Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/305

Rh this terrible moment. No, it was not life that Lazarus desired for Him; no one having once cast off the flesh could ever wish that again for any whom he loved. It was not, therefore, the Messiah's life that he would save; but he would save Him, if he could, from the insults, the smarting taunts, that lay before Him. Lazarus knew them, these vulgar self-sufficient Orientals, who fawned on those in power, and crushed into the mud those who failed or seemed to fail. Every item of the Jewish character was familiar to him, its extraordinary enthusiasm, its worship of "the rising sun," its brutal, illimitable cruelty to the down-trodden, its contempt of the weak. No depth of horror, no abyss of shame, no stretch of coarse invective, no extremity of pain would be spared the Son of God if He should fall into the hands of Caiaphas. The triumph would drive the Pharisees mad. Already the multitudes were deserting Him. They held aloof for fear of future loss of position, should the Nazarene be condemned. For himself Lazarus thought nothing; how can one live and die and live again, and count life or death as aught?

The distant murmur of Jerusalem was fading into a faint hum of nightly stirrings. Only the leaves rustled. A great despondency seized their hearts, a horrible foretaste of loneliness at the departure of the Christ. How could they live alone, these men whose rising and down-sitting had been spent with Him! To go back into the cold, callous, Jewish life, to be taunted with the reproach of failure, and unable to refute it! To be asked for living truths, and have naught to give in reply but memories that