When

but this proved no obstacle to his resurrection. the stone had been rolled away, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes.'

The soul of Lazarus had therefore been four days absent from the body in the unknown region where the spirits of the departed dwell. We know not the locality of this shadowy realm, but may reasonably place it beyond the fixed stars, from which a ray of lightrequiring about eight minutes to travel from the sunreaches us, not in minutes, but in years. At a given moment, therefore, the body of Lazarus lies corrupting in the tomb; his soul, removed to an incalculable distance from the earth, reclines on Abraham's bosom, conversing with Moses, Solomon, or Isaiah. Jesus suddenly exclaims, Lazarus, come forth!' and the spirit, travelling with a velocity inconceivably swifter than light, instantaneously re-occupies the body, and restores it to uncorrupted vitality.

Had

Restoration to life was a comparatively tame event to the man who had learned the secrets of the unseen world, but when the spectators had recovered from the first sensations of stupefaction and terror, they necessarily crowded around him in frantic excitement, pouring inexhaustible questions into his weary ears. he beheld the ineffable glory of Jehovah ? formed the acquaintance of angels, and conversed with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Where is heaven? Where is hell? What the joys of the righteous? and the tortures of the wicked? Had he seen the parents, husbands, wives, sons, and daughters of the speakers? and did they prefer

the companionship of angels to the society of their friends on earth?

These are some of the questions which would have been inevitably addressed to the man seen issuing alive from his grave. But in vain we search the pages of the Evangelist for one word from the lips of him, who could have finally closed the controversy between Pharisees and Sadducees by disclosing his personal experience of the life beyond the grave.

We are informed that at a supper at Bethany, Lazarus sat at the table with Jesus, and many came to see the man who had risen from the dead. But although the comparatively unimportant incident of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with a costly ointment is fully recorded, no reference is made to the momentous question of the resurrection. Had Lazarus been forbidden to reveal the secrets of the unseen world, or has the Evangelist suppressed the priceless revelations which would have given mankind the full assurance of immortality?

This miracle was performed so openly, that even the Pharisees were convinced of its truth. They believed in the doctrine of the resurrection, and yet, when they had attained full attestation of its credibility, they hastened. to conspire with unbelieving Sadducees for the destruction of the evidence through the murder of Lazarus. Is it possible to conceive the character, motives, and design of men determined to suppress the resurrection from the dead? Have ancient or modern times produced the incomprehensible monster who would not joyfully welcome a traveller returned in the flesh from the region beyond the grave? Did the conspirators

contemplate assassination, or the conviction of Lazarus, before the judgment-seat of Pilate, of the crime of rising from the dead? And would Lazarus, thus arraigned, have disclosed his marvellous experience, and established the supernatural mission of Jesus? But how then would the Scriptures have been fulfilled? For Pilate would never have consented to the crucifixion of the marvellous being who could summon the dead from their graves. The Roman governor would have assuredly changed the future history of mankind by obtaining incontestable evidence of the miracle, and despatching a swift messenger to break in upon the sullen solitude of Tiberius at Capreæ, with the startling announcement that a man had risen from the dead.

If Christianity rests on the credibility of miracles, and eternal happiness or misery is contingent on faith in Christianity, how unfortunate for mankind that the great miracle of resurrection could not have been postponed to the nineteenth century, when scientific investigation could fully attest the marvellous event, and some modern Lazarus, travelling as a public lecturer from city to city, could carry conviction to the minds of even the most sceptical!

What would not we moderns pay to hear the lecturer who could practically solve the spiritual mysteries, which have perplexed the minds of philosophers from Thales to Comte, and of theologians from the first priest who worshipped on the banks of the Euphrates or the Nile, to the eminent apologists who now profess to enlighten us on eternal hope or everlasting despair!

But Orthodoxy assures us that the reticence of Evangelists was intended to screen Lazarus from persecution.

Was he not, therefore, willing to accept the crown of martyrdom that the world might be convinced of immortality? Was he so notable an exception to Christian heroism that he shrank from danger and death into an ignoble obscurity? Had death any terrors for the man who had already triumphed over the grave? Had life any charms for him who had penetrated the secrets of the unseen world? How vain this idle questioning! If Lazarus had lived and died and risen again, he would have borne the wondrous tale to the uttermost limits of the earth, as the greatest of the apostles. How insignificant the teaching of a Peter or a Paul compared with the weight of authority attaching to the man who had reclined on the bosom of Abraham in companionship with Moses before the throne of Jehovah !

The resurrection of Lazarus is, therefore, as apocryphal as the dialogue with Nicodemus; and the credulous author of the fourth Gospel betrays his unintelligent acceptance of pious legends, in his obvious incapacity to recognise the serious blow struck at the doctrine of immortality by unbroken silence respecting the spiritual life of Lazarus, during the four days his body rested in the tomb-a silence which scepticism may accept as indicating his unconsciousness, and the consequent non-existence of the soul apart from the body.

The signs and wonders of the Evangelists may, however, be submitted to a crucial test. If Christian miracles are not purely imaginary, they either ceased on a given date, or still exist within the Christian Church. Rome affirms an unbroken series of signs and wonders, from the marriage in Cana of Galilee to the latest

marvel of Lourdes or La Salette. Protestantism, on the other hand, contends that miracles ceased immediately after the apostolic age. At five minutes to twelve on a given date, Christianity, therefore, possessed the supernatural power of healing the sick, casting out demons, and even raising the dead; but the clock struck, and all these great privileges vanished as the fairy gifts of Cinderella, leaving the Church destitute of all supernatural proof of its divine origin.

What, therefore, was the position of an unhappy bishop who on the previous day had restored sight to the blind, and now breaks down hopelessly in the vain attempt to cure an old woman of palsy? How disastrous the triumph of sneering Jews and scoffing infidels, who ask, with taunting gibes, whether the God of the Christians sleeps, or has deserted His pious worshippers! What answer can the saintly bishop give to this impious mockery? I could work miracles yesterday, but have lost the power to-day. This is some device of Satan, which shall be overcome by prayer and fasting.' But days, and weeks, and months, and years pass away, without any revival of the miraculous; the bishop starves himself to death, and the hearts of the faithful are chilled by that hope deferred which gradually assumes the aspect of despair.

But miraculous gifts were not thus abruptly withdrawn from their inspired possessors; each Christian thaumaturgist retained his divine privileges during the period of his natural life, and it was only from his successor that supernatural powers were withdrawn. But the first new presbyter or bishop, appointed in ignorance of these conditions, would also attempt to heal the sick,