The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1920, Page 86

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86

The Lutheran Pioneer.

SE

tion. Coming to a wayside well, they pause, and
when they have quenched their thirst from the
sparkling water, they throw themselves on the grass
to rest.

And now from yon woodland pathway comes a
woman with hurried footsteps and pallid face, clasp-
ing closely to her breast the form of a boy, perhaps
two years old. Unheeding the hands that would
have detained her, she prostrates herself before
Buddha, and in a voice breaking with emotion says:
“Master, see my boy, my only child. Yesterday he
was the light of my home, the joy of my heart, but
when the morning sun kissed the hilltops, there was
no laughter in his eyes, no sweet prattle on his baby
lips; and they told me he was dead. Master, thou
art a prophet sent from the Great Spirit-of Life to
make glad the hearts of the people of India. If
thou wilt but touch the hem of my boy’s garment,
I know he shall live.”

Slowly Buddha arose. Calmly he looked at the
woman. When he spoke, his voice was clear as the
tinkling bells, but cold as the icy fetters that bind
the mountain streamlet. “Woman, thou hast done
well to come unto me. Take the body of thy child
and go to-day into the homes of the rich and poor
as thou findest them in thy journeying. Meet me
here at eventime, and if perchance thou hast found
a home wherein death and sorrow have never entered,
thy heart’s desire may be granted thee.”

He motioned to his disciples, and they passed on
toward the city, leaving the woman gazing after
them with eyes in which hope and despair were
battling for victory. Then clasping her babe more
closely to her aching heart, as though to warm it
into life with her own heart’s blood, she sped away
on her mission. £

’Tis evening. Once more the woman stands be-
fore Buddha, sick in spirit, sad in heart, with the
cold, still form, now grown purple in death, clasped
even more closely to her heart. “Master, I have
done my bidding, and gone to-day into the huts of
the poor and the palaces of the rich, but before me
another guest hath entered every home. The silent
footsteps of death have crossed every threshold,
freezing into icy stillness some loved one. But,

master, a mother’s heart pleads long for her only
child. If thou wilt, speak the word that shall give
my boy life.” frais
Again that clear, cold voice fell on the ear of the
heart-broken mother. “Woman, thou hast done well
to do my bidding. Learn from this day’s mission

that death and sorrow are universal and enter alike
into the homes of the rich and poor. ‘Take the body
of thy child and burn it on the funeral pyre of thine
ancestors, or bury it “neath the yielding waves of the
Ganges, and go thy way in peace.”

. : A

“Tis morning in Palestine — nineteen hundred
years ago—and on the road leading from the hill
country of India toward the little city of Nain, be-
hold a group of men clothed in fishermen’s garb.
He who walks in their midst is not arrayed in costly
garments, but there is something in that face that
speaks of love, sympathy, and power. It is Jesus of
Nazareth and His disciples. As they come near to
the city, the gates are thrown open, and lo, a funeral
procession comes forth. The men who carry the bier
are dressed in the garb of the common people, and
the one mourner, a woman, walks with a few chosen
friends. “What meancth this?” the Master inquires.
“A widow and this her only son,” they say. Ah,
those words fell on ears never deaf to the cry of
a wounded heart. The Master draws near; the
procession pauses. He raises His hand, and the bier
is lowered. The mother looks up, startled that this
stranger should interfere with the sacredness of her
grief. But there is something in His face that bids
her be still.

“Uncover the bier,” Jesus speaks. For nineteen
hundred years the world had been searching for the
harmony that made the music of His voice, but had
not found it, for its keynote is unselfish love. “Un-
cover the bier.” The men obey that command; and
behold, a boy, perhaps sixteen years of age, beautiful
with the still, cold beauty with which death always
paints our loved ones. The mother, with clasped
hands, draws nearer the Master’s side. The birds
in the treetops have forgotten their morning song,
and their voices are stilled. The wind moans and
sobs, then dies away in the distance. The men stand
on either side of the bier, awed into silence by the
wonderful power that is transforming Death into

' Life, for into that. marble cheek there comes a color,

faint, but beautiful as the tint of a new-born rose.
Those lips‘are losing their frozen stillness; the
nostrils dilate; the eyelids quiver; the boy sits up.
The widow of Nain’s son has obeyed the voice that
spoke from heaven, and lives again.

And Jesus said, “I am the Resurrection and the _
Life. We that believeth in Me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and
believeth in Me shall never die.”