In other words, it is according to the measure in which we see the Divine in Jesus that His miracles become credible. It is not the miracle that proves Him Divine; it is His divinity that proves the miracle.

On that sacred night at Bethany it was not Lazarus alone who was recovered from the grave, but the world itself. The gates of death rolled back, and the human race beheld itself incredibly ransomed and redeemed from destruction. The feast of life and hope was spread in those chambers, erstwhile filled with the symbols of immutable decay, hung with the mournful trappings of corruption. The words spoken in Bethany have reverberated through the world. Besides a million graves the mourners of the dead have heard the gentle and commanding Voice which has declared "I am the Resurrection and the Life!" A beautiful Hebrew legend describes the grave as the place where two worlds meet and kiss. Two worlds met at the grave of Lazarus: the world of the flesh, dishonored, humiliated, reconciled to the shame of inevitable death; the world of the spirit, delivered from all mortal trammels, throbbing with a deathless energy, conscious of the potency of life eternal. At the kiss of Christ the new sweet vigor of immortality poured itself into the frozen veins of a world that lay upon its bier. The scene is commemorated, is re-enacted, beside every grave where eyes, blind with tears, are suddenly illumined by the vision of the spirit which hovers pure and glad above the mortal raiment it has cast aside. But one more act was needed to assure the world that it was not deceived by fancied hopes; it was that Jesus Himself should put off the body of corruption, and should appear as One alive for evermore. This also was to come; and with it came the last and noblest definition of life itself: "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."

CHAPTER XXIII

ers.

THE LAST RETREAT AND THE RETURN

"IF ye believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will ye believe though one rose from the dead," said Jesus, at the close of the great spiritual drama of Dives, and His words found a sad vindication in the events which immediately followed His miracle at Bethany. The theorist, better acquainted with the movements of the philosophic mind than with the coarse characteristics of average human nature, would certainly suppose that in raising Lazarus Jesus completed the edifice of His fame. Henceforth He should have been sacred and inviolable. The world should have turned in awe and gratitude to One possessed of such astounding powNever again should it have been possible to question His authority, or the reality of the spiritual universe which He revealed. Again and again men have declared that all they needed to attain absolute faith in the existence of a spiritual universe is that one should be raised from the dead. They would be content with even less; with an authentic ap parition, with a ghost, with some bright phantom, gliding upward from the grave, whom the sense should recognize as identic with the human form that had known the pangs of dissolution. But the close observer of ordinary human nature knows too well that these are but the fond illusions of the sentimentalist. Men in general are invincibly hostile to the miraculous. The best authenticated ghost-story leaves no impression on the general mind. The possessor of abnormal powers excites not gratitude, but detestation, which

soon translates itself in active methods of repression. The alchemist and the necromancer have always lived hunted lives. History assures us in a thousand instances that men refuse to tolerate in others extraordinary powers which they themselves do not possess; and the possession of those powers, whether real or false, have often proved fatal to their possessors.

In view of these truths of observation, we need scarcely be surprised to find that the miracle at Bethany, so far from helping Christ with His inveterate foes, really intensified their hatred, and precipitated His own death. The miracle was much discussed, and Bethany became the shrine of many pilgrimages. In the Temple courts and the bazaars of Jerusalem little else was talked about. Day by day the road to Bethany was thronged with hosts of curious visitors, who sought the cavern-tomb where Lazarus had been interred, or even looked upon the man raised up by Christ, and listened to his tale. No one doubted that the miracle had really taken place, not even the priests and Pharisees themselves. But to these bitter zealots, the truer the tale, the more difficult either to discredit or suppress it, the stronger grew their animosity to Jesus. They soon became thoroughly alarmed by the growing agitation of the popular mind. It seemed as though Jesus would triumph after all, and they were well aware that His triumph would mean their downfall: Some broader considerations of policy mingled with these petty fears. The nation itself existed in a state of difficult equilibrium. The least popular disturbance might prove fatal to the last remains of nationality, by provoking the Romans to measures of retaliation. Among a people profoundly fanatical any agitation of the general mind was to be deprecated, for it was certain to find an issue in some kind of revolutionary movement. Hence personal hatred and political ne

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cessities worked together for the overthrow of Jesus. arus himself was in danger; St. John tells us that the chief priests sought to kill him. How much more ardently would they seek to kill the Man who had raised him from the dead, in the hope that by such a crime they would crush a movement that had now become a peril to the whole existing order of society?

It is of importance to understand this policy of the priests because it affords us the key to all the subsequent events in the career of Jesus. Hateful as it appears when thus baldly stated, yet it is a policy common to politicians and diplomatists, who govern men by astuteness rather than by principle, or whose only fixed principle is the dogged conservatism which defends at all costs an existing order. To such men the greatest of all perils is the spread of new ideas. If in such acts of suppression wrongs are wrought, they are defended as necessary to the safety of the nation. Acts of cruelty and injustice to individuals are justified by the welfare of the greatest number. Political necessity is pleaded for the sacrifice of heroes. We have no reason to suppose that the great governors and soldiers who have carried out crusades of extermination, at the bidding of reactionary Governments, nor indeed the individuals who composed such Governments, were themselves men of abnormal cruelty; nor need we accuse the Jewish priests of an extraordinary wickedness. They simply reasoned as the members of the Inquisition reasoned-themselves often men of admirable virtues-when they supposed they did God service in the barbarous suppression of all heretics. No power known to man is so capable of turning men of virtue into wolves and tigers as the plea of political or religious necessity. Henceforth, to the close of Christ's life, He is the victim of this supposed necessity. The question of the wisdom, truth, or value of His message will no more

be discussed in the conclave of the priests. He must be crushed, and the only question is by what means.

The exponent of this policy was Caiaphas, the supreme Pontiff of the Jewish faith. Immediately upon the news of the miracle at Bethany, the Sanhedrim was summoned. The Sanhedrim was a kind of sacred college, analogous to a conclave of cardinals of the Roman Church, meeting usually in a chamber of the Temple, but on special occasions in the house of the Pontiff himself. Let us picture this august gathering. On the very evening of the day of the miracle, or at latest on the following day, messages were sent to the various members of the Sanhedrim, who were informed that a question of urgency was to be debated. One-third of the assembly consisted of priests, one-third of elders who represented the laity, and the rest of scribes and lawyers. Each was a person of dignity; all were wealthy. The greatest figure in this ruling hierarchy was Annas, or Hanan, a former Pontiff, who had been deposed by the Romans. He had nevertheless maintained his authority, though out of office, and upon him, more than on any other man, rests the odium of the death of Jesus. Caiaphas was his son-in-law, and a much weaker man than Hanan. It was notorious that Hanan was the power behind the pontifical throne, Caiaphas being in all things his obedient mouthpiece.

Caiaphas had already resolved upon his policy. Although he was in truth but nominal High Priest, yet he was regarded with the utmost reverence for the sake of his office. When he entered the Sanhedrim all eyes were fixed on him as the infallible representative of God. He wore upon his breast the sacred symbols of his office: the Urim and the Thummim, two precious stones of dazzling splendor, sacredly preserved from the days of Aaron, one of which signified Light and the other Right. It was believed that the power of