The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

THE WIDOW'S SON 167
be different. God grant it may be weal with all of
us.
I want you to notice, too, that in this single
glimpse which history gives us into the town of Nain
—in this single glimpse there is something very
homelike : there is something strangely familiar in the
scene. Here, for one hour, we see an Eastern city :
it is distant by thousands of miles from our own
doors. Centuries of almost incredible change have
passed since the moment when this curtain was
rolled up. It is the child of another civilisation
there is an alien language in its streets : as far as the
east is distant from the west it seems to be distant
from our life to-day. Yet in the one glimpse the
Bible gives of it,
in the one moment when the clouds
divide, there is the touch of nature that makes the
whole world kin. Here is a coffin with a dead body
in it : have none of us ever looked on that at home
And the dead face is that of a young man :
is there no
mother here who has mourned an only son And the
woman is a widow, and see ! she has been weeping,
and friends would give all the world to comfort
her : I do not think we need to travel far to find a
companion to that picture.
Ah, brethren, among all the brotherhoods, do not
forget the brotherhood of sorrow. It is one of the
minor helps and consolations that a man in earnest
will resolutely use. We are all apt to think our lot
the worst, ^o believe there is something peculiar in
our case : to say that our cross has got more jagged
edges than ever rasped on human flesh before. And
we think that if others only knew our case, and could
really see what we have got to bear, they would be