September 12

"Thy daughter is dead."—Luke 8:49.

HOW am I better, until I know Jesus, than the little daughter of Jairus, lying cold and voiceless and still in her white death-robe?

Like the motionless body that could not move a finger nor raise an eyelid now, I am incapable of vital action. I am not living for the glory of God and for the real advantage of men. "The door of death is made of gold,"—ah, but not of the soul's death: that is an inexorable, imprisoning, iron door.

Like the tomb which would soon have imprisoned the decaying and wasting form, I am buried deep in bewilderment and darkness. The grave is not fuller of dusk and gloom than I. Purblind, eyeless, infatuated, the spirit is within me.

Like the unconscious clay which felt no sympathy with the weeping father and mother, and little knew what sorrow its deadness caused, I do not dream of the Father of spirits who is bending over me in pity and who grieves that I should be lost.

But Jesus comes and speaks the word.

Through a verse of the Bible, or through an awakening providence, or through what seems a trivial enough incident, or through the counsel of a friend, He arrests the steadfast and pitiless march of death. Talitha, cumi; Young man, arise; Lazarus, come forth—that is what He says. And I begin to live. My sin is felt. And by and by holiness is seen to be surpassingly beautiful. And by and by I pray, and I look in daily trust to my Saviour, and I confess Him before men. There is a new creation: old things are passed away.

Lord Jesus Christ, be Resurrection and Life to me.