# Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle/Chapter 11

CHAPTER XI.
THE news that Lazarus was dead spread with the rapidity of lightning. His illness, and the probability or the improbability of his being saved from death, or restored to life, had for so many weeks been a common topic that it was no wonder that his death filled the believers with dismay, and the Pharisees, and, still more, the Sadducees, with joy.
Joanna's tongue had not been silent, nor yet had Rachel's, and when some messenger had come from Jerusalem with some delicacy ordered by Martha, in the hope of tempting the slender appetite of the invalid, he had found himself surrounded, on re-entering the outskirts of the town, by a vociferating, clamouring crowd of inquiring gossips.
There was still greater significance in this death for the chief priests; it renewed their power over the Jews, while it also renewed the controversy between Caiaphas and Pilate as to the expediency of laying hands on the Messiah.
The apparent failure of the expected miracle rendered the Nazarene a less dangerous opponent.
Some anxiety was felt by Caiaphas when he heard of the continued absence of the Nazarene from the house of Martha and Mary. It seemed to him, in his insensate craving for revenge, that his Victim ​was escaping him; while Pontius Pilate was secretly glad, both at the disappearance of the Christ and the discomfiture of the wily Caiaphas.
"Where is now the courage of thy Nazarene?" Caiaphas had asked the Procurator at the Sanhedrim; and, in the same taunting tone, Pilate had answered:
"Where is now thy Victim?"
The hours were few in which Mary and Martha were allowed to sit and mourn their dead in peace. Of a noble and respected family, as the wealthy ruler had been, it was impossible that his death should not cause some stir, for all that his recent leaning towards the tenets of the Nazarene had caused him to be looked upon of late with some suspicion. Accordingly great interest was taken in the promised presence at the funeral of several representatives of the different sects who suspected or dreaded that Lazarus might not be really dead; and Caiaphas had prevailed on the jackal Annas to be present.
"We can trust none," he had said, "and this Nazarene may so bewitch the people that they may fear to tell us the truth. It must be thou or I, for I would trust to no man's eyes or ears or tongue in this affair; and it would look better that he that was High Priest were there than that he that is; for thou wouldst be deserting no office and wasting no time if, peradventure, thou wert walking in the olive groves by Bethany at eventide, when the funeral procession was approaching."
Caiaphas had not seen fit to tell his father-in-law of his midnight journey to Bethany with Nicodemus, ​when he had hoped, if not to lay hands on Jesus, to get tidings of His movements; when he had also seen the body of Lazarus.
An endless multitude of people thronged all day the road from Jericho; great rabbis, followed by their retinue, mules laden with spices and myrrh, ointment and spikenard. The room in which Lazarus lay, now bound in grave clothes by the tender hands of Martha and Mary, was like an ever-moving panorama. According to Jewish custom, all the friends and relatives came to bid farewell to the corpse and to mourn with the sisters; and the ever-active Martha forgot some of the poignancy of her grief in the dispensing of hospitality and in attending to the comfort of the thronging crowd. Nicodemus was there, in attendance on Annas, glad to have so good an excuse for coming to the house at Bethany, without appearing to be attracted by curiosity or devotion. The two men were allowed the first access to the corpse; and, while Annas let his eyes wander curiously around him, as if he dreaded some juggling or chicanery, Nicodemus looked across the corpse at him and said: "Methinks he is dead in very truth."
But the wily father-in-law of Caiaphas would risk no answer, lest, perchance—for all words of Nicodemus seemed borne out by facts—he still might be the dupe of circumstances.
Then others thrust themselves within the room, some curious, some interested, but all, with ready Eastern sympathy, eager to comfort the bereaved women. Those belonging to the nobler grades of Jewish social life were doubtless struck with the ​incongruities of the surroundings: the superb hangings and costly adornments of the house, and the humble, mean attire of many of the mourners. Last, but not least, their dignity was offended by the presence of the Magdalene.
"What doth this sinner here?" said one or two, albeit with bated breath, not to wound the susceptibilities of the owners of the house.
"She loved Lazarus," said one.
"Methinks the ruler had good taste," put in another with a jeering laugh, suppressed at the remembrance that a corpse lay in the adjacent chamber; "for she is the comeliest woman in Judæa."
"Methought the righteous Lazarus took no heed to any woman," said a third.
"Tush," said Nicodemus. "'T is not as ye do think, ye foul-hearted, foul-mouthed generation. This woman was purified by the Nazarene. He cast forth seven devils from her, and Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who is ever kind, doth help her much to lead a better life."
This statement was met with a shrugging of the shoulders and an upraising of the eyebrows; and one bolder than the rest remarked: "Perchance, if Lazarus had lived, he would have taken her to wife. The followers of the Nazarene do strange things, I 'm told."
But the conversation was interrupted by the voice of a servant crying out: "Make way, make way. Simon the Leper doth come this way."
As though one smitten with the plague came in their midst, the whole crowd dispersed, jostling and ​pushing each other this way and that, in their hurry to avoid contact with the afflicted one; and soon, as if by magic, the chambers were emptied of their human throng, to let the wasted vision of diseased mortality pass in.
One or two beckoned to Mary and Martha, but they shook their heads, and Mary whispered softly: "We fear nothing; he is our father."
However strict the Jewish laws, none could at such a moment refuse the father access to the body of his son. Simon, like his daughters, had retained a lingering hope that the Nazarene would save Lazarus from death, and so had put off his visit from day to day, till he had been too late to bid his son farewell. Great tears coursed down the cheeks of the poor old man. It was the overflowing of a sorrowful cup, filled to the brim with life's bitterness. Though he was compelled by the Jewish law to live apart from the rest of the world, his son had been the hope of his old age; he had watched his career with all the love and pride of a father, who feels that, but for some untoward accident, he might have been great himself.
Lazarus had been his second self—a second self, but free from his affliction. The rectitude of his son's life had been his joy; his high position, his pride; his kindness to his sisters, a burden lifted from his own shoulders. It was through his son that he had learned to know the Nazarene; yea, who knew what hopes of recovery Simon had fostered in the presence of the Christ? Yet both father and son had been disappointed in their hope of being healed of their disorders by the Nazarene. For all that, it ​was characteristic of the members of this family, plucked, as it were, like brands from the burning, that they never wavered in their faith. Perhaps it was the intensity and unity of their trust that compelled the miracle that followed.
Hideous in his horrible disease, the poor old man stood gazing at the lifeless features of his son.
Then he looked at Mary, who was still kneeling by the bedside, and shaking his head sadly, he repeated: "He is, in truth, dead. He is, in truth, dead."
Then, fearing the return of the mourning friends, or perhaps that by his presence he was keeping them away, the old man, unattended and lonely, as he had come, tottered away, leaning a little more heavily than his wont upon his staff of olive wood.
"Thou and I, thou and I," he muttered. Then, as if to keep his faith alive by the sound of his voice, he cried out as he passed as rapidly as he could across the garden, where the crowds had taken refuge during his visit to the body of his son: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name." And here and there a voice, pitying or scoffing, according to the nature of the heart from which it emanated, cried out: "Who healeth all thy diseases! Why then hath He not healed thine?" Again: "Thou art grateful for little, poor Simon." Then, as if given a sudden inspiration of conviction, Simon turned round on the scoffing crowd, and, with a mighty voice, cried out: "My son will yet rise again."
And while the Jews questioned among themselves "What meaneth he? Now or at the resurrection?" the poor old man took his solitary way down the ​road that led on to Jerusalem, a sharp pang seizing his heart as, every now and then, a child or an older passer-by darted across the road, lest they should touch him, exclaiming in horror ill-suppressed: " 'T is Simon the Leper."
"Who knoweth what trickery they have contrived in yonder chamber?" said the ever–suspicious Annas to a bystander, dreading even now a miracle at the last moment, and neglecting no opportunity of instilling disbelief in its reality, should it apparently take place.
The sad day was over, with its bereavement and its disillusions, its horrible disappointments, its fruitless yearning for the glorious Presence which would have so revived their drooping spirits. Lazarus had been laid in his grave amid the chants and wailing of nearly all Jerusalem. The air around the grave was heavy with the perfumes that had been brought as gifts. One by one the mourners had departed, leaving a little group of intimates behind. Yet still Annas lingered, half in awe and half suspicious. Then, while the women continued to kneel beside the grave, he approached Martha and addressed her courteously enough.
"Lady," he said, "wouldst permit that these, my soldiers, roll a stone upon the grave?"
"Wherefore?" asked Martha, eying the wily Jew with some distrust.
With shifting glance, he yet tried to look her steadfastly in the face. "I fear some trickery," he said; and the accent of truth rang out in the greasy voice.
"Art not ashamed to say such things?" asked Martha testily. Then, drawing herself up to her full ​height, she added proudly: "Yea, if thou fearest aught." With unutterable scorn the word "fearest" was pronounced. "If thou fearest aught from heaven or earth, do what thou wilt. Set thy soldiers to roll a stone before his grave."
Then the scheming Annas realised that he had taken a false step, for, if miracle there were, then it would assuredly be said, "Yet Annas placed a stone against the door"; giving double strength to what might otherwise have been passed off as a trick. Accordingly, hastily he replied: "Still, if thou will it not, 't is all one; for there will be no miracle."
But Martha, justly angered, raised her head proudly and made answer: "Nay, but I will now that thou have this stone rolled on my brother's grave; and, if thou wilt but bid thy soldiers do it in the presence of these who linger still and can bear witness to it, I will myself send message to my kinsman Caiaphas, or, if needs be, go to Pontius Pilate to tell him of thy words."
Annas started, stung by her tone and words; then laughed an angry laugh. "Methinks that He who can raise one so dead as Lazarus can also roll away the stone."
"Thou speakest well, thou treacherous Annas," replied Martha, with some heat; "for, if my brother rise, it will be at the bidding of Jesus, the Son of God, with whom all things are possible."
With these words she signed to the soldiers to roll a stone against the tomb, stifling the wish to cast one last long look at her brother, lest Annas should make it an excuse for delaying to fulfil her wish.
Then the soldiers, partly to annoy Annas, whom ​they hated for a crafty Jew, and partly from Roman courtesy to the two sorrowing women, rolled a huge stone against the mouth of the tomb. But Annas had already proceeded down the hill, as though refusing to be witness to the act that he himself had first suggested.
Nicodemus lingered for one moment to bid farewell to the two he knew and loved so well, and to ask the question he had already longed to put: "Thinkest thou still the Lord will come?"
"He will come, He will come," wailed Martha; "but my brother is dead; my brother will rise no more."
"But at the resurrection," chimed in Mary softly. And then, while Nicodemus hurried on to catch up with Annas, the two women, with arms entwined, wandered back to their solitary home, bereft for the future of all its joy and sunlight and the chief interest of their lives. Behind them walked a little band of old and trusted friends, wailing and bemoaning according to Jewish custom. On the clear evening air their voices sounded like a celestial chorus.
"I will weep bitterly. Labour not to comfort me. For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord God of Hosts in the valley of vision. Look away from me, look away from me: I will weep bitterly."
Then a woman's voice alone took up the verse from the Song of Solomon.
"Where is thy beloved gone? Whither is thy beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with thee."
Then they all joined in once more: "Look away ​from me, look away from me, for I will weep bitterly."
Mary heard the words, that rose in tearful strains behind her, and, turning, saw the Magdalene's white, sorrowing face close to her own, trying to frame the words of wailing, while the great tear-drops fell from those lustrous eyes that had driven men mad aforetime.
"Who knoweth how thy aching heart doth suffer, my poor Magdalene?" she murmured soothingly, and stretching out her hand to her.
Then once more the mournful voices chanted: "I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. Look away from me, look away from me, for I will weep bitterly—I will weep bit—ter—ly."
The voices rose and fell and there seemed no comfort anywhere. Now that the cherished body was no longer there, the house seemed more desolate than ever, and a great night was in their hearts; deeper even than the gloom now falling silently, though the moon was veiled and the stars shone not out. And, as the last lamp flickered out in the house of Bethany, all hope in the hearts of those who were bereaved died with it, for there was no message from the Lord. Brother and friend and God, all had gone from them at once. But there was no wavering of their faith.
"For the glory of God is this thing done," said Mary. "We must tread the winepress alone."
​But Martha, in the petulance of her fatigue and grief, exclaimed: "If the Lord had been here, our brother had not died"; and in her revolting heart, she cursed the Jews and all unbelievers and them who sought His life and thus had kept Him away. Great as was her faith, it was not so great that she could believe that, if He had so willed it, He could have raised Lazarus from afar.
Then, wearied out with physical fatigue and the effort of brain and heart that tried in vain to pierce the veil of the incomprehensible and remain steadfast, despite assailing doubts, the two women sought repose and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. But in the chamber below, as outside in the garden, the mourners still wailed: "Look away from me, look away from me, for I will weep bitterly, I will weep bitterly."
And so that saddest of all nights rolled away into the tide of eternity, till at the Judgment Day the Almighty should bid its waves leap upwards to the steps of His throne and unfold on its swelling crests the innermost secrets of its annals.
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