Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/87

Rh spoken disparagingly of His mother. She had looked upon Joseph of Nazareth with scorn. Caiaphas, too, who was a relative of theirs and now High Priest, would never definitely speak of Jesus. But they were strange times in which the Jews lived then. John the Baptist had greatly stirred the Jewish world, and indeed the Roman and the Syrian world as well, by preaching a gospel of repentance and baptism, and many of the Pharisees and Sadducees had gone over to his doctrines; and yet when He had been baptised by John, it seemed difficult to believe that Jesus could be greater than he, though the Baptist had himself averred it.

"Thinkest thou, Lazarus, that the Son of God would be baptised of a wild fanatic such as John? For that John is mad is common knowledge, and that he hath bewitched the people."

Thus Martha spoke. But this had been before the family at Bethany had been honoured by the presence of the Messiah under their own roof. Since then, Lazarus had followed the Lord, followed as a hungry man wanders till he finds bread. By the Sea of Galilee, into the mountains where Christ prayed and preached, Lazarus had followed; followed, thirsting for the stream of truth that flowed on to life. What strange new doctrines were these to one who had been brought up in the old Hebrew law, fed on the vengeful tenets of the Psalms! "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," had been the old religion. "Resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also," was the new. And, "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee