"Meantime they were drawing near the place where he was buried. It was a
hollow in the face of a rock, with a stone laid against it. I suppose the
bodies were laid on something like shelves inside the rock, as they are in
many sepulchres. They were not put into coffins, but wound round and round
with linen.
"When they came before the door of death, Jesus said to them, 'Take away
the stone.' The nature of Martha's reply--the realism of it, as they would
say now-a-days--would seem to indicate that her dawning faith had sunk
again below the horizon, that in the presence of the insignia of death, her
faith yielded, even as the faith of Peter failed him when he saw around him
the grandeur of the high-priest, and his Master bound and helpless. Jesus
answered--O, what an answer!--To meet the corruption and the stink which
filled her poor human fancy, 'the glory of God' came from his lips: human
fear; horror speaking from the lips of a woman in the very jaws of the
devouring death; and the 'said I not unto thee?' from the mouth of him who
was so soon to pass worn and bloodless through such a door! 'He stinketh,'
said Martha.
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