Practical Observations.

1. In our troubles we should send a message for Christ, as did the sisters of Bethany. 180

2. Even if Christ delays his response we should not doubt that our troubles are for the glory of God and our own good. “All things work for good,” etc.

3. We should look upon Christ always as an all-sufficient helper. If present he can always deliver. “If thou hadst been here my brother had not died.”

4. We should always be assured of the tender sympathy of the Lord. “He can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities.” He weeps with those who weep and rejoices with those who rejoice.

5. We should never forget that He is the Fountain of Life; the Resurrection and the Life. If we have eaten the Bread of Life, drunk the Water of Life, have Christ the hope of glory formed in us, we have eternal life. It is begun. We are immortal. We shall never die. What is called death

“Is only a narrow sea That divides the heavenly land from ours.”

6. We have been told that there is inscribed on the monument over the clay of the infidel Hume, at Edinburg, Scotland, I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. In that grand truth is the hope of mankind.

7. As he cried to Lazarus, Come forth, so shall he speak with the voice of an archangel to all that are in their graves and they shall come forth and live.

8. “I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.” There seems to me to be contained in these few words one of the most powerful charms in the world to lull the bitterness of death, and to make us anxious to become such that we may humbly apply them to ourselves.—Thomas Arnold.