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My Dearest Father:—I seize my pen, which I laid down
half an hour ago, in order to follow to his burial the
son of our hostess, to recount to you one of the most extraordinary
things which ever happened, and which fills us
all with such joy and wonder, that I fear my trembling
fingers will scarcely express legibly what I have to tell
you.

As I told you in my letter just finished, I was called
away to accompany the weeping mother to the burial
place outside of the gates. But when I reached the courtyard
where the body of her son lay upon a bier, which
the bearers had already raised upon their shoulders, the
deep grief of poor Ruth overcame her wholly, and I led
her to her room, where she sank insensible upon her couch.
I could not leave her in her situation, and the procession
went forth from the house without me; Mary, as she
walked, supporting upon her arm the bereaved mother,
clad in her mourning weeds.

As the funeral train passed the lattice, it seemed endless,
so vast a number of people accompanied the body, to do
honor to a widow in Israel. At length it passed by, and
I was left alone with the motionless Ruth. She seemed
to sleep, though every few moments she would murmur

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the name of the dead. I sat by her, reflecting upon the
mysterious ways of God in bringing this widow's son
safely home from the thousand dangers to which he had
been exposed, from shipwreck and bondage, to gladden her
soul with his presence for a few hours, and then to die in
her arms! As I gazed on the marble countenance of the
bereaved maiden, I could not but pray that she might
not recover from her swoon, to revive to the bitter realization
of her loss, and to the renewal of her grief.

Suddenly, I heard a very great shout. I started, and
hastened to the lattice. It was repeated louder, and with
a glad tone, that showed me that it was a shout of joy.
It seemed to come from beyond the city walls, and from
a hundred voices raised in unison. I knew that the house-top
overlooked the walls, and seeing that Ruth moved not,
I ascended rapidly to the parapet, the shouts and glad
cries still increasing as I went up, and exciting my wonder
and curiosity. Upon reaching the flat roof, and stepping
upon the parapet, I saw coming along the street,
towards the house, with the speed of the antelope, Elec,
our Gibeonite slave. He was waving his hands wildly,
and crying out something which I could not distinctly
hear. Behind him I saw two youths running also, appearing
to be the bearers of some great tidings.

I knew something wonderful must have occurred, but
could not divine what it could be. On looking towards
the gate, from which direction the shouts at intervals
continued to approach, I discovered on the hill-side of the
cemetery many people crowded together, and evidently
surrounding some person in their midst; for the whole
order of the procession was broken up. The bier I could

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not discern, nor could I comprehend how the solemnity of
the march of the funeral train was so suddenly changed
to a confused multitude, rending the sky with loud
acclamations. The whole body of people was pressing
back towards the city.

The persons whom I had first seen running along the
street, now made themselves audible as they drew nigher.

“He is alive! he is alive!” shouted Elec.

“He has been raised from the dead!” cried the young
man next behind him.

“He lives, and is walking back to the city!” called the
third, to those who, like me, had ran to their house-tops to
know the meaning of the uproar we heard.

“Who—who is alive?” I eagerly demanded of Elec, as
he passed beneath the parapet. “What is this shouting,
O Elec?”

He looked up to me with a face expressive of the keenest
delight, mixed with awe, and said:

“Young Rabbi Samuel is come to life! He is no longer
dead. You will soon see him, for they are escorting him
back to the city; and everybody is mad with joy. Where
is Ruth, the maiden? I am come to tell her the glorious
news.”

With emotion that I cannot describe, hardly believing
what I heard, I hastened to Ruth, in order to prevent the
effects of too sudden joy. Upon reaching the apartment,
I found that the voice of Elec, who had shouted the news
of which he was the bearer in her ears, had roused her
from her stupor of grief. She was looking at him wildly
and incomprehensibly. I ran to her, and folding her in
my arms, said:

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“Dear Ruth, there is news—good news! It must be
true! Hear the shouts of gladness in all the town!”

“Lives!” she repeated, shaking her head; “No, no, no!
Yes, there!” she said, raising her beautiful, glittering
eyes to heaven, and pointing upward.

“But on earth also,” cried Elec, with positiveness. “I
saw him sit up, and heard him speak, as well as ever he
was!”

“How was it? Let me know,” I cried.

“How? Who could have done such a miracle but
the mighty Prophet we saw at Jerusalem?” he answered.

“Jesus?” I exclaimed with joy.

“Who else could it be? Yes; he met the bier just
outside the — But here they come!”

Elec was interrupted in his narrative by the increased
noise of voices in the streets, and the tramp of hundreds
of feet. The next moment the room was filled with a
crowd of the most excited persons, some weeping, some
laughing, as if beside themselves. In their midst I beheld
Samuel walking, alive and well, his mother clinging to
him, like a vine about an oak.

“Where is Ruth?” he cried. “Oh! where is she?
Let me make her happy with my presence.”

I gazed upon him with awe, as if I had seen a spirit.

Ruth no sooner heard his voice than she uttered a shriek
of joy. “He lives—he indeed lives!” and springing forward,
she was saved from falling to the ground by being
clasped to his manly breast.

“Let us kneel and thank God!” he said.

For a few moments the scene was solemn and touching,

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beyond any spectacle ever exhibited on earth. The newlyrisen
from the dead knelt in the midst of the floor, with
his mother on his right, leaning her head upon his shoulder,
and Ruth clasped in his left arm, and fast embracing
him, as if he were an angel, who would else spread his
wings and ascend, leaving her behind. Mary and I knelt
by her side, while all the people bowed their heads in worship,
as he lifted up his voice in grateful acknowledgments
to the Giver of life and health, for restoring both to him.
When he had performed this first sacred duty, he rose to
his feet, and received all our embraces. Hundreds came
in and viewed his feet and hands, and every tongue was
eloquent in praise of the power of Jesus.

“And where is this holy Prophet?” I asked of Mary.
“Shall he be forgotten amid all our joy?”

“We thanked him there with all our hearts, and bathed
his hands with tears of gratitude,” she answered; “but
when they would have brought him into the city in
triumph, he conveyed himself away in the confusion, and
no one could see aught of him. But John, who was with
him, told me he would come into the city after quiet was
restored, by and by, and he would bring him to our abode.”

“Oh! I shall then behold him, and thank him also,” I
cried. “Make known to me, Mary, the particulars of this
wonderful miracle,” I asked of her; for though I saw
Samuel now seated, and eating in the room, served by his
glad mother and the happy Ruth, while all looked on, to
see if he really ate, and though I believed in the power of
Jesus to do all things, yet I could hardly realize that he
whom I had seen carried out a dead man on his bier, I

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beheld now seated at table partaking of food, alive and
well.

“I will tell thee all,” answered Mary, whose face shone
with a holy light, radiating from her intense happiness;
and leading me apart, she said:

“As we went weeping forth, slowly following the bier,
and had passed the gate, we saw coming along the path
through the valley leading to Tabor, a party of twelve or
thirteen men on foot. They were followed by a crowd of
men, women, and children from the country, and were so
moving that they would meet us at the crossing of the
stone bridge. Hearing some one say, `It is the Prophet
of Nazareth, with his disciples,' I looked earnestly forward,
and joyfully recognized Jesus at their head, with John
walking by his side.

“`Oh that Jesus had been in Nain, when thy son was
sick!' I said to the widow, pointing him out to her, as the
Prophet and his company stopped at the entrance to the
bridge, and drew to one side, for the way was too narrow
for both parties to cross at the same time. Upon looking
up and seeing him, and marking his benign countenance,
and how sorrowfully he gazed upon her, and recollecting
how he might have prevented her son's dying, had he been
in Nain, the poor lady could no longer command her grief,
which broke forth afresh; and covering her face with her
veil, she wept so violently that all eyes were piteously
fastened upon her. I observed that the holy Prophet's
rested upon her with compassion; and as the widow came
opposite where he stood, he advanced a step towards us,
and said in a voice of thrilling sympathy:

“Weep not, mother. Thy son shall live again!”

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“`I know it, O Rabboni, at the last day,' she answered.
“He was so noble—so young—he was all to me, and had
been so long absent in far lands, only to come home to
die. I know that thou art a Prophet come from God, and
that all good works follow thee. Oh, if thou hadst been
here, my son need not have died. Thy word would have
healed him. But now he is dead! dead! dead!'

The bereaved mother then poured forth her tears afresh.

“`Daughter, weep not. I will restore thy son!'

“`What saith he?' cried some Pharisees who were in
the funeral; `that he will raise a dead man? This is
going too far.' And they smiled and scoffed.

“But Jesus laid his hand upon the pall over the body,
and said to those who bare the bier:

“`Rest the bier upon the ground.'

“They instantly stood still and obeyed him. He then
advanced amid a hushed silence, and uncovering the marble
visage, touched the hand of the dead young man, and
said in a loud and commanding voice:

“`Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!'

“There was a moment's painful stillness through the
vast multitude. Every eye was fixed upon the bier. His
voice was heard by the spirit of the dead, and it came
back to his body. There was visible a living, trembling
emotion of the hitherto motionless corpse! color flushed
the livid cheek; the eyelids opened, and he fixed his eyes
on Jesus; he raised his hand, his lips moved; he sat up
on the bier, and then spake aloud in his natural voice,
saying:

“`Lo! here I am.'

“Jesus then took him by the hand, and assisting him to

CHRIST RAISING THE WIDOW'S SON. [figure description] Illustration page. Image of Jesus standing on a raised platform. A woman kneels at his feet reaching towards a prone figure on a stretcher next to the platform. Some men are standing on the platform behind Jesus, and there are many other people around the platform doing various things.[end figure description]

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alight upon his feet, he led him to his mother, and delivered
him to her, saying: `Woman, behold thy son!'

“Upon seeing this miracle, the people shouted with joy
and wonder, and there came a great fear on us all; and
lifting up their voices, they who so lately mourned and
bewailed the dead, glorified God, saying, `God has indeed
visited his people Israel. A great Prophet is risen up
among us. The Messias is come, and Jesus is very Christ,
with the keys of death and hell.'

“With such words and exclamations, and great shouts
of rejoicing, the multitude surrounded the restored young
man, and proceeded to escort him back to the city; the
great mass of the people being attracted more by the
raised to life than by the august person by whose act it
had been done. I sought out Jesus to cast myself at his
feet, but he shrunk from the homage and gratitude which
his mercy to us had awakened. Thus, humility is an
element of all power.”

Such, my dear father, is the narrative of the restoration
to life again of Samuel, the son of Sarah, of Nain. I give
it to you in its simple outlines. It will not fail to command
your belief. The miracle was performed in open
day, in the presence of thousands. The opposers of Jesus,
the hostile Scribes and Pharisees, do not deny the miracle,
for they were convinced of the reality of the death of the
young man; for he died, as I have before said, of the
plague, and his corpse was a loathsome sight to those who
beheld it; yet, wonderful to relate, when he was restored
to life by the power of Jesus, he sat up free from all
external signs of the putrid disease, his skin fair and
smooth, and his whole aspect that of ruddy health and

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manly beauty. No man could doubt, therefore, that a
miracle had been performed, and of the most extraordinary
kind; for never was it heard before that the dead were
restored to life. This miracle of restoration from the dead
of Samuel, the widow's son, has caused hundreds this day
to confess his name, and to believe in him as the anointed
Shiloh of Israel.

Since writing the above, I have conversed with Samuel
upon the consciousness which he had of being dead. He
replies that it seemed to him that he had been in a dream,
the chain of which was now broken, and could not be
recollected again. “Fragments,” said he, “of a delightful
condition; of splendor; of glory and bliss; of music
ineffable, and scenes indescribable, passed before my mind
for a few moments after standing upon my feet; but they
presently melted away, and I can now only recollect that
there were such! When I found myself upon the bier, I
felt no surprise; for the fact that I was being taken to my
burial seemed instinctively to present itself to my reanimated
consciousness.” Many of the doctors have been to
see him through the day, and have put profound questions
to him touching the state of the soul out of the body;
but he could give them no satisfaction, all appearing to
him like shining fragments of a gorgeous vision.

Jesus came into the town during the evening, and abode
with us. You should have witnessed how the gratitude
of the happy mother, and of the no less happy Ruth, exhibited
itself. They anticipated his every wish, and seemed
to desire that he had a thousand wants, that they might
administer to them. But his life is simple—his wants
few. He thinks little of comforts; and so that he can

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speak of the kingdom of God to those about him, he forgets
to partake of the food before him. We also forget all
things else when he speaks, and stand or sit around him,
drinking in the rich eloquence of his wise lips. The more
I see of him, dear father, the more I stand in awe of him,
and love him.

Mary is to-morrow to become the bride of John, and
Jesus will be present at the wedding, for while he severely
rebukes sin and folly, he sanctifies by his presence the holy
rite of marriage, which God ordained. Next month, the
seventh day of the month, the happy Ruth consents to
give her hand to the noble youth whom she has so wonderfully
received alive from the dead.

On the eve of the seventh day I shall depart hence, with
John and Mary, for Jerusalem, whence I will write you
again.

p612-271

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