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UNKNOWN

... I do not think the Lord makes any break in our circle of affection here without a distinct and loving purpose. If He allows death to touch our hearts it is that He may come nearer to us than ever before; He makes us feel the true character of what is here, but He enters into it all with us. It is a very holy and blessed moment for our hearts when we are chastened and subdued by a sorrow in which the love of Christ moves Him to participate. There is a real separation of spirit from the pride of man and from the world’s vanity which nothing but the touch of death can produce. And how He loves to come near to a heart that is thus feeling the reality of things here!

Mary, in John 11, knew what it was to have Him with her in the sorrow of death, and she made such acquaintance with Him in the hour of her sorrow that in result she was with ^[p. 381] Him as to His death when no other heart entered into what lay in the path of His love. It is a blessed thing to see her thus absorbed with Him at a moment when nature’s joy at the recovery of her brother might well have been paramount.

He sustained her in the hour of her sorrow: He absorbed her when the sorrow was past. In her sorrow He became more to her than the one she had lost, and He remained paramount when that one was restored.