In the next illustration, of the thread of life across an orb of glory, the writer seems to get still fuller insight into the reality of the case—the little thread being, of course, the poor life in Bethany, and the vast orb of glory, the great eternity of God, in which Lazarus was consciously living. And here, again, we have the same lesson as in “The Boy and the Angel.” Though conscious of the glory of the great orb, Lazarus does not despise the little duties belonging to the thread of his earthly life. He sedulously follows his trade whereby he earns his daily bread; indeed, the special characteristic of the man is “prone submission to the Heavenly will.” Mark the profound suggestiveness of the lines—
“He even seeketh not to please God more
(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please.”
He is so calm as to be provoking. At his inquisitor’s burst of indignation, he shows no sign of anger or impatience—“He merely looked with his large eyes on me.” And yet no apathy about him; a man full of loving interest in all things. (Compare Coleridge’s well-known lines: “He prayeth best who loveth best,” &c.)
The paragraph which follows introduces us to a region familiar and sacred to us, but foreign and inexplicable to our physician, who refers to it from his own point of view, stigmatizing the claim of “the Nazarene who wrought this cure” as not only false, but monstrous; and yet—and yet—and yet—he cannot get over it; it haunts him. But still he is ashamed to acknowledge it, and so turns abruptly from what he affects to call “trivial matters” to “things of price,” like “blue-flowering borage”!
Then he gives another elaborate apology, and tries to account for the hold the phenomenon has taken of him by a reference to his state of body and surroundings when first he met this Lazarus; and, accordingly, professing to care little whether the letter reaches or not, again he closes.
Yet still he cannot rest. The great thought haunts him. “The very God! think, Abib.” Then follows that consummate passage with which this magnificent poem closes.
After this “Epistle” should by all means be read “A Death in the Desert,” too long and too difficult to be inserted here. The surprise awaiting the reader of the parchment “supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene” will add to the interest of a poem so full of beauty and power.