On this text as given by St Matthew I have already commented; it is only the coincidence of the time when it was spoken with the gradual withdrawal of visible Signs that I have to notice now. Our Lord looks to sowing the germs of spiritual Faith. This would not grow up either from the curiosity of those who sought for Signs, or the stupefaction of those who gazed in wonderment. Henceforth it is “the word of eternal life” which lays hold of men. The questions asked in the deepest earnest turn now upon this.(325) The revelation of it did not come by express statements or descriptions, but rather it grew up in men through their consorting with Christ. They could not believe that He would perish, and He told them that because He lived they should live also.(326) Christ, speaking just before the end, rests His expectation of bringing about the knowledge of God, not on His works but on His Personality. His reply to the words “Shew us the Father,” is not, Have I not done mighty works before your eyes? but, “Have I been so long time with you and dost thou not know me, Philip?” I now pass to the raising of Lazarus. It is not within my scope to discuss the nature of the miracle, I have to do with it only in its relation to that Law of the working of Signs, which is suggested in the Temptation of the Pinnacle of the Temple. No Sign is given to men whose belief is in the formative stage, in order to force it on; but to those whose belief is already assured a conclusive miracle may be shown, because it does not now constrain judgment but only confirms it. If the miracle had been at once published wherever the gospel was preached, and if it had been supported by testimony which no one could dispute, this would have been an exception to the rule so often marked in our Lord’s conduct. This miracle is in its nature appalling and conclusive, and it could not be attributed to Beelzebub; but a loop-hole in point of evidence is left for those indisposed to believe, for it rests on the unsupported testimony of St John. The raising of Lazarus was not, we may conclude, recorded in the Apostolic memoir which some suppose to have been the basis of the Synoptic Gospels. I have said in the last chapter that I think it possible that the entire body of Apostles were not continuously about the person of our Lord during the six months between the Feast of Tabernacles and the last journey. When Thomas said, speaking of the proposed visit to Jerusalem at the time of Lazarus’ death, “Let us also go that we may die with Him,”(327) I can hardly suppose that Peter can have been by and have held his peace. Supposing then that the writers of this memoir, among whom Peter must have held a foremost place, confined themselves as much as possible to what they knew from _personal knowledge_, they would have abstained from introducing a matter so wondrous as that of the raising of Lazarus, which they had not witnessed themselves. In whatever way this