No such hope illuminates the grief of Electra.
** Ah, Orestes! Dear brother, in thy death thou slayest me ; For thou art gone, bereaving my poor heart Of all the little hope that yet remained That thou wouldst come, a living minister Of vengeance for thy father and for me” (807-812).
And again,
“¢ Tf thou suggestest any hope from those So clearly gone to Hades, then on me, Wasting with sorrow, thou wilt trample more ” (832-834).
When she is asked, ‘¢ What! shall I ever bring the dead to life ?”” she replies,
‘*T meant not that: I am not quite so mad.”
In the household of Bethany, the grief of the two sisters, un- like that of the Greek maidens, is unmixed with any other senti- ment, save perhaps a tinge of a feeling bordering on reproach that Jesus had not been there to avert their calamity. Com- fort from the hope of reunion with the dead is not expressed by them, and is hardly implied in their assertion of the doctrine of a future resurrection, which to them, is a general matter having little or no bearing on their personal grief. In ¢hzs particular, so far as expression indicates, the advantage is on the side of the Theban maiden. Though her hope is the out- growth of her affection rather than of her religious training—a thought which is the child of a wish—she never loses her grasp upon the expectation of rejoining her beloved dead.
But the gospel story is thrown into strongest contrast with the classical by the truth of resurrection which dominates it in the person and energy of the Lord of life. Jesus enters at once as the consolation of bereaved love, and the eternal solu- tion of the problem of life and death. The idea which Electra sneered at as madness, is here a realized fact. Beautiful, won-