society, and dare not approach it, is restored to his home; and we can well conceive, that when the restored father mingled with his family again, its roof-tree rang with most musical songs, and the hearts within it beat with joy inexpressibly full. A fair maiden is smitten down in her prime; the Saviour sees the dead body laid on the bier, and feels for the weepers that stand around it. He speaks to her, Talitha cumi, and the maid arose, and came again to life and light; and that bright flower bloomed in the vase of that happy home more beautiful because the look of Jesus had given it new tints, and the breath of Jesus had given it new fragrance. A son is carried on his bier to his last resting-place, the only son of a widow to whom he was the whole support; Jesus speaks to him, and he is restored to his widowed mother again. Can we doubt that in that family, thus made glad, the name of Jesus was mentioned with the joyful reverence due to the name of God, and yet with the frequency and fervour of the dearest household word? God passed before Moses of old, and proclaimed himself "the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin;" but I see a procession not less glorious follow the "Man of sorrows;" he walks amid the homes of Jerusalem, amid the broken hearts that throb around Gennesareth, and in his majestic, yet peaceful and quiet, march, he shows himself realizing what Moses had only heard proclaimed, "the Lord God, merciful and gracious." He touches one, and there is life; he lays his finger on the complaining lips of another, and they complain no more; he casts one bright look upon a third, and the home is happy; he speaks one word to a fourth, and it goes into the very heart's depths; and thus Christ rejoiced to make desolate and dreary homes glad, that we, in imita

tion of his example, may go and begin our mission at home, and exert our Christian philanthropy.

Conceive, if you can, the return of the man whose recovery is recorded in this passage. He went home, and proclaimed not only there, but in all Decapolis, what God had done for him. Conceive, if you can, the picture realized in his reception. He turns his face quietly to his home the first time, perhaps, for years-the first time, at least, that he recollects. One child of his, looking from the casement, sees the father return, and gives the alarm: every door is doubly bolted; and the mother and children cling together in one group, lest the supposed still fierce demoniac, who had so often torn and assailed them before, should again tear and utterly destroy them. But a second child, looking, calls out, "My father is clothed; before he was not clothed at all." A third child shouts to the mother, "My father is not only clothed, but he comes home so quietly, so beautifully, that he looks as when he dandled us upon his knee, kissed us, and told us sweet and interesting stories: can this be he?" A fourth exclaims, "It is my father, and he seems so gentle, and so quiet, and so beautiful-come, my mother, and see." ther, not believing it to be true, but wishing it were so, runs and looks with skeptical belief; and lo! it is the dead one alive, it is the lost one found, it is the naked one clothed, it is the demon-possessed one, holy, happy, peaceful; and when he comes and mingles with that glad and welcoming household, the group upon the threshold grows too beautiful before my imagination for me to attempt to delineate, and its hearts are too happy for human language to express. The recovered crosses the threshold, and the inmates welcome him home to their fireside. The father gathers his children around him, while his wife sits and listens, and is not weary with listening the whole day and

The mo

the whole night, as he tells them how one who proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, who is the Prophet promised to the fathers, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace, spake to him, exorcised the demons, and restored him to his right mind, and made him happy. In that family their past morning and evening desires and prayers had been, “O that the Messiah would come; O that salvation were come out of Israel;" but that day's delightful privileges, and that day's most precious domestic communion, they closed not with prayer for a deliverer to come, but with praise for one who was come- -Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he that is come in the name of the Lord; unto whom, even to Jesus, be glory and honour, and thanksgiving and praise.” Amen.

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LECTURE XV.

THE RESTORED SON.

And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people. Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother. And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people. And this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judæa, and throughout all the region round about. And the disciples of John showed him of all these things.-LUKE Vii. 11—18.

It appears, from the period at which we are arrived in the ministry of Jesus, that, in order to perform the miracle related in the passage I have read, our Lord had to pass through a small city, called Nain, to reach the place of his destination, Jerusalem. Accidentally, the thoughtless world would say, not by the pre-arrangement and in the determined providence of God, the Saviour came to the gate of the city of Nain just as the funeral procession passed by. The circumstance of the funeral procession being found in the gate of the city is explained by the fact I have stated several times before—that interments were not allowed within the walls of cities in ancient times, the bodies of the departed were always conveyed through the gate and beyond the walls of the city, to a suitable place appointed for the interment.

It appears, that on this occasion much people followed the widow of Nain as she accompanied the remains of her only son to their last resting-place. They no doubt did so to express the respect they felt for her; to be, in some degree, a ministry of comfort and sympathy. And you know that there are losses, calamities, and sorrows which no man can remove, but which any feeling man can mitigate by sympathizing in them and with them. This was all they felt they could do to the widow bereaved of her son; and that little they felt it their privilege and their duty to do. You that cannot help the poor can express your sympathy with them; you that from poverty cannot give a penny to the destitute, can give the expression of your best wishes, the utterance of your sincerest prayers. Sympathy with hunger ever softens it; sympathy with rags ever mitigates the misery of them; and if we cannot give (for it is only in such circumstances that sympathy can be a substitute) there is no one that cannot sympathize, because there is no man who has not a heart that was designed of God to do so.

The depth and extent of this poor woman's affliction is expressed in few words, but these eloquently significant. She had lost her husband-she had now lost her son: the first prop of the house was gone—the last remaining prop was swept away; she was a widow, and she mourned the loss of an only son. There is no one loss referred to in Scripture, which is spoken of as so deep, severe, and painful, as the loss of an only son: thus, in Zech. xii. 10, "They shall mourn for her as one mourneth for an only son;" denoting the intensest bitterness. And in Amos viii. 10, "And I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day." A Jewish wife felt it a calamity not to have a son, but it was the most terrible calamity when the only son, the stay and the hope