Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/178

166 "Take ye away the stone." And He pointed with his finger to the grave.

The hour was come. But a few moments longer would the veil be stretched between the power of God and the belief of man. The air seemed freighted with portentous marvels, each heart palpitating with suspense.

The disciples sprang forward to obey; yet, even now, the voice of unbelieving common-sense, of faithlessness, of law-bound argument, sounded from Martha's lips. In horror and no simulated terror, she shrank from the dread sight she feared would meet her eyes.

"Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days."

With a gleam almost of indignation at her want of belief, her worldly clinging to the social rites and conventionalities of Jewish custom, yet able still to tolerate the iron-bound limits of man's narrowness, the Nazarene fixed His full gaze upon her.

"Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?"

Then, as the breeze chases a faint ripple from wavelet to wavelet, there rose a murmur through the multitude: "Verily He will raise him."

Then the disciples rolled away the stone, and the restlessness of the crowd increased; they were ready to burst into shouts of praise or fall in adoring worship; but the impulse was restrained by gestures from the disciples entreating peace.

In the glorious splendour of that Eastern sun, that glowed with an added brilliancy, as if in expectation of the stupendous miracle that was to be performed,