into joys below, and into yet fuller joys at the right hand of God, and pleasures for evermore. I wonder that any man can have one happy pulse in his heart or one sweet moment in his rest who is not a Christian. I wonder, too, that any man should be depressed, discouraged, or fear, or be alarmed, who knows that when all things are moved, he has" a house not made with hands; and that when the mountains are cast into the sea, and the earth shakes with the swelling thereof, he can say to his throbbing, his palpitating, his anxious heart, "Be still, and know that it is God. He will be exalted among the nations, he will be exalted in the earth."

LECTURE VI.

THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE.

And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him. Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, 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? 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. 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? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I

And

thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew 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. when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. 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. 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. And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death. Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples. And the Jews' passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he will not come to the feast? Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should show it, that they might take him.-JOHN XI. 28-57.

WE have studied the previous part of this impressive and interesting miracle. I come now to

its end—to that crowning act by which it was so gloriously closed: the resurrection of Lazarus. I need not say that every verse might be the basis of a sermon; but it is sometimes expedient and highly useful that we should look at passages as wholes, and not break them into fragments, in order to build on every fragment the superstructure of an appeal, an argument, or an address.

On the present occasion, therefore, I will incidentally examine the whole of the narrative I have read. In the 28th verse, we read that Martha hears the sound of joy in the very words that Jesus had uttered: "I am the resurrection and the life." What he intends to do with her brother she evidently knows not; but joy she evidently felt, and because of the prospect of some good he was about to achieve for her; and with that beautiful and unselfish characteristic by which the people of God ought always to be distinguished, she is resolved not to have a monopoly of the joy. She desires to share it with her sister Mary. She therefore runs to her secretly, and whispers in her ear the missionary sentiment which this female evangelist so joyfully conveyed: "The Master is come, and calleth for thee." To be missionaries is the duty, yea, rather the privilege,

M

of us all the sister to her sister, the female to her friends, as well as the minister upon the distant isles of the ocean, and amid the untrodden deserts of Africa. It is a most erroneous, nay a popish, idea that we are merely to contribute a sovereign a year to send out a missionary to India or Africa, and that we are excused by that gift from doing any thing, or saying any thing, or attempting any thing, to spread the gospel in our own immediate neighbourhood. The true idea of missions is, that man, the moment he is made a Christian, becomes a missionary; the unction of the saint is thus expended in the duties and the sacrifices of the servant. And it is the feature, the grand ennobling feature, of the gospel, that he that drinks deepest of its living water thirsts most to diffuse it. You may estimate the depth of a man's Christianity by the extent of what he does, or gives, or sacrifices, or suffers, to spread it. There may be selfishness among statesmen, there may be selfishness among literary men, but there can be no selfishness among those who are truly Christians; for the very law of the economy they belong to is, that God gives us the largest blessings, that we may diffuse them the most largely around us.