Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/292

280 And Lazarus, in grief and wonder, murmured to himself: "His own familiar friend, His own familiar friend."

Then, when Jesus sat down again, a look of pain and grief passed over Him. It was as though He had lost something, or had missed a face from the throng He would one day see again. And, while He explained to them the meaning of His service of humility, a great gloom settled on them all.

"If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done unto you."

There was a tone of weariness, almost of despondency, in the tender voice.

He was filled with horror at the duplicity of the man who sat at the table with Him; with sorrow at the greed and hardness of his heart; at the awful future he was preparing for himself. Perhaps, too, in all reverence be it said, there was in the human essence of His Person a shrinking from the trial that lay before Him, and the faintest glimmer of a doubt whether the stupendous sacrifice He contemplated was not in excess of the result to be obtained. Who, in a humbler way, has not felt, after some action of self-sacrifice or self-denial has been performed, "What good has it done after all? I might have spared myself"?

The nerves of the little band were strung to the highest pitch. Encased in bonds of human ignorance and incapacity, they were daily in presence of divine outpourings their understanding failed to hold. The peace and comfort that were to be the