CHAPTER XL.
AT Bethany nearly all the night had been spent in prayer. Not only were they overwhelmed with grief at the crucifixion of the Lord, but they feared also that other terrible events would follow. Lazarus was conscious that, in a humble way, he would have to travel in the footsteps of his Lord, and he was troubled with the thought of how the Master would wish him to proceed.
A little troop of friends and believers had visited him that night, and laid before him a plan for his escape, should his life be placed in peril; and it seemed to Lazarus that to leave Judæa would be his only way of continuing to testify to the wondrous miracles by which it had been proved beyond dispute that the Messiah had indeed visited the earth. Already steps were being taken by Caiaphas and Annas to prevent the scribes from making any records of these events; and, although those of the disciples who could write had assidiously noted day by day each event and word and act, still if, as was to be feared, they should be massacred, who could tell into whose hands their notes might fall, or how they might be altered and corrupted? To one who had once died, and knew a little of the world beyond the grave, death held fewer horrors than did life; therefore to leave his home and his beloved country, with
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