f the living God may, in
every age, gather from it instruction!

What, then, does the Saviour here figuratively, but significantly, teach
His people? Is it not the important truth that, though dependent on Him
for all they are, and all they have, they are not thereby released and
exempted from the use of _means_? He alone can bring back Lazarus from
his death-sleep. Martha and Mary may weep an ocean of tears, but they
cannot weep him back. They may linger for days and nights in that lonely
graveyard, making it resound with their bitter dirges, but their
impassioned entreaties will be mocked with impressive silence. Too well
do they know _that_ spirit is fled beyond their recall--the spark of
life extinguished beyond any earthly rekindling!

But though the word of Omnipotence can alone bring back the dead, human
hands and human efforts can roll away the interjacent stone, and prepare
for the performance of the miracle; and after the miracle _is_
performed, human hands may again be called in to tear off the cerements
of the tomb, to ungird the bandages from the restored captive, to
"loose him and let him go!"

This simple incident in the Bethany narrative admits of manifold
practical applications. Let us look to it with reference to the mightier
moral miracle of the Resurrection of the soul "dead in trespasses and
sins." Jesus, and Jesus alone, can awake that soul from the deep slumber
of its spiritual death, and invest it with the glories of a new
resurrection-life. In vain can it awake of itself; no human skill can
put animation into the moral skeleton. No power of human eloquence, no
"excellency of man's wisdom," can open these rayless eyes, and pour
life, and light, and hope into the dull caverns of the spiritual
sepulchre. "Prophesy to the dry bones!"--We may prophesy for ever--we
may wake the valley of vision by ceaseless invocations, but the dead
will hear not. No bone of the spiritual skeleton will stir, for it is
"not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."

But though it be a Divine work from first to last which effects the
spiritual regeneration of man, are we from this presumptuously to
disregard the use of means? Are prayer, and preaching, and human
effort, and strenuous earnestness in the work of our high calling, are
these all to be superseded, and pronounced unavailing and unnecessary?

Nay, though man cannot wake to life his dormant spiritual
energies--though these lie slu