2 3 nor see. And then He joined with them in what both could understand and share in common, and mingled His tears with theirs. "Himself borne along with, and not seeking to resist, this great tide of sorrow." "In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren." Once we saw Him at the Marriage Feast, now we see Him at the Grave; sharing and so increasing joys, sharing and so diminishing griefs. We see the varied effect of His emotion on the bystanders. Some were touched and softened by these tokens of sorrow; but some could yet find fault, still find something to carp at. "And what did Jesus? He made no defence. For why should He silence by words those who were soon to be silenced by deeds?" 4 And so men are still asking in their childish petulance, in their short-sighted and ignorant impatience, Why should the Almighty permit this? Why cannot the Omnipotent do that? But "He giveth not account of any of His matters." All He thinks fit to tell us is, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." 1 Abp. Trench. Sir Robert Grant's points evidently to the particular case lines here recur to mind: "When sorrowing o'er some stone I bend 2 "But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend, works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less."-Bacon, Essay on Friendship. Rom. xii. 15. Not and as in the E. V., rather but. Compare v. 46 below. These detractors are referring to one special miracle, lately wrought at Jerusalem. The singular number of ch. ix. Compare a similar reference in ch. vii. 21, 23. "It is characteristic of the exact truth of this narrative, (although it has been brought as an argument against it,) that they, dwellers in Jerusalem, should refer to this miracle which had lately occurred there rather than to the previous raisings from the dead. . . But those occurring at an earlier period, and in the remoter Galilee, would not have been present to them with at all the same liveliness as was this miracle, which had been brought out into especial prominence by the contradiction which it had roused, and the futile attempts which had been made to prove it an imposture. Yet a maker up of the narrative from later and insecure traditions would inevitably have fallen upon those miracles of a like kind, as arguments of the power of Jesus to have accomplished this."Abp. Trench. CCCCII. THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. St. John xi. 38-40. Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. 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. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? This is the third notice, yet another sign, of the grief which Jesus felt. He groaned, and wept, and groaned again.' And now they are arrived at the grave. The sacred Historian pauses to describe it, for he writes for strangers; at least he has these ever in his eye. The burying-place of Lazarus was other than what we understand by the term a grave. Rather it was his sepulchre, a place where his body was laid. Those who are acquainted with the Italian catacombs will readily picture to themselves such a place of interment; a chamber or cavity, hewn horizontally out of the face of the rock, large enough to contain the body, in which it might lie as on a bier or in a bed, and sealed with a stone exactly fitting it. In this miracle, as in most, we observe an economy of miraculous power. What man can do, man is left and even required to do. Those lesser things the Lord leaves to man. So He bids those around to remove the stone which sealed the chamber where their friend lay in his sleep of death." But here one of the sisters interposes. Our Evangelist is express in mentioning that the objection proceeded from the sister of the dead, as being most natural to such; and then, as there were two, he mentions which of "It is not improbable that Jesus, who before groaned in Himself for compassion of their tears, now groaned for their incredulity. Nothing could so much afflict the Saviour of men, as the sins of men."-Bp. Hall. See The Christian Year for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity. 2 Vv. 11, 13 above, the two it was. She cannot divine why He should wish to have the stone removed unless it were to look once more upon the face of His friend; and dreading the ghastly change which a four days' burial in such a climate must ever make, she would rather He should remember her brother as he was.2 Calmly turns to her the Lord of Life, reminding her of His word and promise; another unrecorded saying,3 it might be, of that conversation He held with her when she went out to meet Him. See here the connexion between faith and sight. We believe first, and then see; and we shall surely see if only we heartily believe." CCCCIII. THE SAME SUBJECT-continued. St. John xi. 41-44. Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. 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. And He 1 Observe the order of the original. 2 Lightfoot quotes from the Jews' books certain curious traditions. mentions their habit of visiting the sepulchres and inspecting their occupants for three days, as within that time some have revived. For three days the soul hovers over the sepulchre expecting to return to the body; but when it sees that the appearance of the countenance is changed, it retires and quits the place. Roman Catholic writers seem to vie with Jews in their legendary lore. In the Life of St. Bernard de Menthon, a book which most guests carry off from the Hospice, and which, together with much exalted piety, contains some childish and transparent figments, exemption from this evidence of mortality is thus claimed for the holy man: "Le manu- 3 As in v. 28 above. when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, 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. 3 No longer now do the by-standers hesitate, but at the Lord's bidding take away the stone, and dead Lazarus lies revealed. And while all eyes are fixed on Jesus to see what He next will do, see Him lift up His eyes towards Heaven (that those who blasphemously attributed His miracles to the power of hell might know indeed the quarter whence they came) and, not for His own sake but for ours, hear Him utter those words of thanksgiving. He calls the Father Father as truly as He calls Lazarus out of his tomb.3 When and where had Jesus offered the prayer here implied? Was it while He yet tarried beyond the Jordan? or is He referring to some communion of soul which had taken place even there and then, amid those groans and tears? And now in all the confidence of conscious power, with a loud voice, the sign and the consequence of authority, He commands the dead clay and the disembodied spirit of the departed Lazarus; calls him by name, that sign of friendship; calls him as we might call a friend out of sleep; calls him from his bed of death, as if he were not only alive, but even watching for the call. He spake, and it was done, even the same who said in the beginning, "Let there be light, and there was light." He creates and re-creates with a word. From that sepulchre in the side of the rock, Lazarus at the command of Christ lifts himself out, and stands on his feet; not life only, but vigour, restored." Into his nostrils the Lord God had breathed again the breath of life, and dead Lazarus became once more a living soul. By a power Divine the disembodied spirit had been fetched back again from the world of spirits, and reunited to the body fitted again for its habitation; the damage done by "decay's effacing fingers" already repaired; death's 1 See the original. 2 Chry. Ser. xi. In quatriduanum Lazarum. St. John v. 20, 21. 3 St. John xii. 27-30; xvii. 1. V. 11 above. See also St. John xii. 17. Ps. civ. 30 (Prayer Book version); St. John i. 1-4; Heb. i. 1, 2. • Grotius. work undone; corruption's hideous task retrieved, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." But though from the nature of the sepulchre, already described, Lazarus restored to life might lift himself out, and stand upright on his feet, it would have required a second miracle that he "bound hand and foot with grave-clothes" should have walked and departed of himself. So with that economy of resources already spoken of, that carefulness not to expend Divine power where is needed no more than human help; in order too that those around might handle him and see,' and have no loophole for any unbelief,—the Lord bids them loose him and let him go. They are not to throng him, to ply him with curious questions, to pry in upon the awful secrets of the grave; but let him depart in peace; to the privacy which is most healthful for soul and body, to the society of those sisters who best might minister unto him.3 But think of that hideous change "from the sprightfulness of youth... to the loathsomeness and horror of a three days' burial." 4 Think of this 2 1 St. Luke xxiv. 39; 1 St. John i. 1. 2 See Tennyson's In Memoriam, xxxi., xxxii. 3 Of the three instances recorded in the Gospels of such a miracle, it is interesting to note the varied circumstances. Childhood, youth, mature manhood, all have their mortality arrested and redeemed by Christ. "Christ raised from the dead in the chamber and in the street, from the bed and from the bier; and not content with these smaller demonstrations, proceedeth also to the grave. These three evangelical resuscitations are so many preambulatory proofs of the last and general resurrection."Bp. Pearson, On the Creed. There is a great sermon of St. Augustine, already referred to (Lect. clxix.) embracing all these, but dwelling chiefly on this last. This raising of Lazarus from death and corruption is regarded as a lively emblem of the conversion of even a vigorous sinner. Not the newly dead only, like the little daughter of Jairus, and those betokened by that young man carried out to burial; but even the four-days' dead, dead and buried as it were in trespasses and sins, in the very sepulchre of sin, objects even of disgust, covered with that stone of ill-custom which seems to shut them in and fasten them down for ever, (elsewhere he takes the stone to be the law,)—even these, as it were in their very graves, may hear His voice and come forth. He commits them to His ministers to restore them to their friends. Lampe has here another of his historicoprophetical interpretations, the weak point of his otherwise great work. Not content with finding, as well he may, an ethical meaning in the narrative, he sees in it, so he imagines, a complete picture of the times of the Reformation, and extorts from this plain and simple history more mystic meaning than some have drawn even from the Apocalypse. Jer. Taylor (Holy Dying, i. 2). He adds, "There is enough to cool |