returned to Bethany to awake His sleeping friend, so will it be with all
his true people, on that great day when the arm of death shall be for
ever broken. If _now_ united to Him by a living faith,--loved by Him as
Lazarus was, and conscious, however imperfectly, of loving Him back in
return,--we may go down to our graves, making Job's lofty creed and
exclamation our own, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall
stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."

One remark more. We have listened to the Omnipotent fiat,--"Lazarus,
come forth!" We have seen the ear of death starting at the summons, and
the buried captive goes free! Shall we follow the family group within
the hallowed precincts of the Bethany dwelling? Shall fancy pour her
strange and mysterious queries into the ear of him who has just come
back from that land "from whose bourne no traveller returns?" He had
been, in a far truer sense than Paul in an after year, in "_Paradise_."
He must have heard unspeakable and unutterable words, "which it is not
possible for a man to utter." He had looked upon the Sapphire Throne. He
had ranged himself with the adoring ranks. He had strung his harp to the
Eternal Anthem. When, lo! an angel--a "ministering one"--whispers in his
ear to hush his song, and speed him back again for a little season to
the valley below.

Startling mandate! Can we suppose a remonstrance to so strange a
summons? What! to be uncrowned and unglorified!--Just after a few sips
of the heavenly fountain, to be hurried away back again to the valley of
Baca!--to gather up once more the soiled earthly garments and the
pilgrim staff, and from the pilgrim rest and the victor's palm to
encounter the din and dust and scars of battle! What!--just after having
wept his final tear, and fought the last and the most terrible foe, to
have his eye again dimmed with sorrow, and to have the thought before
him of breasting a second time the swellings of Jordan!

"The Lord hath need of thee," is all the reply, It is enough! He asks no
more! That glorious Redeemer had left a far brighter throne and heritage
for _him_. Lazarus, come forth! sounds in his old world-home, whence his
spirit had soared, and in his beloved Master's words, on a mightier
embassy, he can say,--"Lo, I come! I delight to do thy will, O my God."

Or do other questions involuntarily arise? What was the nature of h