eir opposition to the highest pitch.[85]
This is recognized as a crisis. Such power had never been seen or known.
The inroads of belief are everywhere, in the upper social circles, among
the old families, even in the Jewish Senate itself, notwithstanding the
threatened excommunication. On every hand men are believing. Things are
getting desperate for these leaders. They determine to use all the
authority at hand arbitrarily and with a high hand. What strange
blindness of stubborn self-will to such open evidence of power!

A special meeting of the Jewish Senate is held, not unlikely hastily
summoned of those not infected with belief. And there it is officially
determined to put Jesus to death, and serve public notice that any one
knowing of His whereabouts must report their information to the
authorities.

And as the incoming crowds thicken for the Passover, and the talk about
Lazarus is on every tongue, it is determined to put Lazarus to death,
too. This is the pitch things have risen to as John brings this part of
his story to a close.

The Glory-Coloured Thread.

It is a relief to turn now to the chief figure in this tapestried
picture of John's weaving. Here are glory-coloured threads of bright
yellow. They easily stand out, thrown in relief both by the pleasing
blues and the disturbing blacks. It is the figure of the Man on the
errand, intent on His wooing, absorbed in His great task. Thia Man, His
tremendous wooing, wins glad grateful ever-growing acceptance. And with
rarest boldness and courage He persists in His wooing in spite of the
terrific intensifying opposition.

The gentle softening dew persists in distilling even on the hardest
stoniest soil. The _gentle winsomeness of the wooing_ stands out
appealingly as one goes through those fragments of teaching talks
running throughout. The rare faithfulness of it to the nation and its
leaders is thrown into bold relief by the very opposition that reveals
their dire spiritual plight and their sore need.

The _power of it_ is simply stupendous. As gentle in action as the
falling dew it grows in intensity until neither the gates of death nor
even the stubborn resistance of a human will can prevail against it. It
is power sufficient to satisfy the most critical search, and to make
acceptance not only possible with one's reasoning power in fullest
exercise but the rational thing.

Look a bit at the power at work here. For in looking at the power we are
ge