CHAPTER XLIII.
THE Magdalene alone seemed inconsolable at the departure of the Christ. The links between her and the Nazarene had been the strongest that could be forged—those that bind a saved soul to its saviour. He had raised the drooping soul, He had sanctified her the Jews called unholy, He had placed her feet on a sure foundation; and He was associated with the great redeeming joy of her life, the possibility of beginning again—a chance the world rarely gives. She had few relatives, and those she had had cast her off as an unclean thing.
Too many events had supervened since the journey to Golgotha to permit Lazarus to give more than a passing thought to that betrayal of her innermost heart when she had feared that he was being dragged off to condemnation. But now the intimate life with the human Christ was over, and life must needs fall back into its old routine, but with an added hope, a great comfort, a great promise, that would sustain and sweeten it, and make its burden lighter. A great work lay before all who had believed in the Nazarene, had known Him to be the Christ—the work of testifying; and this none so
well as Lazarus could perform. And this possibly, nay, almost certainly, would mean death—death in its most hideous and torturing form. On one point
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