He Shall Do Well by Adelaide D. Wellman

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 14, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 27.

“He Shall Do Well”

By Adelaide D. Wellman

ONE whose every word has significance, said by way of announcing the death of His friend of Bethany, “Lazarus sleepeth.” Those who heard that statement, replied, “If he sleep, he shall do well.” They had not comprehended the import of the word “sleep” as used in that instance, and simply meant to state that if their sick friend was able to sleep, the indication was favorable for improvement. Then the Master declared “plainly” that Lazarus was dead.

We mortals are not wont to think it is well for our friends to die. Even though life imply much of suffering, and death be depicted as only a transition to a higher life,

“Yet, half I hear the fainting spirit sigh, ‘It is a dread and awful thing to die.’”

Disagreeable facts are not most effectively met by denial, but by acknowledgment. And death is a fact. The evidence is world-wide and all-pervading, not only among mankind, but in the lower creation also, both animal and plant.

One may assert that only the body of man dies; but Holy Writ bears record invariably to the death of the person, not merely his body.

The thought is doubtless repellent. Death is no part of the perfect plan of the Creator. It is a result of sin. And sin is hideous. Hence death is not in itself lovely.

Yet He who makes evil accomplish good, says of His own who sleep in death, what the friends of Lazarus said when they thought he was taking ordinary sleep,—“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, . . . that they may rest from their labors.”

When the Lifegiver waken them to a new life, immeasurably superior to the present, the period of sleep—as in the case of sound natural sleep even—will seem to have been scarcely a moment.

The time is near when He who restored Lazarus to life, shall return to earth, to waken “them that sleep in the dust of the earth.”

ADELAIDE D. WELLMAN.