a
time to find his best and dearest friends smitten with the universal
blight, fallen to the earth and prostrate in the dust under the
crushing burden of unbelief! He does not weep, at first, when Martha
addresses him; but when Mary, the loving and confiding--she of all on
earth--complains; when faith has failed in even her!--oh, it is too
much for His heart! "And thou too!"--"Jesus wept!" Ah! that shadow of
death in such a soul as this was infinitely sadder to Him than the
dead body of her brother, nay, than the contents of all the festering
graveyards of the world! For what is death to sin? and what