nge death brings, how little rupture of affection
or of any good thing, how truly he was their own brother still.

To our Lord Himself it was a grace that so shortly before His own death,
and in a spot so near where He Himself was buried, He should be
encouraged by seeing a man who had been three days in the grave rise at
His word. The narrative of His last hours reveals that such
encouragement was not useless. But for us it has a still more helpful
significance. Death is a subject of universal concern. Every man must
have to do with it; and in presence of it every man feels his
helplessness. Nowhere do we so come to the limit and end of our power
as at the door of a vault; nowhere is the weakness of man so keenly
felt. There is the clay, but who shall find the spirit that dwelt in it?
Jesus has no such sense of weakness. Believing in the fatherly and
undying love of the Eternal God, He knows that death cannot harm, still
less destroy, the children of God. And in this belief He commands back
to the body the soul of Lazarus; through the ear of that dead and
laid-aside body He calls to His friend, and bids him from the unseen
world. Surely we also may say, with Himself, we are glad that He was not
with Lazarus in his sickness, that we might have this proof that not
even death carries the friend of Christ beyond His reach and power.

There is no one who can afford to look at this scene with indifference.
We have all to die, to sink in utter weakness past all strength of our
own, past all friendly help of those around us. It must always remain a
trying thing to die. In the time of our health we may say,--

"Since Nature's works be good, and Death doth serve
As Nature's work, why should we fear to die?"

but no argument should make us indifferent to the question whether at
death we are to be extinguished or to live on in happier, fuller life.
If a man dies in thoughtlessness, with no forecasting or foreboding of
what is to follow, he can give no stronger proof of thoughtlessness. If
a man faces death cheerfully through natural courage, he can furnish no
stronger evidence of courage; if he dies calmly and hopefully through
faith, this is faith's highest expression. And if it is really true that
Jesus did raise Lazarus, then a world of depression and fear and grief
is lifted off the heart of man. That very assurance is given to us
which we most of all need. And, so far as I can see, it is our own
imbecility of mind