have happened! This is the
bitterest drop in our cup, that all might have been different! These hot
tears might never have dimmed our eyes; our loved Lazarus might have
been a living and loving brother still! Oh! that the Lord had delayed
for a brief week that untoward journey, or anticipated by four days his
longed-for return; or would that we had despatched our messenger earlier
for Him. It is now too late. Though He _has_ at last come, His advent
can be of little avail. The fell destroyer has been at our cottage door
before Him. He may soothe our grief, but the blow cannot be averted.
_His_ friend and _our_ brother is locked in sleep too deep to be
disturbed."

Ah! is it not the same unkind surmise which is still often heard in the
hour of bereavement and in the home of death?--a guilty, unholy brooding
over _second causes_. "If such and such had been done, my child had
still lived. If that mean, or that remedy, or that judicious caution had
been employed, this terrible overthrow of my earthly hopes would never
have occurred; that loved one would have been still walking at my side;
that chaplet of sorrows would not now have been girding my brows; the
Bethany sepulchre would have been unopened--'This my brother had not
died!'"

Hush! hush! these guilty insinuations--that dethroning of God from the
Providential Sovereignty of His own world--that hasty and inconsiderate
verdict on His divine procedure.

"IF _Thou_ hadst been here!" Can we, _dare_ we doubt it? Is the
departure of the immortal soul to the spirit-world so trivial a matter
that the life-giving God takes no cognisance of it? No! Mourning one, in
the deep night of thy sorrow, thou must rise above "untoward
coincidences"--thou must cancel the words "accident" and "fate" from thy
vocabulary of trial. God, _thy_ God, was _there_! If there _be_
perplexing accompaniments, be assured they were of _His_ permitting; all
was planned--wisely, kindly planned. Question not the unerring rectitude
of His dealings. Though _apparently_ absent, He was _really_ present.
The apparent veiling of His countenance is only what Cowper calls "the
severer aspect of His love." Kiss the rod that smites--adore the hand
that lays low. Pillow thy head on that simple, yet grandest source of
composure--"_The Lord reigneth!_" It is not for us to venture to dictate
what the procedure of infinite love and wisdom should be. To our dim and
distorted views of things, it might have been more for