Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/121

Rh unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein."

And He had taken them up in His arms and laid His hands upon them and blessed them.

Lazarus had stood near when the preceding words left the Saviour's lips. For months he had been following the Nazarene from place to place, thirsting for knowledge; yet for all he was a lawyer and a ruler of the Synagogue, unable to recognise the teaching of the Christ, unable to grasp the startling doctrines, to reconcile them with the teachings of his childhood and the surroundings of his daily life. He had heard the Nazarene pray, and he had prayed, but there had seemed a pall of unbelief upon his heart. Arguments, such as he had learnt in his legal profession (for almost every man that made any claim to position in those days was a lawyer), seemed ever to crop up. If this Man could save to the uttermost why did He not do so? If He really was all-powerful, what need to suffer and to toil and to preach? All the quibbles of unbelief, the torment of uncertainty, which is the world's greatest curse, which, since the world began, has raised its beguiling voice, like the voice of a siren, to lure men from the path of life; all the demons of despair, had torn at the heart of Lazarus ever since he had heard the preaching of the Nazarene; but the answer to his prayer had been coming, though he knew it not, coming, as it always does, by inward revelation, not as the result of argument. He had heard the chirping voices of the Jewish boys and girls as they clustered round the Christ, and he had approached to learn how Jesus spoke to the young.