circle which surrounds him at Bethany. And he is still something more than all this.

He is staying at Bethany. He has now accomplished his public ministry. Several times has he given his disciples of late to understand that such is the case. He has told them and revealed to them as much as they were able to bear. The Comforter, who is to succeed him, will instruct them further. According to the views of those who call themselves "the enlightened" among us, he ought now to have completed his work, and fulfilled the whole of his mission. But, in his own eyes, this is by no means the case. For we do not see him now retiring into silence, nor returning to his heavenly Father; but saying, on the contrary, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it is accomplished?" He knows that the principal task assigned him has still to be performed. He is on the road to Jerusalem, with the full consciousness of all that is passing and concerting there; that his enemies are now in earnest to seize him, and get rid of him; that the chief priests and Pharisees have already "given a commandment, that if any man knew where he were, he should show it, that they might take him.” All this was known to him; but far from seeking to escape the snare which was laid for him, he goes directly toward it. He was now-according to his own words to be delivered to the heathen, crucified, and slain; and there was a necessity for it. "The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," was not yet sacrificed. His assertion, that "the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many," was not yet fulfilled. The blood, to which the whole of the Old Testament had pointed as the procuring cause of all remission of sin, had not yet stained the fatal tree, but still flowed through his veins. And for this he prepared himself on the evening he spent at Bethany.

Above all things, therefore, let us draw nigh to Jesus as our sole and everlasting High Priest, as our Mediator, Surety, and Ransom. "Without shedding of blood there is no remission.” "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." The saints above "have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." O delay no longer, therefore, to follow their example! Jesus, in his crown of thorns and bleeding wounds,

must be the object of your love and the ground of your hope, or else he is nothing to you, and you are in danger of eternal perdition.

The Lord has just placed himself at table, when Mary approaches, deeply affected by gratitude, veneration, and love, and with a foreboding of what is about to befall him. She feels impelled to display to him her inmost soul once more, and to manifest her reverential and devout attachment to him. But how is she to do this? Words seem to her too poor. Presents she has none to make. But what she has that is valuable-possibly a legacy left by her mother-is an alabaster vessel of pure oil of spikenard, much valued in the East, and used only on peculiarly festive occasions. She brings it with her. She does not intend to pour out a few drops only, but that it should be wholly an emblem of her profound devotion to the Lord of Glory. With the utmost reverence she approaches her Divine Friend, breaks unobservedly behind him the well-closed vessel, sheds the spikenard upon his head and feet, then humbly bends herself down and wipes the latter with her loosened tresses.

"And the whole house was filled with the ointment." Yes, we may well believe that this odor ascended up even into the throne-room of heaven, and was inhaled with delight by the holy angels. For the earthly anointing oil was only the symbol and vehicle of that which the wise virgins possessed in their vessels, when they went forth to meet the bridegroom. In this affectionate and symbolical act, a degree of devotedness was manifested such as is rarely exhibited. Mary desires to belong to Christ for time and eternity; to cleave to him by faith, like the ivy to the tree, round which it entwines itself. She wishes to live in his light, like a dark planet in the beams of the sun, which lends it its radiance. Mary knows no anchor of hope, no ground of consolation, no way to heaven, except through his mediation; and were she to imagine existence without him, she could only think of herself as in the jaws of despair, and irrecoverably lost. He is her last resource, but at the same time allsufficient for her eternal salvation. Hence she cleaves to him with all her soul, and nothing is able to divide her from him. He is always in her thoughts, her sole delight, and the supreme

object of her affections-all which she expresses in the act of anointing just mentioned. The whole circle of the guests at Bethany are deeply touched by Mary's significant act. Only in the case of one does its sweet harmony sound as discord; only one of them with repugnance rejects the grateful odor. Ah, we imagine who it is! No other than the unhappy Judas, the child of darkness. Never, probably, has frigid self-love stood in such horrible contrast with warm and sacred affection, as was the case here, in the cold and really offensive expression, “Why this waste? Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" Alas, how deeply is the miserable man already fallen! "The poor?" O thou hypocrite! As if the reason was unknown to his Master why he would rather have the ointment sold. "For three hundred pence!" He knows how to value the spikenard, but is unable to appreciate the love that provided it, for he is wholly destitute of such a feeling.

O let the example of Judas serve as a warning to any of my readers who betray a strong inclination to mistake the love of a soul like Mary's to her Saviour; and when it is manifested, can speak of it with a certain inward disgust and bitterness; and if not of waste, yet of enthusiasm, cant, hypocrisy, etc. Know, that on such occasions, a slight similarity to the features of the traitor Judas passes over the face of your inner man. You have need to be most carefully upon your guard, not to let that which you feel at such moments extend itself till it gradually makes you brothers of the traitor. O, when once the scales fall from your eyes and God grant that this may be the case ere long!and your souls awake from their Pharisaic dreams, at the awful thought of eternity; when pursued by the curse of the law, terrified at the judgment to come, and sorely pressed by Death, the king of terrors, you learn to thank and praise the Almighty that, as a last resource, the bleeding arms of Jesus still stand open to you: you will then no longer knit your brows, when you meet with one who has presented his whole heart to the Lord; nor feel repugnance at the fervor with which Asaph exclaims, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee!" O no; you will then weep in secret,

penitential tears, that you could ever have so mistaken the most precious thing on earth, the love of Christ, and lament, with us, that we do not love him as we ought.

Observe how the Lord Jesus appreciates the act of Mary. Like a faithful advocate, he immediately enters the lists on her behalf, against Judas and the transient impression made by his dark spirit upon the disciples, and says, while intimating to Judas that he was well aware of the cause of his displeasure, "Why trouble you the woman? Let her alone (do not confuse her); she has wrought a good work on me. The poor ye have always with you, but me ye have not always. Against the day of my burying hath she kept this" (or, according to another Evangelist, "She is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.") "Verily, I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her." Do but notice, how He, who was otherwise so spare in commending human works, mentions, with a particular emphasis, Mary's work as good. All the world is to know that such devotedness as Mary shows him is considered valuable, and how highly he estimates this feeling as being the source of Mary's act. All the world is to be informed that the affectionate relation in which Mary stands toward him, is nothing overstrained or enthusiastic, but that which alone beatifies its possessor. And that every

one may know it, he has caused this act of Mary's to be repeatedly inserted in his Gospel. What he then predicted has taken place; and wherever this gospel is preached in the world, that which she did, is mentioned as a memorial of her, even to this day.

Scarcely had our Lord ended this remarkable speech, when. as Matthew relates, "One of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time, he sought opportunity to betray him." Horrible! Where, in all the world, can we meet with a contrast so striking, so appalling, and beyond measure dreadful, as is here presented to us in Mary's tender and affectionate act, and the horrible pro

cedure of this unhappy son of perdition? He is already so far gone that words of compassion, which might have tended to his eternal salvation, when reaching the atmosphere of his soul, transmute themselves into a baneful essence, and producing vexation and bitter hatred instead of repentance, completely pervade the unhappy man as with a mortal poison. "He went out." Horrible departure! He turns his back upon his only Saviour, because he now feels that He sees through him. He rushes out into the night, to which as a child of darkness, he belongs―nay, he rushes out into a more awful night than the natural one; and the divine "Woe !" follows him upon his

way.

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We shudder. We shrink from the idea of accompanying the wretched man, and return with increased fervor to Jesus. Against the day of my burial hath she kept this," says our Lord. We understand his meaning. He sees, his death and resurrection at one glance. An embalming of his body was to take place while he was still alive, since there was no time afforded for it after his death. It is not to be supposed that Mary had any idea of this; but a presentiment of his approaching departure certainly affected her heart; and anticipations of its saving significancy fanned the holy glow of her love to a brilliant flame, and contributed to impel her to that effusion of affection in Simon's house which we have been just contemplating. Her Master's love, which was even unto death, excited her's to him in the highest degree; even as the love of his people is wont to be enkindled, most of all, by the remembrance of Christ's sufferings.

But wherever the love of Jesus finds room, there will never be a want of activity in relieving the distresses of others. "The poor," says our Lord, while casting the words like an arrow into the soul of Judas, "the poor ye have always with you;" by which he means that Mary will not be deficient in her charity to them. “But me,” he adds, in conclusion, "ye have not always," and these words are addressed to all my readers, who can not yet call Jesus their Saviour.

O take them to heart, my friends! Him you have no longer, when the wings of death suddenly overshadows you, or when