praise,--"Bless the Lord, O our souls, and forget not all his
benefits, who forgiveth all our iniquities, who healeth all our
diseases, who redeemeth our lives from destruction, and crowneth us with
loving-kindness and with tender mercy."

But be all this as it may, that same great Physician of Souls still
waits to be gracious. He healeth ALL our diseases. Young and old, rich
and poor, every type of spiritual malady has in Him and His salvation
its corresponding cure. The same Lord is rich to all that call upon Him.
The ardent Martha, the contemplative Mary, the aged Simon, Lazarus the
loving and beloved--He has proved friend, and help, and Saviour to
_all_; and in their several ways they seek to give expression to the
depth of their gratitude. Happy home! may there be many such amongst us!
Fathers, brothers, sisters, "loving one another with a pure heart
fervently," and loving Jesus more than all--and themselves in Jesus!
Seeking to have _Him_ as the ever-welcomed guest of their
dwelling--feeling that all they _have_, and all they _are_, for time or
for eternity, they owe to _Him_ who has "brought them out of the
horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set their feet upon a rock,
and established their goings, and put a new song in their mouth, even
praise unto our God!"

Yes! having the Lord, we have what is better and more enduring than the
best of earthly ties and earthly homes. This must have been impressed
with peculiar force on aged John, as in distant Ephesus he penned the
memories of this evening feast. Where were _then_ all its guests?--the
recovered leper, the risen Lazarus, the devout sisters, the ardent
disciples--all _gone_!--none but himself remained to tell the touching
story. _Nay_, _not_ all!--ONE remained amid this wreck of buried
friendship--the adorable Being who had given to that Bethany feast all
its imperishable interest was still within him and about him. The rocky
shores of Patmos, and the groves around Ephesus, echoed to the
well-remembered tones of the same voice of love. His _best Friend_ was
still left to take loneliness from his solitude. He writes as if he were
still reclining on that sacred bosom--"Truly our fellowship is with the
Father and with his Son Jesus Christ!"

Reader! take "that same Jesus" now as your Friend--receive Him as the
guest of your soul; and when other guests and other friendships are
vanished and gone, and you may be left like John, as the alone survivor
of a