lly
believed, felt, trusted in, rejoiced over?

Christian, "Believest _thou this_?"[13] Art thou really looking to this
exalted life-giving Saviour? Hast thou in some feeble measure realised
this resurrection-life as thine own? Hast thou the joyful consciousness
of participating in this vital union with a living Lord? In vain do we
listen to these sublime Bethany utterances unless we feel "_Jesus speaks
to me_," and unless we be living from day to day under their
invigorating power.

He had unfolded to Martha in a single verse a whole Gospel; He had
irradiated by a few words the darkness of the tomb; and now, turning to
the poor dejected weeper at his side, He addresses the all-important
question, "Believest thou _this_?"

Her faith had been but a moment before staggering. Some guilty
misgivings had been mingling with her anguished tears. She has now an
opportunity afforded of rising above her doubts,--the ebbings and
flowings of her fitful feelings,--and cleaving fast to the Living Rock.

It elicits an unfaltering response--"Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art
the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world."[14]

Remarkable confession! We should not so much have wondered to hear it
after the grave, hard by, had been rifled, and the silent lips of
Lazarus had been unsealed; or had she stood like the other Mary at her
Lord's own sepulchre in the garden, and after a few brief, but momentous
days and hours, seen a whole flood of light thrown on the question of
His Messiahship.

But as yet there was much to damp such a bold confession, and lead to
hesitancy in the avowal of such a creed. The poverty, the humiliations,
the unworldly obscurity of that solitary _One_ who claimed no earthly
birthright, and owned no earthly dwelling, were not all these,
particularly to a Jew, at variance with every idea formed in connexion
with the coming Shiloh?

Was Martha's then a blind unmeaning faith? Far from it. It was nurtured,
doubtless, in that quiet home of holy love, where, while Lazarus yet
lived, this mysterious Being, in an earthly form and in pilgrim garb,
came time after time discoursing to them often, as we are warranted to
believe, on the dignity of His nature, the glories of His person, the
completeness of His work. It was neither the evidence of miracle or
prophecy which had revealed to that weeping disciple that Jesus of
Nazareth was the Son of God. With the exception of Micah's statement
regarding Bet