118. The Prayer Of Jairus.

The Prayer Of Jairus. The Prayer as recorded.—Matthew 9:18-19. The Lord’s Answer.—Matthew 9:23-25.

Come with us, reader, for earth is full of such scenes of sorrow. Death, with its dark wing, is hovering in that chamber of luxury and beauty, there are tears in that stern ruler’s eyes, for he weeps by the bedside of a loved and cherished one. Wealth with its thousand resources in that dark hour cannot soothe one pang, or lessen the grief in that father’s heart.

“O! earth ye have no sorrow, So withering or so deep As that within the hearts of those Who o’er the child must weep;
When love so strong and deathless, From the fountain is unsealed, There is naught in all this hollow world Can aught of comfort yield.” The spoiler is fast setting his seal of silence on those pallid lips, and even while the death damps are gathering on the brow, there is a ray of light and hope that beams in on the dark heart of the ruler, “there is a mercy seat” where prayer may be made, there is a balm in Gilead—a great physician there. Feeble as was the ruler’s faith, it led him to the Savior. He can change the “minstrel’s mournful requiem to hymns of gladness,” and stay the flitting breath of the dying. Sorrow deep and heavy God often brings on his children, to bow the proud head and bend the stiffened knee in prayer. The gentle teachings that are everywhere breathing a lesson of God’s omnipotence, may and do often fall unheeded on the ear, and man may be as hard and unbelieving as though there were no God, and he were not immortal; but when from stout hearts the mighty Ruler uproots affections which have twined into their very core, when he changeth the countenance of the loved one, and “sendeth it away,” must it not bring the soul to a recognition of an Almighty will. There are few even among the most doubting who can lay the form of a child in the cold, dark earth, without a prayer, and as we look upward in faith, be the spark ever so feeble, our Father in heaven will see it; in the hour of loneliness he will whisper to our spirits—“She is not dead but sleepeth.”

“The Savior raised Her hand from off her bosom, and spread out The stiffened fingers in his palm and said:

Maiden, arise! and suddenly a flush Shot o’er her forehead, and along her lips, And through her cheek, the rallied color ran, And the still outline of the cherished form Stirred in the linen vesture, and she clasped The Savior’s hand, and fixing her dark eyes Full on his heavenly face, arose.”