er, in the case of these sorrowing sisters of
Bethany, while in all haste and urgency they send their messenger, they
do not ask Jesus to come--they dictate no procedure--they venture on no
positive request--all is left to Himself. What a lesson also is there
here to confide in His wisdom, to feel that His way and His will must be
the best--that our befitting attitude is to lie passive at His feet--to
wait His righteous disposal of us and ours--to make this the burden of
our petition, "Lord, what wouldst _Thou_ have me to do?" "If it be
possible let this cup pass from me, _nevertheless_, not as _I_ will, but
as _Thou wilt_."

Reader! invite to your gates this celestial messenger. Make prayer a
holy habit--a cherished privilege. Seek to be ever maintaining
intercommunion with Jesus; consecrating life's common duties with His
favour and love. Day by day ere you take your flight into the world,
night by night when you return from its soiling contacts, bathe your
drooping plumes in this refreshing fountain. Let prayer sweeten
prosperity and hallow adversity. Seek to know the unutterable
blessedness of habitual filial nearness to your Father in heaven--in
childlike confidence unbosoming to Him those heart-sorrows with which no
earthly friend can sympathise, and with which a stranger cannot
intermeddle. No trouble is too trifling to confide to His ear--no want
too trivial to bear to His mercy-seat.

"Prayer is appointed to convey
The blessings He designs to give;
Long as they live should Christians pray,
For only while they pray, they live."

V.

THE MESSAGE.

The messenger has reached--what is his message? It is a brief, but a
beautiful one. "_Lord, behold he whom Thou lovest is sick._"

No laboured eulogium--no lengthened panegyric could have described more
significantly the character of the dying villager of Bethany. Four
mystic words invest his name with a sacred loveliness. By one stroke of
his pen the Apostle unfolds a heart-history; so that we desiderate no
more--more would almost spoil the touching simplicity--"_He whom Thou
lovest!_"

We might think at first the words are inverted. Can the messenger have
mistaken them? Is it not more likely the message of the sisters was
this:--"Go and tell Him, 'Lord, he whom _we_ love,' or else, 'he who
loveth _Thee_ is sick?'"

Nay, it is a loftier argument by which they would stir the infinite
depths of the Fountain of love! They had "kn