Clemance (Rev. C.) on Future Punishment Death of the Body not the Extinction of the Soul Death the Entire Extinction of Life Modern Unbelief Man giveth up the Ghost, and where is he? Ministry of Evil Man and his Failures Nature and its Leaning No Advance Notices 47, 96, 144, 191, 287, 336, 480, 528, 575 43, 118, 172, 261, 298, 330, 361, 453, 494, 534 THE RAINBOW: 3 Magazine of Christian Literature, with Special Reference to the Revealed Future of the Church and the colorld. JANUARY, 1877. THOUGHTS ON JOHN XI. It THIS chapter is in many respects a most interesting one. THIS brings before us, and as it were lets us see a little into, what may be called the family life of the better class of Jews in our Lord's time, and of his relations thereto. From the circumstance of Martha preparing a feast which evidently included a large number of guests, and from the fact that so many of the Jews are spoken of as coming to comfort Martha and Mary after the loss of their brother, we have every reason to believe that they were people of some distinction, perhaps corresponding to what we should call in the present day the upper middle class of society. They were, moreover, evidently pious, earnest, God-fearing people; and may, therefore, be taken as representatives of the better portion of the religious and educated Jews. It is impossible to suppose that our Lord would have loved as he did all the members of this family had they been otherwise than sincere and good people. We have in fact in this family of Bethany a beautiful picture of domestic life in a religious and God-fearing Jewish family. I say "a picture" because here, as so often in the Gospels and indeed in the Scriptures generally, the writers thereof seem to have a marvellous power of presenting by a few bold, graphic touches, the character of the persons of whom they are writing, and this chapter will, I think, in the cases of Martha and Mary fully bear out my assertion. There can be no doubt that the nearest approach to a heaven upon earth is to be found in the midst of a well-ordered, pious, loving family. What a vision of happiness is afforded thereby, and what consolation and comfort. What a haven of rest from the storms of this world is the bosom of a family where God is really worshipped. It almost seems as if the Creator here affords to us a proof of what he designed the world to be, by showing us B how much happiness may be attained when "brethren dwell together in unity." I have been much struck with an observation of the late Henry Crabbe Robinson, in which he states that "Almost everything that is done by a family as such is good." When a family are really united they present to the world a picture or image, faint indeed, but of the right kind, of what God wishes his children to be; for there we have, first, the cheerful love and obedience of the child to the parent, and then the mutual forbearance and affection of one towards the other. Indeed it is scarcely saying too much to observe that if all mankind manifested towards each other such love and kindness as is often shown by the different members of one family, the world even now would be almost a paradise. And that this is the will and intention of God there can be no doubt, from the beautiful language of the prophet Malachi: "Have we not all one Father, hath not God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers ?" In the eleventh chapter of St. John's Gospel we have an instance of a united happy family, all of them more or less servants of Christ, and there is no reason to doubt that among them our Lord was often received, and his spirit refreshed and comforted. The statement in the fifth verse of this chapter, brief though it be, is sufficient proof that he was on most friendly terms with all the members of this family; and doubtless they found how great a blessing to them, and how full of spiritual comfort it was, to be permitted to draw so near to him. How natural it was, then, for these sisters at once to send to our Lord when the illness of Lazarus began to assume an alarming form. How confident they must have been that if he could only arrive in time all would be well. And how deeply they must have felt it when he from whom they had hoped so much failed to appear. How strange, not to say hard, must our Lord's behaviour have seemed to them. Now I think we have here a most comforting and beautiful instance of the way in which God works. Here is the case of one whom Jesus loved being sick unto death, and yet when the sisters of Lazarus send notice of the fact to our Lord, so far from hastening to his friend's assistance as we should have expected, he remains -evidently on purpose-two days still in the place where he was. But the instant he knows that Lazarus is really dead, he at once sets out, in spite of all the machinations of his enemies, and of the risk which he knew he ran in going into Judæa. We may be sure that it was a hard, a terrible trial to our Lord to force himself as it were to stop where he was when he knew that by going to Bethany he could save his friend. But he never hesitated when he saw what the Father's will was. That his heart was indeed thus full of pity and tenderness we know from the fact |