SERMON X.

THE COMMUNICATIVE VIRTUE OF JESUS.

(LENT.)

And when the woman faw that she was not hid, he came trembling, and falling down before Him, he declared unto Him before all the people for what cause she had touched Him, and how she was healed immediately.

And He faid unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole: go in peace.-Luke, viii. 47, 48.

THERE is (or fhould be) fweet harmony between the holy feafon on which we have

juft, through God's mercy, entered, and between the natural world. The economy of Nature and of Grace fhould combine to lift up our thoughts on high. Thus, the period of the year called "Lent,” (an old Saxon word, meaning Spring,) falls in accordantly with the feelings which it becomes us to cherish at this time. The ufual feverity of the winter is for the most part gone. The earth is relaxed from cold. The ftreams, no longer enchained, run freely and joyfully to enliven and enrich the land. So fin freezes and hardens the heart of man. It is the winter and froft of his fpiritual part. He is cold, unfruitful, unlovely, and miferable, as long as he is under its dominion. Then enfues the spring-time of repentance then flow the tears of forrow and remorfe- then the warm beams of heavenly love, shed forth by Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, dart into the

foul, and melt and soften the heart. Man awakes, as it were, from torpor, and puts on the beautiful garments with which the grace of God is ready to deck him; just as, by the increafing warmth of the year, the earth puts on the mantle of green and of various colours which God has given her, and is clad with fruits and flowers for the glory of our Maker and the good of man.

Thus

did one of the individuals referred to in my text exchange the winter of forrow for the funshine of peace· -a Lenten for an Easter fpirit-the oil of joy instead of forrow-the garment of praise in the place of the garb of diftrefs. The event alluded to occurs, as it were, in a parenthefis, i. e. between the time of our Lord's fetting out for, and arrival at, the house of one who had prayed Him to come and heal a fick daughter. Jairus, the ruler of the fynagogue, "fell down at Jesus' feet, and befought him that he

would come into his house: for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a-dying." We read that, as He went, the people thronged Him. This, together with the miracle now before us, delayed the Saviour's fteps; and, before He had reached the houfe of Jairus, a mesfenger came to fay, "Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Mafter." I allude to this, in paffing, to show that, though our Lord delayed for a work of mercy, and thereby caused for Jairus the momentary bitterness of learning his daughter's decease, he had no reason, as the event fhowed, to regret the Saviour's hindrance. We may imagine the anxiety of a loving father for his only daughter's fafety, and his distress at seeing the great Physician hindered on His way to cure her by another patient; and still more, his anguish at finding that, owing to this very delay, he had loft his cherished trea