But we are dealing, remember, with sovereign grace; and the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ will claim for Himself out of such an unlikely quarter some trophy, some specimen of His love and His gracious power. From between the devil's fingers, so to speak, He will pick this man and this household and set them on high, safe from all danger arising from natural tendency and environment. And it was the death of the little girl that did it. I cannot think of this Jairus — neither can you, when you remember all that belonged to his position, and all that was just beginning to "hatch" against Christ in connection with the rulers of the people,-you cannot think of his coming to Christ and worshipping Him, and becoming one of His disciples, unless he had been driven to it by the lash and thrash of the heavy whip of this affliction. It was the trouble of his little daughter that drove him to Christ Jesus. I rejoice to think it is true today, and that it has been true of many of ourselves; and if nothing less than that will do, may it be done again. If nothing less than the taking away of your pet lamb will draw your heart to the Good Shepherd, then may it be taken. My poor, proud, self-contained brother, if nothing less than this will bend your knees in true prayer, and bring from your heart the bubbling cry, "Lord, help me!" then may this come. It seems to be hard, harsh, heartless; but it is uttered not only by a man who loves you, but by the Lord behind the man, who through my lips is expressing His deep heart's desire that your formality may be broken up, and that it may be said of you in heaven, “Behold, he prayeth!"

I fear there are not a few rulers of the people in all our Churches to-day, who, if ever they are to be really brought to a real Christ, will need this same strong and seemingly harsh treatment. How many of our elders, how many of our deacons are, like Jairus, this ruler of the people, this elder in the synagogue. If-if they are to be born again into a true, throbbing, palpitating faith in the dear Son of God Himself; if they are to be delivered from

synagogue trammels, and from the down-dragging power of the mere form and routine of the worship of God in connection with which they have an honoured and honourable place it is, perhaps, only to be done by the sharp spur of some keen, lacerating affliction. It is hard to bring Jairus to Christ's feet; but Christ can do it. It is hard to bring some people, who are compelled to take an official position in connection with religion and the worship of God in the land-it is hard to get some of these to be brought in reality into personal relation with the personal Saviour.

But the Lord can do it, and in His marvellous and everto-be-adored, though often inscrutable, wisdom, He brings Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagogue, to fall down at His feet. Praise the Lord for sharp strokes, my brothers, if they bring us to ourselves!

And here let me interject a prayer for all Church officials. Lord save the beadle, save the precentor, convert those excellent men, the deacons; and let our ruling elders know Thee in their own hearts! Yea, Lord, save the minister, save the bishop: and bring priest and Pope, by some means, to know their own sore and their own grief!

I do not know anybody in the congregation who needs this more than the man who is speaking; I do not know any persons in London to-day, religious professors, who need this more than the men who occupy pulpits. For it may be that we ourselves are like Jairus, so concerned with the form, the order, and the routine of worship; so concerned with you, that God help us!-unless some sharp stroke of distress comes upon ourselves, we might go sleeping along, getting more and more of the form of religion and less and less of the power of it. And unless the Lord checks and corrects us, by teaching us our own need, and by some home-coming visitation, swift and personal, making us to feel that we have a soul to save, and that we have a little family circle at home as well as the Church and congregational circle to

pray for, and who need to become the subjects of Christ's saving grace, we may miss Him altogether.

And then when Jairus did pray, how well he prayed! When he is brought into living and naked contact with the reality of religion, whether it be in Old Testament synagogue or Presbyterian kirk, that is Christ-how real he becomes! "My little daughter lieth at the point of death, I pray Thee come and lay Thy hands on her that she may be healed, and she shall live." I do not believe he could have said that in the temple. If you had put him there or into the synagogue and removed the incarnate Christ from him, and said, "Now, my friend, your little daughter is very ill, pray for her," we know how he would have begun. He would have begun away back I don't know how far; he would have entered into all manner of things, very much as we do ourselves; he would have quoted a very great number of texts of Scripture-and I suppose they would have been all well quoted-and at last he would have mentioned that he had a little girl at home who was very ill! How this sharp stroke delivered him from a great many things; how well he prayed, to be an office-bearer, if you will allow the expression; how urgently, swiftly, how much to the point! He sees it all in his mind while he is speaking; he has a picture before him of Christ going with him, and of the way in which He will heal her. "He will lay His hands on her, she will be healed, and live."

O God, that we might learn from him! I made a remark just now that caused a smile; I did mean it to cause more than that—I speak to myself and you, and I do not want to ruffle any souls, yet what am I to do? I have got to stand here and plead and beseech you that this matter of prayer might become more urgent and real. Fathers, mothers, Sabbath-school teachers--you, woman, who wrote to me after last Sabbath, saying, your patch of lentils was a flock of young people, and that you had a hard battle with the Philistines-is this how you prayed for

them? Is this how we pray? Is this how we realize the case? Do we realize what death means, whether temporal or spiritual, as Jairus realized what temporal death meant in all its desolating power to his own heart and life? and do we come into the Master's presence with these prayers, these broken, pleading supplications, as Jairus did? I think you know that well-worn story, yet it is worth telling again, for it is true: it is of a countrywoman of ours who had a little child at the point of death, and she and her husband, and I think he was an office bearer in the Church, went to the throne of Heavenly Grace to intercede. But John prayed in the temple style of prayer, in the synagogue style, in the prayer-meeting style. He began away far back, and recited to God the doctrines of grace— and they are very true; then he took in "Thine ancient people Israel," and the good woman could stand it no longer. She took the office of intercessor out of her husband's hands, and she plucked him by the elbow and said, "Oh, John, ye're sair drawn oot aboot thae Jews, but oor bairn's deein'." It was a needed rebuke, and I hope it did John good, and that it will do us all good.

It requires a great deal of courage for me to say what I am going to say next-courage, not impudence; we can be impudent without grace, but it needs much holy boldness for me to say this next thing. We have a little time on the Wednesday when we meet with Christ to supplicate, to plead, to beseech with Him greatly for blessings. I wonder if Christ has heard the great beseeching which is recorded here? I wonder when we shall have in our little gatherings for prayer more condensedness, more piercing and penetrating cries, and then sit down to let the next burdened believer get his or her turn? This prayer was short; it was weighty; it came from the heart, and went to the heart. What of ours?

After Jairus' prayer, there follows the story of the woman with the issue of blood. We won't dwell on that just now

-I think we have taken it up before; but sometimes I have thought that if Jairus had stayed at home, and sent his wife, this woman would have been cured second instead of first. Urgent as he was, she would have done it still better; woman like she would have fairly carried the Lord with her through the crowd, and the woman with the issue of blood would not have been neglected-oh no, no! she would only have been second instead of first. May all of us, especially fathers and mothers, take away this lesson, at any rateOh for urgency at the throne of grace!

The narrative resumes, so far as Jairus and his little daughter are concerned, at the 35th verse.

"While He yet spake," that is while He lifted up His voice in benediction on the poor woman, "there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why trouble thou the Master any further? And as soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe."

When I bend over this narrative at this turn in it, I seem to hear Christ saying, "It is expedient for you that I should go away." We oftentimes speak as though it were a great drawback to us that we did not live in the times when Christ was here in the flesh. That is not a wise saying. We are vastly better off than if we had lived then, for various reasons, and for this among the rest: there is now no danger of any hitch of this kind, no seeming breakdown like this. If the Lord were to stay among us always in the body, then He would always need to be subject to bodily conditions, and to ordinary conditions of space and time; one would nced to go in his turn, and another to stay back, with all the misery that comes through hope deferred. we are not under this law, with its long delays; we are under grace, with its immediateness and swiftness, and do not need to trouble ourselves as did poor Jairus. Glad as he was to see that woman go and get her blessing, yet, as he witnessed that wonderful incident by the roadside, his heart would be just going like an engine;

But