obler and better which knit him and them to the Brother of
brothers--and which, unlike any earthly tie, was indissoluble.

And what was experienced in that lowly Bethany home, may be experienced
by us.

That love in its wondrous manifestation is confined to no limits, no
age, no peculiar circumstances. Many a Lazarus, pining in want, who can
claim no heritage but poverty, no home but cottage walls, or who,
stretched on a bed of protracted sickness, is heard saying in the
morning, "Would God it were evening! and in the evening, Would God it
were morning!" if he have that love reigning in his heart, he has a
possession outweighing the wealth of worlds!

What a message, too, of consolation is here to the _sick_! How often
are those chained down year after year to some aching pillow, worn,
weary, shattered in body, depressed in spirit,--how apt are they to
indulge in the sorrowful thought, "Surely God cannot care for _me_!"
What! Jesus think of this wasted frame--these throbbing temples--these
powerless limbs--this decaying mind! I feel like a wreck on the desert
shore--beyond the reach of His glance--beneath the notice of His pitying
eye! Nay, thou poor desponding one, He _does_ cherish, He _does_
remember thee!--"Lord, _he whom Thou lovest_ is sick." Let this
motto-verse be inscribed on thy Bethany chamber. The Lord _loves_ His
sick ones, and He often chastens them with sickness, just _because_ He
loves them. If these pages be now traced by some dim eyes that have been
for long most familiar with the sickly glow of the night-lamp--the weary
vigils of pain and languor and disease--an exile from a busy world, or a
still more unwilling alien from the holy services of the sanctuary--oh!
think of Him who _loves_ thee, who loved thee _into_ this sickness, and
will love thee _through_ it, till thou standest in that unsuffering,
unsorrowing world, where sickness is unknown! Think of Lazarus in _his_
chamber, and the plea of the sisters in behalf of their prostrate
brother, "Lord, come to the sick one, _whom Thou lovest_."

Believe it, the very continuance of this sickness is a pledge of His
love. You may be often tempted to say with Gideon, "If the Lord be with
me, why has _all_ this befallen me?" Surely if my Lord loved me, He
would long ere this have hastened to my relief, rebuked this sore
disease, and raised me up from this bed of languishing? Did you ever
note, in the 6th verse of this Bethany chapter, the strangely beaut