sorrow, for in a moment that would by him be changed to joy. Surely, not for them alone did Jesus weep. It was for human grief-for all the dying beds, and all the tears shed over them -for all the sorrows of our bursting hearts, when death doth desolate our homes. It was for us that Jesus wept.

Yes, He wept, and oh the blessedness to know it. To feel assured by these tears, that He, the Son of God, understands the strength of our affections, and sympathizes with the anguish of our hearts, when the grave must close over our nearest and dearest. "Jesus wept." There is no verse in Scripture so short as this, yet none so full of comfort.*

The sight of his grief seems to have surprized and touched the Jews. Their thoughts were according to their feelings towards him. Some of them said

Verses 36, 37. "Behold how He loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?"

* I know no place on earth in which one feels a more oppressive melancholy, than in the Protestant burying-ground of Florence. It is filled with tombs that tell of ruined hopes. Flowers blossom over the graves where youth and beauty have been laid to perish in decay. Broken columns are so numerous that the place looks like the site of some ruined temple. They are the mournful and speaking emblems of young strength laid low.

Florence is no place for invalids, and the inscriptions all around tell how many of the young and gay came to enjoy, and never left it more. Bitter tears have been dropped upon those tombs, and as the eye wanders over them, the heart is oppressed with melancholy: but on one grave there is a column bearing an urn, and upon it is inscribed the words-" JESUS WEPT." It was a blessed thought to write them there. They whisper holy sympathy over those sad graves, and tell all mourners that He who now reigns above the glorious skies wept with them, and for them. The great cross that stands in the midst of this garden of Tombs, proclaims, that the debt of sin is paid, and that the dead in Christ shall rise accepted for his sake; but these two words-" Jesus wept," tell that while we live and mourn, we have in him a sympathizing friend who knows, because He felt our grief.

The crowd of mourners moved on to the burial-ground, which according to the constant custom of the East, was outside the walls of the town.

Many circumstances seem to show that the family of Lazarus was not of the poorer class among the people. They could not have been so, for the Jews who came from Jerusalem to console them were of the chief men,* therefore their friends were of the higher ranks of life, and we find them now standing beside their brother's tomb, which in a few words is described as one of those family vaults which belonged to the richer Jews, and which, many of them, remain unto this day. "It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it." These tombs were often large, with chambers one beyond another; into which whole families from generation to generation were gathered together, so that the words so often used in Scripture, to tell of death, "slept with their fathers," "gathered to their people," were literally true. Whether these tombs were in the side of a hill and entered by a door, or whether they were deep down in the ground, with steps leading to them; they were always closed by a large stone to prevent the wild beasts from disturbing the bodies of the dead.

These burying-places were as cities of the dead; sad proofs of the triumph of sin and death over the sons of Adam, who had been created for eternal life.t Jesus, the Lord of life, felt more keenly than we can tell, of the horrors of death, the sign and seal of sin, the punishment and proof of the wide rebellion against God his Father. It is written :

Verses 38, 39. "Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone."

* The word which is simply given in English, verse 19, as, "the Jews" is always used by St. John, as the chief among the Jews."

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+ Travellers in the East find plains and valleys filled with tombs, in places where the cities of those buried in them have long been entirely swept away.

What is death to be attacked in his own house? Is the dark chamber of the grave to be thrown open to the light of day! Surely the family of the dead must feel that the conqueror of death is come, and that their sorrow will in a moment be turned into joy.

Not so. In presence of the grave their faith is gone. They shrink in horror from the awful realities of the scene. The sister of the dead shudders at the thought of exposing to the light of day the putrifying corpse of him she had so fondly loved. And when "Jesus said, Take ye away the stone," she spoke to remind him of what she thought must have taken place in those four days of death.

Verses 39, 40. "Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?"

Yes, the glory of God was about to be seen in that place of tombs. The buried dead were proofs of the victory Satan had won by sin, over the seed of Adam. The grave had been the sure prison, in which he had held his captives in chains of darkness. Till now, he had kept his goods in peace, but the stronger than he was come-Jesus,-The Lord of life was standing in the house of death.

Verses 41-43. "Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth!"

Oh that cry! The dead heard it, and arose. It was the

voice of the Conqueror. Was not this the glory of God? Did they not see it ?

Verse 44. "And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go."

That cry again shall sound throughout the whole earth, and every grave shall open, and every spirit shall return, and all the dead arise. We shall hear it. "Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." *

Prayer.

Oh, our God and Saviour, keep us by thy power in a firm faith that in thee is life eternal; so that we may not mourn as those that have no hope, but may stedfastly believe that we shall see the glory of God in thy victory over death and the grave. Make us to be "stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord."

XLIX.

JOHN XI. 45-52.

We may picture to ourselves the scene around the grave, when Lazarus came forth; but we cannot call it up before our thoughts as it must have been, Far less is it possible in words to tell it. The returned dead! Was it joy or sorrow that was in his look? The sisters! The amazement of the Jews! The burial cave with that empty grave!

The Saviour!

St. John stays not a moment to describe them, but passes quickly on to that which followed.

* 1 Cor. xv. 37.

Verses 45, 46. "Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him. But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.”

Still, as from the beginning, there were two parties; some whose willing hearts yielded to the truth, and some obstinate in their own will, unable to see even that which was clear as the light of day. Could you believe that any could stand by that grave of Lazarus, knowing, that they themselves had four days before come from Jerusalem to mourn his death, and see him arise from thence, bound in his grave-clothes; called back to life by the command of Jesus, without being convinced that Jesus had the power of God? And if He had the power of God, could He be an impostor?

It may well alarm us to find that there can be in the nature of man such pride of unbelief, as will only harden itself the more, the more all excuse for holding out against the truth is taken away. It is fearful to read that this greatest of all the miracles, done "for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby," should at once determine the Rulers of the Jews to bring about the death of Christ. Many of the Jews that had seen it believed on him, "but some went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done."

Verses 47, 48. "Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him; and the Romans shall come, and take away both our place and nation."

"What do we?" Oh that this question had been asked in a different spirit, and with a different meaning; what was it indeed, that they were doing, but bringing down upon them