salem. At His word, after some
hesitation, the stone at the mouth of the tomb is rolled aside. And Jesus
lifted up His eyes and said, "Father, I thank Thee that Thou heardest Me;
and I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the multitude that
standeth around I said it that they may believe that Thou didst send Me!"
Clearly before coming to the tomb He had been praying in secret about the
raising of Lazarus, and what followed was in answer to His prayer. How
plain it becomes that all the marvellous power displayed in His brief
earthly career _came through prayer_. What inseparable intimacy between
His life of activity at which the multitude then and ever since has
marvelled, and His hidden closet-life of which only these passing glimpses
are obtained. Surely the greatest power entrusted to man is prayer-power.
But how many of us are untrue to the trust, while this strangely
omnipotent power put into our hands lies so largely unused.

Note also the certainty of His faith in the Hearer of prayer: "I thank
Thee that Thou heardest Me." There was nothing that could be _seen_ to
warrant such faith. There lay the dead body. But He trusted as _seeing_
Him who is _invisible_. Faith is blind, except upward. It is blind to
impossibilities and deaf to doubt. It listens only to God and sees only
His power and acts accordingly. Faith is not believing that He _can_ but
that He _will_. But such faith comes only of close continuous contact with
God. Its birthplace is in the secret closet; and time and the open Word,
and an awakened ear and a reverent quiet heart are necessary to its
growth.

_The eleventh mention_ is found in the twelfth chapter of John. Two or
three days before the fated Friday some Greek visitors to the Jewish feast
of Passover sought an interview with Him. The request seemed to bring to
His mind a vision of the great outside world, after which His heart
yearned, coming to Him so hungry for what only He could give. And
instantly athwart that vision like an ink-black shadow came the other
vision, never absent now from His waking thoughts, _of the cross_ so
awfully near. Shrinking in horror from the second vision, yet knowing that
only through its realization could be realized the first,--seemingly
forgetful for the moment of the by-standers, as though soliloquizing, He
speaks--"now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Shall I say,
Father _save_ Me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour: