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Title: The Widow and Her Son
Date of first publication: 1848
Author: Favell Lee Mortimer (1802-1878)
Date first posted: June 19 2012
Date last updated: June 19 2012
Faded Page eBook #20120627
This eBook was produced by: Larry Harrison & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net
The images used in the production of this eBook were provided courtesy of Special Collections, University Libraries, Ball State University
When a child dies, who is it sheds the most tears? Is it not the child's mother? If it be an only child who has died, how very unhappy the mother is! And if that mother be a widow, she is the more to be pitied, because she has no husband to weep with her. A long long while ago a widow lost her only son. He was a young man. I do not know whether he was a good son or not, but this I know, his mother loved him. Soon after he died, he was put in a coffin and carried by some men to be buried. The coffin had no lid—it was not like the coffins in this country, for they are screwed down.
The men were taking him out of the town where he had died into the country to be buried, and his mother walked near him crying very much, and a great many people followed. They met on the road another crowd, who were going towards the town. There was no dead person in that crowd, but there was a very wonderful man called the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He had come down from heaven, and was living in the world, and he did such wonderful things that people followed him about from place to place. He saw the poor widow weeping. He knew all about her trouble without being told; he knew she had lost her only son, and he felt very sorry for her. He came up to her and said, "Weep not." But how could the poor mother help weeping? Jesus could make her happy. He went up to the coffin where the young man was and touched it. Immediately the men who carried it stood still. Then he said, "Young man, I say unto thee, Arise." The young man was dead. How could he get up out of his coffin? But the dead hear the voice of Jesus, because he is God. The young man sat up and began to speak. I wonder what he said. Did he praise God, or did he ask to see his mother?
Do you think the widow left off weeping now? If she shed tears now, they must have been tears of joy. Jesus himself gave the young man back to his mother. How happily the widow and her son must have walked home together!
Every one who saw this wonder was very much surprised, and felt afraid. Many people said, "A great prophet has risen up amongst us." They thought that God had sent him. And so he had; the Father in heaven had sent his Son down into this world: and why? To die. Jesus came to die for sinners. Why did he give life to the young man? To show people that all he said was true. He could make all dead people alive now, but he lets them lie in their graves till the day when he will come again. Then all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth. What a day that will be! We often see a churchyard filled with graves; there are stones over some graves, but the green grass grows over many a coffin. The ground is full of dead people, one lying above the other. What a sight it will be when all these dead people come up out of their graves!
Jesus will be there, seated upon a throne of glory with all his bright angels round him. Then Jesus will judge the dead. He will say whether they shall go to heaven or hell. Whom will he take to heaven? Those who believe that he died upon the cross to save them; those who love him, and serve him, and wish to see his face. Whom will he cast into hell? Those who forget him, and do not care for him.
Pray to Jesus to take you to heaven when you die. Some persons will be alive when Jesus comes again. He will judge them as well as the dead. If they love him, they shall have bright and glorious bodies like the body of Jesus. And the dead people, too, shall have new bodies. The young man whom Jesus made alive again had his old body still, and at last he died again; but those who are made alive at the last day shall never die any more. The wicked shall be unhappy for ever, and that is the worst sort of dying. It is called the second death. May you, my dear child, never feel what it is!
You may read the history of the widow's son in Luke vii. 11–16.
THE END.
Macintosh, Printer, Great New-street, London.
[The end of The Widow and Her So by Favell Lee Mortimer]