The Grave of an Only Brother

’ AFTEB THAT HB BAXTH UNTO THEM, OUB FBIEND LAZABUS SLEEPETH; BUT I GO, THAT I MAT AWAKE HIM OUT OF SLEEP. THEN SAID HIS DISCIPLES, LOBD, IF HE SLEEP, HB SHALL DO WELL. HOWBEIT JESUS SPAKE OF HIS DEATH: BUT THET THOUGHT THAT HB HAD SPOKEN OF TAKING OF BEST IN SLEEP. THEN SAID JESUS UNTO THEM PLAINLY, LAZABUS IS DEAD.” — JOHN xi. II-I4. “and many of the jews came to MABTHA and MABY TO COMPOBT THEM CONCEBNING THEIB BBOTHEB.” — JOHN Xl. 1 9.

“JESUS 8AITH UNTO HEB, THY BBOTHEB SHALL BISE AGAIN.” — JOHN xi. 23.

THE early death of an only Brother may well

share the sacredness of that spoken of in the

former chapters.

The lines of Moultrie, entitled “ify Brother’s Grave”

will best interpret the depth and intensity of such a

heartr-sorrow: —

Beneath the chancers hallowed stone,
Exposed to every rustic tread,
To few save kindred spirits known,
My Brother, is thy lowly hed.

Below, those were happy days,
When thou and I were children yet;

How fondly memory still surveys
Those scenes the heart can ne’er forget t

Though I have made me bosom friends,
And loved and linked my heart with others,

Yet who with mine his spirit blends
As mine was blended with my Brother’s f

The chain is broke that bound us then;
Where shall I hnd its like again?”

It is of such a Brother and such a loss the verse which heads this meditation speaks. The whole narrative has a halo of singular interest surrounding it. Perhaps there is ao one single resort in the Saviour’s Divine pilgrimage on which sanctified affection loves so fondly to dwell as on the home and village of Bethany. Many has been the weary footstep and tearful eye that has hastened in thought thither — “gone to the grave of Lazarus to weep there!” With every reasonable probability we may infer, from the poignant sorrow of the twin hearts that were so unexpectedly broken, that he was, as just stated, a loved and lamented only brother, a sacred, solitary prop around which their tenderest affections were entwined. Included too, as he was, in the love which the Divine Saviour bore to the household (for “Jesus loved Lazarus”), is it presumptuous to imagine that his spirit had been cast into much the same human mould as that of his beloved Lord; and that the friendship of Jesus for him had been formed on the same principles on which friendships are formed still — a similarity of disposition, some mental and moral resemblances and idiosyncrasies? They were like-minded so far as fallible nature and the nature of a stainless humanity could be assimilated. We can think of him as gentle, retiring, amiable, forgiving, heavenly-minded; an imperfect and shadowy, it may be, but still a faithful reflection and transcript of Licamate Loveliness. May we not venture to use regarding hiTn his Lord’s eulogy on another, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile?”

As yet the home of Bethany is all happiness. The bnrial-groniid has been nntraversed since, probably years before, the dust of one, or perhaps both parents had been committed to the sepulchre.^ Death had long lefb the inmates an imbroken circle. Can it be that the unwelcome intruder is so nigh at hand? — that their now joyous dwelling is so soon to echo to the wail of lamentation? We imagine it but lately visited by Jesus. In a little while the dart has sped; the sacredness of a Divine friendship is no guarantee against the fatal missile. The sisters are bowed in the agony of their worst bereavement — the pride of their existence is laid low — “Lazarus is dead!”

The ofb-repeated lesson of these pages once more obtrudes itself — the uncertaiTUy of earth’s best joys and purest happiness; that the brightest sunshine is often the precursor of a dark cloud.

It is the touching record of the inspired historian in narratdng Abraham’s heaviest trial-” after these thingSy God did tempt Abraham.” After what things? Aft;er a season of rich blessings, gilding a future with glad hopes. He would teach us — while we are glad of our gourds — not to be “exceeding glad;” not to nestle here as if we were to “live alway,” but rather, as we are perched on our summer boughs, to be ready at His bidding to soar away, and leave behind us what most we prize.

This is a common opinion among the Fathers of the Church.

io6 THE GRAVE OF AN ONLY BROTHER.

“Lazarus is dead!” What! He, the head and stay and comfort of two helpless females? The joy and solace of a common orphanhood, — a brother evidently made and born for their adversities? What! Lazarus, whom Jesus tenderly loved? How much, even to his Lord, will be buried in that early grave! We might well have expected, if there be one homestead in all Palestine guarded by the overshadowing wings of angels to debar the entrance of the last enemy, whose inmates may pillow their heads night after night in the confident assurance of immunity from trial, it must surely be that loved resort — that “arbour in His hill Difficulty,” where the God-man delighted oft to pause and refresh His weary body and aching mind. Will Omnipotence not have set its mark, as of old, on the doorposts and lintels of that consecrated dwelling, so that the destroyer, in going his rounds elsewhere, may pass by it unscathed? How, too, can the infant Church spare him? The aged Simeon, or Anna, we dare not wish to detain. Burdened with years and infirmities, after having obtained a glimpse of their Lord and Saviour, let them depart in peace and receive their crowns. But one in the morning vigour of life, — one so beautifully combining natural amiability with Christian grace — one who was pre-eminently the friend of Jesus, and that word profoundly suggestive of all that was lovely in a disciple’s character. Death may visit other homes in that sequestered village, and spread desolation in other hearts, but surely the

Cliurcli’s Lord will not soffei’ bo yalued a support prematurely to fall!

And yet, it is even so! The mysterious summons has come! — the most honoured home on earth has been rudely rifled! — the most loving of hearts have been cruelly torn; and inscrutable is the dealing, for ‘• Lazarus is dead!”

He, the young, the strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell, and perished
On the threshold march of life 1 *’

“Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known!” (Ps. IxxviL 19).

But let us be still! The Saviour, indeed, does not now lead us forth amid the scene of our trial, as He * did the bereft sisters, to unravel the mysteries of His providence, and to show glory to God redounding from the darkest of His dispensations. To vs the grand sequel is reserved for eternity. The grand development of the Divine plan will not be fully accomplished till tfien; faith must meanwhile rest satisfied with what is bafiling to sight and sense. There is an undeveloped future in all God’s dealings. There is an unseen “why and wherefore” which cannot be answered here. Our befitting attitude and language now is that of simple confidingness — “Shall not the Judge of all * the earth do right?” Listening to one of these Bethany sayings, whose meaning will be interpreted in io8 THE GRAVE OF AN ONLY BROTHER.

a brighter world by Him who uttered it in the days of His flesh — “Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst bdieve, thou shouldst see the glory of God?”

“Oh, thou who moumest on thy way,
With longings for the close of day,
He walks with thee, that Angel kind.
And gently whispers — *Be resigned;
Bear up, bear on — the end shall tell;
The dear Lord ordereth all things welL*”

Our duty, meanwhile, is that of children, simply to trust the faithfulness of a God whose purposes of love we often fail to discover. All will be seen at last to have been not only for the best, but really the best. Dark clouds will be fringed with mercy. What are now “perplexing dispensations” will be acknowledged as wondrous parts of a great connected whole, — the wheel within wheel of that complex machinery by which “all things” (yes, all things) are working together for good.

“Lazarus is dead!” The choicest tree in the earthly Eden may have succumbed to the blast. Some great light in the moral firmament may have been extinguished. Some * Great Heart ’ may have fallen on the very eve of life’s battle, before opportunity were given to prove his armour, and help to share the moral victory over earth’s baseness and sufferings and wrong. But God can do without human agency. His Church can be preserved though no Moses be spared to conduct Israel over Jordan, and no Lazarus to tell the story of his Savionr’s grace and love, when other disciples have forsaken Him and fled.

We may be calling, in our blind unbelief, as we point to some mined fabric of earthly bliss — some tomb which has become the grave of our fondest affec* tions and dearest hopes — “Shall the dust praise Thee? shall it declare thy Truth?” Believe / believe! Gk)d will not give us back our dead as He did to the Bethany sisters; but He will not deprive us of aught we have, or suffer one garnered treasure to be removed, except for His own glory and our good. Now it is our province to believe it, — in Heaven we shall know it. Before the sapphire throne we shcJl see that not one redundant thorn has been suffered to pierce our feet, or one needless sorrow to visit our dwelling, or tear to dim our eye.

“Oh, weep not though the beautiful decay;

Thy heart must have its autumn — its pale skies, Leading mayhap to winter’s cold dismay. Yet doubt not! Beauty “doth not pass away;

His form departs not though his body dies.

Secure beneath the earth the snowdrop lies, Waiting the spring’s young resurrection-day,”

Beautifully does a distinguished French orator and philosopher say: —

“We are all of us like the weavers of the Gobelins, who, following out the pattern of an unknown artist, endeavour to match the threads of colours on the wrong

* “Within and Without.”

no THE GRAVE OF AN ONLY BROTHER.

side, and do not see the result of their labour. It is only when the texture is complete that they can admire at their ease these lovely flowers and figures, these splendid pictures worthy of the palaces of kings. So it is with us. We work, we suffer, and we see neither the end nor the fruit. But God sees it; and when He releases u& from our task. He will disclose to our wondering gaze what He, the great Artist, everywhere present and invisible, has woven out of those toils that now seem so sterile, and He will then deign to hang up in His palace of gold the flimsy web that we have spun.”

Be it ours to have Jesus vrith us and Jesus for us in all our afflictions. In the season of prosperity, if our homes and hearts be gladdened with His footstep, then, when prosperity is withdrawn, and is succeeded by the dark and cloudy day, we shall know, like Martha and Mary, where to rush in our hours of bitter sorrow: listening from His glorified lips on the throne to those same exalted themes of consolation which, for eighteen hundred years, have to myriad, myriad mourners been like oil thrown on the troubled fiea. Jesus is with us! “The Master is come! “His presence will extract sorrow from the bitterest cup, and make, as He did at Bethany, — a very home of bereavement and a burial scene to be ^’hallowed ground!”

THE GRAVE OF AN ONLY BROTHER. iii

HYMN OF THE MOURNER.

Abide with me, Thou gracious Guide,
My lamp by night, my Bun by day!
Thy gracious presence at my side
Bids every murmuring thought away.

Earth’s brightest suns may cease to shine.
Earth’s shelters fail to give defence:
Not so the Sun — the Shield Divine,
The “strong tower” of Omnipotence I

‘* Even the youths shall weary grow,
And young men utterly shall fall;”
But never faintness those shall know
Who make the living God their all

When in a gloomy, chequered past*
niasive human hopes appear,
A gracious look from Thee was cast,
Which checked the sigh and dried the tear.

Teach me resigned to kiss the rod.
And in this stroke Thy hand to own;
Or let me trust Thee, O my God,
If now the “need be” is unknown.

Soon shall Thy dealings be unrolled.
The wondrous chart will fix my gaze;
And heaven’s revolving years unfold
New matter and new theme for prais3.

Wave upon wave which beat before
Tempestuous on this ruffled breast.
Then lull’d asleep, shall break no more
The rapture of eternal rest I