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

78 THE RAISING OF
to raise the dead child.
The house was full of hired
mourners. He heard the music of the flutes, and the
droning of the liturgical chants, and the wailing and
crying with which the professional mourners tried
still further to excite the grief already prevailing,
and there was something stern about His command,
" Give place." To Him who was perfectly natural and
sincere and true, professional mourning must have
been specially offensive. Although it is natural
and Christian to sorrow for
our dead, to howl and to
cry as these did is little short of heathenish. Indeed,
in our times of deepest sorrow we would far rather
have the few whose hearts are really touched with
sympathy, than the many who crowd around the
grave, with purchased or ceremonial grief. All such
Jesus Christ put out, and we too must rid ourselves
of all that is artificial and false in dealing with Him.
It is necessary for some of us to be set free from the
company of the mockers who laugh Him to scorn
if we would hear His voice, and some of us know what
it is to say,
" In secret silence of the mind,
My God, and there my heaven, I
find."
It is often in the quiet hour, when we are alone,
that Christ speaks to us with the greatest power, and
He will do so if only we are ready to say, " Speak,
Lord, for thy servant heareth."
i. This little girl lying cold and still was an
example of physical deat/i.
When Jesus said, " She is not dead," He did not
mean that she was in a trance. He spoke metaphorically,
as He did when He said of Lazarus, " Our