eares, nor iUness, nor deaths, nor funerals in the earth, if there had been no sin. We must bear this state of things patiently. We cannot alter it. We may thank God that there is a remedy in the Gospel, and that this life is not all. But in the mean time, let us lay the blame at the right door. Let us lay the blame on sin.
How much we ought to hate sin ! Instead of loving it, cleaving to it, dallying with it, reusing it, playing with it, we ought to hate it with a deadly hatred. Sin is the great murderer, and thief, and pestilence, and nuisance of this world. Let us make no peace with it. Let us wage a ceaseless warfare against it. It is ''the abominable thing which God hateth." Happy is he who is of one mind with God, and can say, I " abhor that which is evil." (Eom. xii. 9.)
We learn, secondly, from these verses, how deep is the compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ's heart. We see this beautifully brought out in His behaviour at this funeral in Nain. He meets the mournful procession, accompanying the young man to his grave, and is moved with compassion at the sight. He waits not to be applied to for help. His help appears to have been neither asked for nor expected. He saw the weeping mother, and knew well what her feelings must have been, for He had been born of a woman Himself. At once He addressed her with words alike startling and touching : — ^He " said unto her. Weep not." — ^A few more seconds, and the meaning of His words became plain. The widow's son was restored to her alive. Her darkness was turned into light, and her sorrow into joy.
Our Lord Jesus Christ never changes. He is the sam^e