The serpent she takes but for the type of
the eternal wisdom that looks repellent because it is not understood. The
wine is good, the water is good; and if the hand of the supreme Fate put
that cup in her hand, the serpent itself must be good too,--harmless, at
least, to hurt the truth of the water and the wine. But let us read the
verses.
"'Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had heard
therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where
he was.'
"Strange! his friend was sick: he abode two days where he was! But remember
what we have already heard. The glory of God was infinitely more for the
final cure of a dying Lazarus, who, give him all the life he could have,
would yet, without that glory, be in death, than the mere presence of the
Son of God. I say _mere_ presence, for, compared with the glory of God, the
very presence of his Son, so dissociated, is nothing. He abode where he was
that the glory of God, the final cure of humanity, the love that triumphs
over death, might shine out and redeem the hearts of men, so that death
could not touch them.
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