though he were dead, yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.' Wonderful words! of which experience alone can teach us the full meaning. Thus much we may gather, that union with Christ is life, whether on this earth or elsewhere, and that it rests but with Him to call that life at any moment into visible form and exercise.* "Believest thou this? She saith unto Him, 'Yea, Lord I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world." She might not, perhaps, have grasped the full idea of His power heretofore, but her faith grew as He spoke to her. She believed He was the Christ, and whatever that involved she was ready to receive, to the extent He chose to give it.

:

"And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, 'The Master is come, and calleth for thee.'" Mary might, perhaps, have known that Jesus was at hand; and yet in her utter depression have shrunk from going to meet Him, but the fact of His asking for her gave her a new spirit, and roused her from inaction. soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto Him. Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met Him. The Jews then" the sympathizing friends and neighbours" which were with her in the house, and

"As

*"Christ, by raising one poor man, before he was raised himself, testified that death shall have no power, that the grave shall have no power to extinguish one faculty of the soul, one sense of the body, in any creature whose nature He has taken."-Rev. F. W. Maurice, Gospel of St. John, p. 317.

comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, 'She goeth unto the grave to weep there."" They followed, probably fearing that the excess of her grief would be hurtful to her, if indulged alone. By this kind solicitude they defeated, indeed, the precautions which Martha seems to have taken to keep the interview with Jesus private, but they were the undesigned means of authenticating the subsequent miracle.

"Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, 'Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died," "-the thought uppermost with both sisters, revealing a world of longing and disappointment. "When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled, and said, 'Where have ye laid him?' They said unto Him, 'Lord, come and see.' Jesus wept"-tears of sympathy and tenderness-blessed tears-proving to us, as nothing else could prove, the sameness of His human nature with ours; and teaching us that in that nature in its perfection, there mingles the most exquisite fineness of feeling with the highest grandeur of resolve. "Then said the Jews, 'Behold how He loved him!' And some of them said, 'Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died ?'' It perplexes them that having power He should not have used it in behalf of his own friend.

"Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself

cometh to the grave.

It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it." In such a cave was the Lord Himself buried. "Jesus said, 'Take ye away the stone.' Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, 'Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days."" He was probably buried the very day he died, in the evening, as was common with the Jews, and as is the case now in India; putrefaction taking place very rapidly in such climates. "Jesus saith unto her, 'Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?'” Her faith seemed to have ebbed again, but this rebuke was adapted to rouse her, and make her dread lest she should by unbelief hinder the performance of the great work.

In

"Then took they away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted And Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, 'Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me.'' this case, in which it was evident to all that the Lord's human feelings and wishes were deeply interested, He would not even seem to use His power without the express sanction of His Father. "And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice," the accent of authority-"Lazarus, come forth!' And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, 'Loose him, and let him go.""

SECTION XXXVIII.

CONSULTATION OF THE RULERS.

JOHN xi. 45-57.

"THEN many of the Jews which came to Mary,

and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on Him; but some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done."

Those who had followed Mary to the sepulchre, and thus become spectators of this great miracle, were differently affected. Most of them were, as we should expect, convinced and made believers in Jesus, but there were still some who did not quite make up their minds. They were staggered, perplexed, and thought the best thing to do was to consult their accustomed leaders, the men to whom they had surrendered their consciences. They went and told the Pharisees what had happened. To them it was most embarrassing news. They had driven Jesus from Jerusalem, and had perhaps not heard much about His doings in the remote district beyond Jordan, but here He was now again in their neighbourhood, and manifesting greater powers than ever.

"Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we"-what are we to do -"for this man doeth many miracles?" It seems extraordinary to us that they could acknowledge this, and yet dare to withhold their allegiance from one evidently armed with Divine power; but we must remember that supernatural power was not in that

age viewed as exclusively Divine, and that they had their own solution of the miracles of Jesus in the ascription of them to the "prince of the demons.” But, at any rate, it was plain that Jesus was a very dangerous person. "If we let Him thus alone, all men will believe on Him"-He will get an irresistibly strong party of followers, they will proclaim Him Messiah and King-" and the Romans"-only too ready to take advantage of any pretext of rebellion

-“shall come and take away both our place and nation. And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, 'Ye know nothing at all' "—perhaps alluding to the lingering scruples some might have as to the rightfulness of taking away the life of an innocent man on such grounds-" nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." They acknowledged there was this political danger in the popularity of Jesus. Well, then, it was mere trifling to wait till they could take hold of something on which to convict Him legally. Innocent or guilty, what mattered it, what was the life of one man compared to the welfare of the nation? it was expedient -the proper thing to do-to put Him to death, if by that means they could save themselves and their country. This is a principle which has received numerous illustrations in the history of mankind. The sacrifice of one man-or of the few-has been the salvation of the many. Thus Leonidas and his little band of Spartans sacrificed themselves to gain time for their fellow-countrymen, in the advance of