Memories of Bethany

ss

. Can it be that the unwelcome intruder is so nigh at hand?-that their now joyous dwelling is so soon to echo to the wail of lamentation? We imagine it but lately visited by Jesus. In a little while the arrow hath sped; the sacredness of a divi

that the brightest sunshine is often the precursor of a dark cloud. When the gourd is all flourishing, a worm may unseen be preying at its root!

heaviest trial-"After these things, God did tempt Abraham." After what th

d unsuspected moment Lazarus may be taken. The messenger may now be on the wing to lay low some treasured object of earthly solicitude and love. God would teach us-while we are glad of our gourds-not to

r mysteriousness of many o

loved resort-that "Arbour in His Hill Difficulty," where the God-man delighted oft to pause and refresh His wearied body and aching mind. Will Omnipotence not have set its mark, as of old, on the door-posts and lintels of that consecrated dwelling, so that the destroyer, in going his rounds elsewhere, may pass by it unscathed? How, too, can the infant Church spare him? The aged Simeon or Anna we dare not wish to detain. Burdened with years and infirmities, after having got a glimpse of their Lord and Saviour, let them depart in peace, and receive their cr

d home on earth has been rudely rifled!-the most loving of hearts have b

g and strong,

ings for t

side fell,

eshold mar

Omniscience tarrying elsewhere, when His presence and

ion, "If Jesus had been here, this our brother had not died!" "Hath He forgotten to be gr

ed minister of God struck down, the unfaithful watchman spared! The philanthropic and benevolent have an arrest put on their manifold deeds of kindness and generosity; the grasping, the avaricious, the mean-souled-tho

l not be fully accomplished till then; faith must meanwhile rest satisfied with what is baffling to sight and sense. This whole narrative is designed to teach the lesson that there is an undeveloped future in all God's dealings. There is an unseen "why and wherefore" which cannot be answered here. Our befitting attitude and language now is

o mournest

gs for the

h thee, that

whispers-'B

r on-the en

ordereth all

ave been not only for the best, but really the best. Dark clouds will be fringed with mercy. What we call now "baffling dispensations," will be seen to be wondro

ights in the moral firmament have been extinguished. But God can do without human agency. His Church can be preserved, though no Moses be spared

t give us back our dead as He did to the Bethany sisters; but He will not deprive us of aught we have, or suffer one garnered treasure to be removed, except for His own glory and our good. Now it is our province to believe it-in Heaven we shall see it. Before t

though the b

have its autumn

p to winter's

. Beauty doth

ts not, though

the earth the

ng's young resur

row and bereavement to overtake us with a Saviour till then a stranger and unknown. St Luke tells us the secret of Mary's faith and composure at her love

ons of bitter sorrow; listening from His glorified lips on the throne to those same exalted themes of consolation which, for eighteen hundred years, have to myriad, myriad mourners been like oil thrown on the t