rified brows, in presence of an
assembled world, with the crown of life. From _His_ lips will proceed
the gladdening welcome--"Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"

But this will not exhaust the elements of bliss in the case of the
"perfected just" on the day of their final triumph. Though the presence
of their adorable Redeemer would be enough, and more than enough, to
fill their cup with happiness, there will be others also to welcome
them, and to augment their joy. Lazarus' Lord was not _alone_ at the
sepulchre's brink, at Bethany, ready to greet him back. Two loved
sisters shared the joy of that gladsome hour. We are left to picture for
ourselves the reunion, when, with hand linked in hand, they retraversed
the road which had so recently echoed to the voice of mourning, and
entered once more their home, radiant with a sunshine they had imagined
to have passed away from it for ever!

So will it be with the believer on the morning of the Resurrection.
While his Lord will be _there_, waiting to welcome him, there will be
others ready with their presence to enhance the bliss of that gladdening
restoration. Those whose smiles were last seen in the death-chamber of
earth, now standing--not as Martha and Mary, with the tear on their
cheek and the furrow of deep sorrow on their brow, but robed and radiant
in resurrection attire, glowing with the anticipations of an everlasting
and indissoluble reunion!

Can we anticipate, in the resurrection of Lazarus, our own happy
history? Yes! _happier_ history, for it will not _then_ be to come forth
once more, like _him_, into a weeping world, to renew our work and
warfare, feeling that restoration to life is only but a brief reprieve,
and that soon again the irrevocable sentence will and must overtake us!
Not like _him_, going to a home still covered with the drapery of
sorrow,--a few transient years and the mournful funeral tragedy to be
repeated,--but to enter into the region of endless life--to pass from
the dark chambers of corruption into the peace and glories of our
Heavenly Father's joyous _Home_, and "so to be for ever with the Lord!"

Sometimes it is with dying believers as with Lazarus. Their Lord, at the
approach of death, _seems_ to be absent. He who gladdened their homes
and their hearts in life, is, for some mysterious reason, away in the
hour of dissolution; their spirits are depressed; their faith
languishes; they are ready to say, "Where is now my God?" But as He