306 BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

So much for the two sisters of the happy home of
Bethany, but what of Lazarus? That he was a very quiet
lad seems almost certain. He took more after Mary’s thought-
ful ways than Martha’s busy moods. He seems to have been
shy and retiring. It is said that outside the immediate circle
of the Apostles, Lazarus was the most intimate friend Jesus
had. Indeed, the’ question has often been asked, why was
not Lazarus made one of the favored twelve? With what
deep affection Jesus loved him, may be gathered by the tears
he shed by the grave of his friend; tears that called forth
the saying of the Jews who gathered on that eee -occa-
sion: ‘Behold, how he loved him!”

Sickness and trouble and death come to all, even to the
most intimate friends of Christ. Those whom Jesus loves
grow sick and die, and the time of Lazarus came at last.
But Lazarus had high honor. In his case, Jesus was to make
known his power over death and the grave. It was not for
the sake of Lazarus, or of his broken-hearted sisters alone,
but for the sake of all the coming ages, that Jesus cried at
the grave of his dead friend, now sleeping in death:

‘“‘ Lazarus, come forth.”

And Lazarus rose at the command of him, sou the
world was to know forever after as “the resurrection and
the life.” By the graves of untold millions that gracious
word spoken to Martha concerning her brother as been
repeated: :

“JT am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in
me though he were dead yet shall he live; and whoso liveth
_ and believeth in me shall never die.”

And to the very end of time—till that great day when
the angel, one foot on sea and one on solid land shall cry
that “ Time shall be no more! ”—this grand stanza of immortal