n, and the meaning of
the name is "Pleasant" or "Beautiful." A sweet little village, you can
picture it to yourself where you like, in the East, anywhere in Europe,
here in England, it is all the same, an "Auburn" among villages, with
thatched cottages, and green pastures, and the cows coming home lowing
in the evening, when the curfew tolls the knell of passing day. The
grey church tower peeping above the lime trees, and the rooks cawing
and wheeling above the old trees. The trim gardens blazing with
hollyhocks and large white lilies, and the orchards with the apples
shewing their rosy cheeks to the sun. The bell is slowly
tolling--"Behold, a dead man is carried out." Who is it? To-day a
young man, the only son of his mother, and she a widow. To-morrow the
old squire, who can no more mount his cob and go after the hounds, his
whip and red coat are laid aside, and the bell is going. "Behold, a
dead man is carried out." Again the Sexton is working in the
church-yard, and turning up the fresh smelling earth. The bell is
going. For what? Up the steps and along under the avenue come little
girls about a tiny coffin, over which is cast a white pall, and on
which lies a wreath of white hyacinths. "Behold, a dead child is
carried out, the darling of its father." And now the yellow leaves are
falling, and are heaped about the feet of the limes, and fall through
the warm damp air, that smells of dying vegetation, and the priest
stands in surplice waiting in the path, and the dead leaves drop on the
coffin as it is borne along. Who is this? "Behold a dead woman is
carried out, an aged mother, with her weeping grown up sons and
daughters and grandchildren all in black following."

SUBJECT.--It is not a pleasant thing to think of, and yet it is well
for you to contemplate, that some day the same question will be asked
as the church bell tolls, Who is this? Who is dead? And the same
answer will come, "Behold, a dead man is carried out," and that will be
you. Nothing is more commonplace than to say that we must all die, and
nothing is less realised and taken to heart and acted upon.

I. That procession the Saviour met, was coming out of Nain, the
"Pleasant," the "Beautiful." And so, every dead man is carried out of
what is a Nain to him, a pleasant, beautiful world. It is a pleasant,
beautiful world. We cannot deny it. God made it and pronounced it
very good. It has in it many unpleasantnesses, it has in it