Is the absent Saviour not to be sought? Martha and Mary knew the direction He had taken. The last time He had visited their home was at the Feast of Dedication, during the season of winter, when the palm-trees were bared of their leaves, and the voice of the turtle was silent. Jesus, on that occasion, had to escape the vengeance of the Jews in Jerusalem by a temporary retirement to the place where John first baptized, near Enon, on the wooded banks of the Jordan. It must have been to Him a spot and season of calm and grateful repose; a pleasing transition from the rude hatred and heartless formalism which met Him in the degenerate "City of Solemnities." The savour of the Baptist's name and spirit seemed to linger around this sequestered region. John had evidently prepared, by his faithful ministry, the way for a mightier Preacher, for we read, as the result of the Saviour's present sojourn, that "many believed on him there." If we visit with hallowed emotion the places where first we learned to love the Lord, to two at least of those who accompanied the Redeemer, the region He now traversed must have been full of fragrant memories; _there_ it was that Jesus had been first pointed out to them as the "Lamb of God;" _there_ they first "beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and of truth." (John i. 28.) On His way thither, on the present occasion, He most probably passed through Bethany, and apprised His friends of His temporary absence. Lazarus was then in his wonted vigour--no shadow of death had yet passed over his brow; he doubtless parted with the Lord he loved happy at the thought of ere long meeting again.