nd wiped them with the hair of her head. I would rather
occupy the space which remains, in gathering from what has been said a
few general lessons of importance chiefly to mourners.

My suffering brother or sister! permit me to address you as if
personally present with you, seeing your distress, and sharing it
as those cannot choose but do who have themselves experienced the
darkness of sorrow. Such darkness and perplexity I have known, and I
so remember with deepest gratitude the strength and comfort which were
then afforded by the revelation of the ways of Christ, as illustrated
by this narrative, that I desire to help others as I have been myself
helped.

The one grand lesson which it teaches us is, _never, in our darkest
hour, to lose confidence in the love of Christ towards us_, as if He
had forgotten to be gracious, and either could not or would not help
us. Banish the sinful thought! "Beware lest there should be in any of
you _the evil heart_ of unbelief." For such unbelief is the greatest
calamity which can befall us. It is, verily, "sorrow's crown of
sorrow," Let us rather "hold fast our confidence, which hath a great
reward."

Like the family in Bethany, you too, I shall suppose, are visited
with a sudden and "mysterious" bereavement. Like them you may pray to
Christ, and ask a specific blessing; and like them you may think He
has not heard your prayer, nor ever will answer it, because He does
not do this at the time or in the manner you wished or anticipated.
His thoughts and ways with reference to you may thus be utterly
dark--darker than blackest night. Yet the servant of the Lord, "though
he walks in darkness, and has no light," must "trust in the Lord, and
stay himself upon his God." For the ways of Christ to His suffering
friends in Bethany, when absent from them beyond the Jordan, are a
revelation of His ways to us now, when He is in glory beyond the
tomb. Now, as then, He never forgets us, never overlooks the least
circumstance in our history, and never ceases for one moment to have
that interest in us which is possible only for such a Brother or
Saviour to possess. But now, as then, He has _manifold interests
to consider_; ten thousand times ten thousand complex and crossing
consequences to weigh. While we, perhaps, have our thoughts wholly
occupied with but one desire, our own individual comfort, our own
deliverance from this or that trial, the wise and all-loving Jesus
has to provide for much mo