Letters from Adina - #21

Letter XXI. The Resurrection of the Widow of Nain’s Son.

The raising to life of Samuel, the son of Sarah of Nain.

Dear Father,

An hour since I laid down my pen, in order to follow to his burial, the son of our hostess. I now have to recount to you one of the most marvelous things which ever happened, and which fills us all with such joy and wonder, that I fear my trembling fingers will scarcely record 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, poor Ruth was stricken down by her deep grief, and I led her to her room, where she sank insensible upon her couch.

I could not leave her thus, and the train went forth from the house without me; Mary, as she walked, supporting upon her arm the bereaved mother, clad in her mourning weeds.

Suddenly, I heard a very great shout. I sprang up, and hastened to the lattice. It was repeated louder, and with a glad tone, that showed me it was a shout of joy.

It seemed to come from beyond the city walls, and from a hundred voices raised at once.

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 awakening my wonder and amazement.

Upon reaching the flat roof, and stepping upon the parapet, I saw Elec, our Gibeonite slave, coming along the street towards the house, with the speed of the antelope.

He was waving his hands wildly, and crying out something which I could not distinctly hear. Behind him I saw two youths running also, hastening as if they brought some great tidings.

I knew something wonderful must have happened, but could not divine what it was. The persons whom I had first seen running along the street, now spoke their message 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 run 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 means this shouting, O Elec?”

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

“Young Rabbi Samuel is restored to life! He is no longer dead. You will soon see him, for they are bringing 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 an eagerness that I cannot describe, hardly believing what I heard, I hastened to Ruth, in order to prevent the effects of too sudden joy.

Upon entering the chamber, I found that the voice of Elec, who had shouted into her ears the news, of which he was the bearer, had aroused her from her stupor of grief. She was looking at him wildly one who understood not. I ran to her, and folding her in my arms, said -

‘‘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, yonder!’’ she said, raising her beautiful, glittering eyes to heaven, and pointing upward.

“But on earth also,’’ cried Elec, vehemently. ‘‘I saw him sit up, and heard him speak, as well as ever he spoke!”

‘‘How came it to pass'!? Let me know all,” I cried.

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

‘‘Jesus?’’ I exclaimed joyfully. ‘‘Who else could it be? Yes; he met the bier just outside the gate—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 shouting people, 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 lives indeed!’’ she screamed 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 sight was solemn and awe-inspiring beyond any spectacle ever seen on earth. The newly-risen from the dead knelt in the midst of the floor, with his mother at his right hand, leaning her head upon his shoulder, and Ruth clasped in his left arm, and fast embracing him as if he were an angel, who if she held him not would spread his wings and ascend, leaving her for ever.

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 the mercy vouchsafed to him.

When he had performed this first sacred duty, he rose to his feet, and received all our embraces. Hundreds came in to see his face, and every tongue was loosed in praise of the power of Jesus.

“But 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 from the throng, and none could see aught of Him.”

“Speak to me, Mary, concerning this wonderful miracle,” I continued; for though I saw Samuel now seated, and eating food 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 feel assured that he whom I had beheld carried out a dead man on his bier, I now saw 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 great happiness; and she led me apart, and spoke thus:-

“We went weeping forth, slowly following the bier, and we had passed the gate, when 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 journeying thus they met us at the crossing of the stone bridge.

Hearing one of them that followed say aloud, “It is the Prophet of Nazareth, with his disciples,” I looked earnestly forward, and joyfully recognised Jesus, with John walking by his side.

“Oh, that Jesus had been in Nain when thy son fell sick!” I said to the widow, pointing Him out to her, as He and His company stopped at the entrance to the bridge, and drew to one side, the way being too narrow for both parties to cross at the same time.

Upon looking up and seeing Him, marking His benign countenance, and beholding how sorrowfully He gazed upon the widow, I recollected how He might have prevented her son's death, had He been in Nain.

As for the poor widow, she could no longer command her grief, which broke forth afresh; and covering her face with her veil, she wept so sore 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 that thrilled of sympathy -

“Weep not, O widow. Thy son shall live again!’’  

“I know it, O Rabboni - at the last day,” she answered. “He was so noble - so young - he was all I had, and had been so many months 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.

“Woman, weep not. I will restore thy son!” said the Prophet.

‘‘What saith he?’ cried some Pharisees who were in the funeral train; “that he will raise a dead man? He speaketh blasphemy. God only can raise the dead.” And they smiled and scoffed.

But Jesus laid his hand upon the pall that covered the body, and said to those who bore the corpse - “Rest the bier upon the ground.”

They instantly obeyed Him  and stood still.

He then advanced amid a deep silence, and, uncovering the marble visage, touched the hand of the dead man, and said, in a loud and commanding voice -

“Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!”

There was a moment’s painful suspense throughout the vast multitude.

Every eye was fixed upon the bier. The voice was heard by the spirit of the dead, and it came back to his body.

There was visible a living, trembling stirring of the hitherto motionless corpse! Color flushed the livid cheek; the eyelids opened, and he that had been dead fixed his eyes on Jesus; then he raised his hand, and 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 quit the bier and stand upon his feet, 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, “The Lord has indeed visited his people Israel. A great prophet is risen up among us.

The Messias is come, and Jesus is very Christ, who hath the keys of death and hell.”

With such words and exclamations, and great shouts of rejoicing, the multitude surrounded the young man restored to life, and conducted him back to the city; the great mass of the people being drawn together more by the miracle than by the august Person by whose act it had been wrought.

I sought out Jesus, to cast myself at His feet, but He shrank from the worship and thankfulness which his mercy to us had awakened. Thus, humility is an element of all power.”

This, my dear father, is the narrative of the raising to life of Samuel, the son of Sarah, of Nain.

I give it to you in its simple truth. The miracle was performed in open day, in the presence of thousands.

This miracle of the raising 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.

Next month, the happy Ruth will wed the young man whom she has so wonderfully received back from the dead.

Your loving daughter, Adina

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LADY DONNA PROGRAM

The new Lady Donna Immersion in Spirituality, Academics and Citizenship @ the "I AM" School will study abridged excerpts of the Letters from Adina taken from Reverend Ingraham's original edited version of 'The Prince of the House of David', published by Cassell & Co. Ltd (1903), that reveal remarkable insights into the Living Etheric Record left by Beloved Jesus's Ministry in the Holy Land.