The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.

THE WIDOW OF NAIN.

ST. LUKE Vii. 13.

And when the LORD saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.

In some of the Miracles by which our Blessed LORD took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses,' it has pleased the HOLY SPIRIT to vouchsafe some trait of character in those on whom those Miracles were wrought, which enlists our sympathies in their behalf. In the early part of this same chapter of St. Luke, for instance, deep interest is created in one, who although a heathen soldier, had built a synagogue for the worship of the true GOD, and whose faith called forth that wonderful expression from our SAVIOUR, 'I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel.' Again, the perseverance and the faith of the Syrophoenician woman who pleaded for her daughter, 'grievously vexed with a devil,' engage our regard and excite our admiration. But in the Miracle before us, the very circumstances of the

person chiefly concerned, are sufficient of themselves to awaken profound sympathy and we need no further intimation of her character to interest us more deeply in her behalf. Her tale of sorrow is soon told. She was a Widow,— and she was following to the grave her only Son! Can a condition be pictured more desolate, as far as human hopes and prospects are concerned? The friend and companion of her youth, her husband, is no more; and the child, in whom her affections had centered ever since, the very child whose love had soothed her sorrow, and helped to dry her tears,-was at length torn away from her also. What now was left which could give her any interest in life, any prospect of happiness on this side the grave? And yet it was to this forlorn and widowed being, crushed to the earth, as it were, by such a weight of woe, that the SAVIOUR addressed that injunction,- Weep not!'

The very simplicity of this address shews a consciousness of a power of consolation, far greater than man can boast. Who would venture to forbid the tears of one so afflicted, unless he knew that he possessed a power, not only to wipe away the tears themselves, but to dry up the very fountain from which they sprung? The

Speaker was indeed One who had sounded every depth of human Sorrow; and who knew the only means by which that Sorrow could be alleviated. He had known also how loneliness presses upon the human heart; for He had been with Joseph in the pit, when all his brethren had forsaken him; and with Elijah, when that prophet deemed himself the only servant of GOD in the whole land; while, for Himself, He looked forward to that season, when His own Disciples should be scattered, every man to his own,' and leave Him alone. But He knew that, even then, He should not be alone, for the FATHER would be with Him! He knew that even in the midst of desolation, the presence of GOD within the heart is a source of consolation whose waters never fail! It can give a place and a name that is better than of sons and daughters";' nor is there any human sorrow which it cannot soothe and assuage. This consolation, however, works gradually. It suffers the tears to flow for a season; then, by degrees, dries and wipes them away. Our Blessed LORD, although doubtless He looked, in this command, to that universal remedy for human sorrow, must at the same time be supposed to have contemplated His own Divine power, so soon to be dis

a Isaiah lvi. 5.

played in behalf of this bereaved and lonely woman. The greatness of her calamity had attracted to the funeral of her son,

much people of the City;' and all, in the impotence of human sympathy, might implore her not to give way to her grief; but He alone, of all that sorrowing crowd, could undo the work of Death, and restore the youth alive and well, to her arms.

Such, then, were the first words spoken by the SAVIOUR to this sorrowing widow. The next, addressed not to her, but to her son, reveal the power on which He relied to solace her in her affliction. Young man, I say unto thee, Arise! It was the Prince of Life' himself, even He, who is the Resurrection and the Life,' who called upon Death to resign his prey; the grave, to surrender its dead.

Of the many considerations which naturally arise on a survey of this stupendous miracle, we will pursue that one which is of the most direct interest to ourselves. As we behold in the bodily diseases of those whom our SAVIOUR healed, a likeness to the maladies which afflict the soul of man, so here we have the type of that worst condition of all,—a state of spiritual death. Other diseases are partial. The Hearing or the Sight are affected: the Soul is deaf to the voice of the

Charmer, or blind to the pathway of Peace. But here, the whole man is dead. The soul therefore which is typified by this condition, is entirely sunk in spiritual apathy. Yet may the same mercy, by which our Blessed LORD was pleased, in this special case, to annul the effect of natural death,-still lead Him to call upon those who are spiritually dead to arise also.

Great is their need; yet does their case present this alarming feature,-that they are unconscious of their great extremity; their all but hopeless state. While, however, this period of our warfare lasts, it cannot be said that the condition of any man is utterly hopeless. To the very end, we must cherish the hope that the spark of heavenly life is not extinct, and that the breath of the SAVIOUR may ultimately fan it into light and flame. Let men be warned, however, against the first symptoms of the soul's decay. When the Word of GOD does but feebly interest; when His promises fall upon careless or unwilling ears, no longer filling the heart with joy, then there are symptoms of approaching lethargy, and men require to be awakened: for the end of these things is death.

Would it not seem, indeed, from the three cases of Raising the dead which are recorded in