of myrrh and the hill of frankincense_." _There_, gazing on the
face of the great officiating Priest who fills all heaven with His
fragrance, and feeling that against _that_ intercession the gates of
hell can never prevail, he can utter the challenge to devils, and
angels, and men, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"

XVI.

THE OMNIPOTENT SUMMONS.

The moment has now come for the voice of Omnipotence to give the
mandate. The group have gathered around the sepulchral grotto--the
Redeemer stands in meek majesty in front--the teardrop still glistening
in His eye, and that eye directed heavenward! Martha and Mary are gazing
on His countenance in dumb emotion, while the eager bystanders bend over
the removed stone to see if the dead be still there. Yes! _there_ the
captive lies--in uninvaded silence--attired still in the same solemn
drapery. The Lord gives the word. "_Lazarus come forth!_" peals through
the silent vault. The dull, cold ear seems to listen. The pulseless
heart begins to beat--the rigid limbs to move--_Lazarus lives_! He rises
girt in the swaddling-bands of the tomb, once more to walk in the light
of the living.

Where Scripture is silent, it is vain for us to picture the emotions of
that moment, when the weeping sisters found the gloomy hours of
disconsolate sorrow all at once rolled away. The cry of mingled wonder
and gratitude rings through that lonely graveyard,--"This our brother
was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!"

O most wondrous power--Death vanquished in his own territory! The
sleeper has awoke a moral Samson, snapping the withs with which the King
of Terrors had bound him. The star of Bethlehem shines, and the Valley
of Achor becomes a door of hope. The all-devouring destroyer has to
relinquish his prey.

Was the joy of that moment confined to these two bosoms? Nay! The Church
of Christ in every age may well love to linger around the grave of
Lazarus. In _his_ resurrection there is to His true people a sure pledge
and earnest of their own. It was the first sheaf reaped by the mower's
sickle anticipatory of the great Harvest-home of the Final day "when all
that are in their graves" shall hear the same voice and shall "come
forth."[20]

Solemn, surely, is the thought that that same portentous miracle
performed on Lazarus is one day to be performed on _ourselves_. Wherever
we repose--whether, as _he_ did, in the quiet churchyard of our native
village,