The sisters of Bethany, Martha and Mary, come to our view three times during our Lord’s Judean ministry. The first view we have of them is recorded in Luke x, 38-42, where these sisters entertain our Lord after a long, weary day’s teaching. The second is recorded in John xi, 1-46, and relates to the sickness and raising from the dead their brother Lazarus. The third is the anointing of Jesus by Mary, the account of which is found in Matt. xxvi, 6-13; also in Mark xiv, 3-9, and John xii, 1-8. Though these three events are each distinct, yet a careful study will discover a close connection between the deep, underlying truths in each, the attitude taken by Jesus, and the results in the circumstances of everyday life.

A great deal has been said and written about these sisters of Bethany, some regarding Martha at fault, while others think Mary did not do the right thing to leave her sister do all the work. It is related of three theologians that they were talking together about these two women, and at last made their discussions concrete by questioning each other as to which of the women they would like to have married. The first said he would rather take Martha, to have his home looked well after; the second said he would much prefer to have married Mary, the tender and the loving; and the third, who had been silent up to this point, said, “I should like Martha before dinner and Mary after.” We think there is a great deal in this statement. There are excellencies in each, and it is impossible for us to do without our busy Marthas in our homes and churches, but we must remember at the same time that our Lord’s estimate is that Mary had chosen the better part which was not to be taken from her.

The location of Bethany is most picturesque and charming. It is scarcely two miles from Jerusalem, yet, by its situation on the south-eastern side of a lateral spur of Olivet, is completely hid from view. Here, amid the olive yards and fig orchards, lived this happy family in comfortable circumstances, and, we think, were possessed of considerable property, and ranked well among the learned and affluent. Jesus had been slowly journeying from Galilee down the east borders of Samaria to Jerusalem. Those who are familiar with that journey will remember how replete it was with incidents, wayside sermons, parables and miracles. At length, late in the afternoon, we may well believe, He arrived at Bethany weary with the long journey, exhausted by the labors which attended it, and glad to get away from the multitudes which thronged Him. That there should be some stir in the pious household at the coming of such a guest is perfectly natural, and that Martha, the busy, eager-hearted, and no less affectionate hostess, should hurry to and fro with somewhat excited energy to prepare for His proper entertainment, is not to be wondered at, for, in all probability, she had had no information of His coming, and along with Him twelve disciples to be provided for. The wonder is she was as self-contained as she was.

There can be no doubt but Martha was a good housekeeper. She kept everything straight, clean and neat. And when Jesus came, it upset her somewhat, and she ran out into the kitchen, at the back of the house to get the supper; not a single thing must be left undone, everything must be there. She is so eager about it, coming in and out of the little guest-chamber where the Master is sitting, hurrying here and there with this one thought in her heart, that the Lord must have her best, nothing must be left unturned to give Him comfort. And, of course, there is a good deal of excitement and possible anxiety. The disarranged furniture is hastily put to rights, the table had to be freshly laid with clean white cloths, and the dining-room made presentable, for it must be remembered Christ did not come alone. He had a group of twelve disciples with Him, and such an influx of visitors would throw any village home into perturbation. Then, no doubt, the day’s labor had been a good appetizer. The kitchen department that day was a very important department, and probably Martha had no sooner greeted her guests than she fled to that room. No doubt she was a good cook. Mary had full confidence that her sister could get up the best dinner of any woman in Bethany, for Martha was not only a hard-working and painstaking woman, but also a good manager, ever inventive of some new pastry, or discovering something in the art of cookery and housekeeping.

On the other hand, Mary had no worriment about household affairs. She seemed to say, “Now, let us have a division of labor. Martha, you cook, and I’ll sit down and be good.” So you have often seen a great difference between two sisters. Mary is so fond of conversation she has no time to attend to the household welfare. So by this self-appointed arrangement, Mary is in the parlor with Christ, and Martha is in the kitchen. It would have been better if they had divided the work, and then they could have divided the opportunity of listening to Jesus; but Mary monopolizes Christ while Martha swelters at the fire. It was a very important thing that they should have a good dinner that day. Christ was hungry, and He did not often have a luxurious entertainment. Alas! if the duty had devolved upon Mary, what a repast that would have been! But something went wrong in the kitchen. Perhaps the fire would not burn, or the bread would not bake, or Martha scalded her hand, or something was burned black that ought only to have been made brown; and Martha lost her patience, and forgetting the proprieties of the occasion, with besweated brow, and, perhaps with pitcher in one hand and tongs in the other, she rushes out of the kitchen into the presence of Christ, saying, “Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?”

Now look at Martha, but while you look, do not get out of patience with her. She is cumbered and growing fretful. Her service is getting too much for her, she can not get things done as well as she would like. And being fretful and tired she goes wrong herself. First she is cumbered; the next thing she feels cross with Mary; “Mary is sitting there at the feet of Jesus, and I am so busy getting the supper. What right has she down there when I am so busy?” The third thing she gets cross with Jesus, and she says, “Dost not Thou care that my sister hath left me to serve?” Cumbered in her own spirit, angry with her sister, reflecting upon her Master, and putting the blame on him of her weariness. Dear soul, how she loved and wanted that supper to be all that it ought to be, but she had forgotten that service only was acceptable which was filled up with communion with the Lord.

How tenderly the Lord deals with Martha! There was nothing acrid in His words. He knew that she had almost worked herself to death to get Him something to eat, and so He throws a world of tenderness into His intonation as He seems to say, “My dear woman, do not worry, let the dinner go; sit down on this ottoman beside Mary, your younger sister. Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful.” Is there not a volume of love and sympathy expressed in these words? And may not the Marthas of to-day learn wisdom from them and seek in Jesus that Friend who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, “that good part which shall not be taken away?” The Saviour looked with love and pity upon the troubled Martha, for He realized that she was not only cumbered with many cares, but she was also anxious for His personal comfort. He was her Guest. Though the Lord of Glory, He was also man, having human wants. He hungered and thirsted as other men, and it was the duty of these sisters to provide for Him the necessary food. If at the last day it will be a matter of condemnation to any one that he has seen one of Christ’s disciples an hungered or athirst and did not minister unto him, how much more guilty would they be who would suffer Christ Himself to go without food when He was hungry, and that too in their own house!

Martha was right, therefore, in seeing that a suitable meal was prepared for her guests. Her mistake was that she set an undue importance upon the matter. She represents that large class of Marthas which emphasizes fidelity to temporal cares and subordinates the devotional and spiritual. Mary represents that side which magnifies the devotional and spiritual, and which subordinates the temporal and physical things, making them subserve the other. The one is serving Christ in our own way and according to our own zeal; the other is humbly waiting at His feet for direction. Martha must needs get up a great entertainment. She must have a needless variety of dishes, show thereby the skill and resources of her art as a housekeeper. Instead of thinking mainly of what her distinguished Guest might do for her, of the infinite store of blessing that hung upon His lips, she was wholly intent upon what she might do for Him. While thus absorbed and fretted with cares of how she might give her table a more comely appearance, she was losing the heavenly manna which Jesus came to dispense, and which she so much needed for her soul. Not only did she throw away this priceless opportunity of hearing the words of eternal life directly from her Lord, but she was unreasonably vexed at Mary for not being as foolish as herself.

The thoughts and purpose of her heart were as open to Him as were those of the gentle, loving Mary; and while one revealed care and anxiety for the perishing things of this life the other told of perfect love and trust in her adored Lord; of earnest longing for the knowledge of the truth, of deep humility, of self-forgetting devotion, of that quiet courage which fears neither ridicule nor opposition.

There may have been some truth in Martha’s complaint against her sister. Very possibly Mary may have been so absorbed with the “good part” which she had chosen, as to be really negligent of her household duties, and to throw upon Martha burdens which should have been shared equally by the sisters. Had Mary, sitting at the Master’s feet and drinking in the precious doctrine that fell from His lips, been puffed up thereby, and said to Jesus, “Speak to my sister Martha, that she stop her household cares, and come and sit with me in this devout frame of mind,” very likely the rebuke would have fallen in the other direction.

Observe, Jesus did not meet Martha’s words against her sister with a denial, or with an apology. He simply vindicated Mary’s religious integrity, by testifying that she had “chosen the good part.” She was a faithful, humble, loving disciple, and delighted to sit at His feet and receive instruction. That which Jesus calls “that good part” must be of priceless value, a treasure well worth obtaining in this changing, perishing world; for it is to be enduring, “it shall not be taken away.” Like the favored Mary, we may not literally sit at the Master’s feet, yet He is speaking to every humble child of God, in and by His Word. We may choose the world with all its vanities which perish with the using, or we may choose Christ as our portion, both for time and eternity. O! how many troubled Marthas there are in these modern times that need to choose the “good part,” that need to sit humbly at the dear Saviour’s feet, to be nourished by His love, cheered by His council, and approved by the divine “well done!” The lowly life of humble sacrifice is the only life worth living.

The next view we have of this beautiful Bethany home the scene is all changed. The sunshine is all gone out and great clouds of sorrow and distress have rolled into the sky of its happiness. Prosperity has given place to the bitterest adversity, the brightness and gladness are banished, and the sisters are right down under the deepest, darkest shadow of sorrow that ever settled on their home. The well-beloved brother, Lazarus, is ill unto death, and Jesus is far away, and in the very midst of His Peræan ministry. In their distress, the first thought of these sisters was of Jesus. “If He only knew our brother was sick,” they doubtless said one to the other, He would sympathize with us, and at once restore him to health. And so they sent him the simple message, “He whom Thou lovest is sick.”

Our first thought is when the messengers, bearing the sad intelligence, had informed the Lord, He would have at once promptly responded to this cry of help coming from the home where he had been so heartily welcomed and so bountifully entertained. But how different was His reception of the message from what we naturally expected. So far as is known, He did not even return an answer. Could they have been mistaken? Did not Jesus love Martha and her sister, and was not the very message couched in the words, “He whom thou lovest?” Would He dishonor the confidence they had reposed in Him?

For two whole days He continued His Paræan ministry “in the same place where He was.” To us this conduct is most surprising. O, how often the Lord does so with us, even when we cry after Him in our sorrow He does not come. But always right in front of the statement, that He does not come, we have “Jesus loved.” How it added to their sorrow. Lazarus dying, Christ not coming, and at last Lazarus is dead and in the tomb, and yet the Master has not come. Surely the dense gloom of bereavement has settled down over the home, but a little while ago so full of sunshine and beauty.

Heartbroken, the sisters keep their vigil by the sepulchre, but among the friends coming and going to tender their sympathy, the Friend does not appear. He came not to save; He comes not to weep. The fact must have added poignancy to their grief. But wait in your judgment. Right through these dark hours Jesus loved these sisters. Do not lose sight of this fact. It may comfort you some day. He refrained from bestowing a small favor only that He might have an opportunity to bestow a greater. If he had healed Lazarus by a word, Martha and Mary would have been grateful and satisfied, but by waiting He could give them a greater blessing, and one which might be shared by sorrowing ones in all ages to come.

But Jesus is coming. Lazarus is dead, but Jesus is come at last, and is halting on the brow of the hill, just outside of the village. The news of His arrival reach the stricken sisters. How does the intelligence of His presence affect them? “Then Martha,” the dear woman, “as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him; but Mary sat still in the house.” What a contrast. Martha hastens along the village road to the brow of the hill where the Saviour had halted, doubtless that He might meet the sisters apart from the crowd, which had come in accordance with Jewish custom, to mourn with them, and as she comes running to meet Him, she exclaims, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here my brother had not died.” He certainly understood that. But in her blind grief she could not understand how, if He loved her and her sister, He could delay His coming until it was too late. In her words there was almost the accent of rebuke and reproach, “If Thou hadst been here my brother had not died.” But how graciously He deals with her. He comes to her in her argumentative state and with words the most comforting said, “Thy brother shall rise again.”

Martha could hardly believe her ears, as she certainly did not comprehend the meaning of these words with her heart, and replied, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” She believed in the life everlasting, but she was going to put off being comforted until “the last day.” In that Martha has many sisters.

But how patiently our Lord recalls the mind of Martha from the resurrection of the last day to Himself. He said, “I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die!” He is master of the thing that fills her heart with dread, and patiently He deals with her. Was not that beautiful?

Comforted in her heart, Martha hastened back to her home, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee.” He wanted to meet Mary apart from the public mourners, as He had met Martha. The custom was for the comforters to do as the mourners. If they were silent, to remain so; if they wailed, to wail with them. The shrieks of Oriental mourners are often ear-piercing. Our Lord wanted to avoid this, and so no doubt, although it is not chronicled, He had commissioned Martha to bear the tidings of His arrival, and she went and quietly and said, “The Master wants you, Mary.”

Mary “rose quickly, and came unto Him.” But mark her coming. Unlike her sister, “when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” That’s what Martha said. Yes, but what effect did it produce upon Him when Mary said it? “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping,” and the company of mourners who had followed her soon after she left the house, “also weeping” with her, “He groaned in the spirit and was troubled,” no doubt, at the empty platitude on the part of those miserable comforters. But at the sepulchre, where lay the mortal remains of the loved Lazarus, He wept. The Son of God in tears! His great heart sharing another’s sorrow. This scene is the most precious and comforting in the record of the Saviour’s life so far as the revelation of His heart is concerned.

Martha gets His teaching, Mary gets His tears. Martha said exactly what Mary said. When Mary said it, what a difference! Which do you think was the better thing, to run after Him and get His teaching, or wait till sent for and get His tears? The reasoning mind will receive the Master’s teaching; the broken, weeping heart, His tears. Bright and luminous as were His words with resurrection glory, Mary got to deeper depths in the heart of God when she came than Martha, because she drew His tears of deepest sympathy with her sorrow.

Why did Jesus weep? Because Lazarus died? No, He is going to call Him back for a definite purpose. He knows that bereavement has broken the hearts of these two sisters, and though He is going to heal sorrow’s wound, He sympathized with their grief, and His heart went out in their distress. Every wounded heart that belongs to a child of God, the Master is going to heal by and by; yet He suffers with you in the wounding, and enters by tears with you into the sacrament of your sorrow. And so He wept when these women wept. There are times in our lives when the tears of sympathy speak greater comfort than the most eloquent words. Beloved, when you go to your friend sitting in the shadow of her deepest sorrow, spare your words, but freely mingle your tears with hers. Job’s comforters sat in silence for seven days before they spoke. But if you are not delivered out of your bereavement, may this scene in the life of our Lord comfort you with the thought that He has something better for you. The best thing came to these sisters, right after the bitter weeping.

In the third and last view we have of this blessed Bethany home, we see some of the scenes of the first view coming up to us. It is the same home, only, because of better accommodations, the feast is held in the house of Simon, but the same people are in it. But what a change there is here! Let us get the humanness as well as the divinity out of it. Look at those people, what are they doing? Sitting at the table. A lovely place for us men to sit. But Martha served. Do not miss that. She is doing what she did before,—getting supper ready. She is bustling about in her earnestness, but she has lost her grumbling. She gets through the entertainment with smiles from first to last. She is no less busy, but she is at rest in her mind. She is cumbered, but is not angry with Mary, and is not reflecting on Jesus Christ. She had learned something in the day of sorrow and darkness. It has not altered her power to serve, but the matter and the manner of her service.

What about Mary? If you have carefully studied the last few days of our Lord’s life upon the earth you have noticed that He was a lonely man, and that even His disciples failed to enter into sympathy with His suffering as it overshadowed His life. Take the story of those last six days and our Lord’s journey to Jerusalem, and you will find that it is an awful picture. He has the shadow of the cross upon Him, and He keeps calling these men to Him saying, “I am going to Jerusalem to suffer, to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will crucify Me.” His disciples broke in upon that awful revelation by asking, “Master, who is the greatest among us?”

But there was one soul that saw the cross—Mary. Never forget it, you men; it was a woman that saw the cross and went into the shadow of it with Christ, as it was a woman who became the first human preacher of the resurrection when He came back again. So while He “sat at meat,” in the house of Simon the leper, with the man whom He had cured of the most terrible of diseases upon one side, and the man whom He had raised from the dead on the other, and the disciples on either side of these, Mary looks into the faces of the guests, and they all were happy, as men usually are with a feast spread before them, and even Christ, though fully conscious of his approaching death, and all the humiliation accompanying it, did not abandon Himself to melancholy feelings or looks, yet with that deep intuition that is only born of the highest and the holiest love, she sees what no one else sees, that on His heart is the shadow of a great sorrow. And she is thinking, “What can I do? Can I do anything that will let Him see I know something of His pain? Can I go into the darkness with Him and share in that sorrow?” And when love does this kind of thinking it is always extravagant. She slipped away from her sister’s side in serving, hastened to her room, where the precious treasure was kept, and seizing the alabaster box of spikenard, for which she had paid more than 300 pence, she hastened back to the feast, saying to herself, “I will give Him this; it is the choicest thing I can get hold of, and I want to pour it out upon Him, for He knows I can see His sorrow and pain.” So speaking, she fell at His feet and poured the perfume on His head and feet. It was a lavish waste of love—nearly $1,000 expressed in our money now. But nothing is wasted that is done in love for our Lord. Some murmured, others “had indignation,” and Judas spoke right out, “Why this waste?” Poor Mary, she had never thought of there being any waste to her act of love. “Three hundred pence!” Judas had quickly ciphered out the contents of the broken alabaster box, and just now, at the expense of Mary, was very benevolent. The unbroken box of ointment might have been sold, and the money “given to the poor.”

But, in a moment they were hushed. “Let her alone,” said Jesus. How fortunate for Mary that she had a more righteous Judge to pass sentence upon her action. “Against the day of My burying hath she kept this.” Nobody else understood it. The motive determines the act. “Nothing can be wasted that love pours upon Me, because love enters into My suffering and sorrow, and that is what it meant.”

“She hath done what she could.” O, what a precious revelation! Jesus is fully satisfied with the limit of our ability to serve Him. And the sequel showed that she met her Lord’s future as no other of His disciples had been able; anointed His brow for the thorns, and his feet for the nails, that both thorns and nails may draw blood in the perfume of at least one woman’s love.

In this act of love done for Jesus she has erected to herself a monument as lasting as the Gospel, for the Master declared, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall this also, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.” Mary had loved wiser than she knew, but then it is just like Jesus to pay back into our hands a hundredfold more than the most liberal of us ever bestowed upon Him. The sweet story of that beautiful act of the breaking of the alabaster box will be told as long as there is a Gospel to be preached or a soul to be saved. The wonder of wonders is, that in this world of sin and suffering there are not more Marys to break alabaster boxes over the world’s burdened laborers.

We now pass to notice another beautiful womanly character in White Raiment, namely, Salome. Her name means “peaceful,” and, though she developed considerable womanly ambition, her name quite describes her character. She was the wife of Zebedee, a well-to-do fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, and the mother of James and John, two of our Lord’s best loved disciples; two who, with Simon Peter, one of their business partners, constituted the inner apostolic circle. She had not only given two sons to the ministry, but she herself accompanied Jesus in His Galilean ministry, and, with others, ministered of her substance in meeting the expenses of His journeys. She must, therefore, not only have been a woman of means, but liberal in her use of it. No doubt she was a quiet, home-loving body; but she liked so well to listen to those sayings of our Lord that she was glad to leave her pleasant, comfortable Bethsaida house beside the beautiful “blue sea of the hills,” to go about hither and thither with her sons and drink in the wonderful words of Christ.

Salome is best remembered as coming to our Lord, on His last memorable journey to Jerusalem, with the strange request that her two sons might sit, the one on the right hand of Jesus and the other on the left, in His kingdom. Just as in the Sanhedrin, on each side of the high priest there sat the next highest dignitaries, so here she requested the two highest places for James and John. However, perhaps, this was not a selfish ambition, since the request is made for others. Some one has said, “Plan great things for God, and expect great things from God,” and an apostle has said, “Covet earnestly the best gifts.” O, these mothers, when there are seats of honor to be given out can not only “covet,” but “earnestly” ask for great things for their sons.

These two disciples had already been favored. They were with Jesus when He raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead; they were with our Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration, and, later on, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and witnessed His agony. Though of the inner circle, yet they possessed characteristics of their own. They were more eager for extreme measures for pushing their Master’s cause than was even the tempestuous Peter. Their self-poised love of the truth made them zealous. It was they who rebuked the one who cast out demons in Jesus’ name, because he did not follow them. They requested Christ to call down fire from heaven to burn up the Samaritan village that refused to receive them on account of an old prejudice against the Jews. If these disciples could have had their own way, that village, with all its inhabitants, innocent and guilty, would have speedily been reduced to ashes. How little they understood their Lord, or even themselves. They did not get the idea from their Lord, for He came to save men’s lives, and not to destroy them.

Possibly Salome may have thought her sons had some claim to these honors. The family had some business standing. They had partners and servants. John had some acquaintance with the High Priest, the great head of the Hebrew Church. They had left all to follow Jesus, giving up not only their business prospects, but their friendship with ecclesiastical aristocrats, and now she was looking out for a good place in His kingdom for her sons.

Probably the two brethren had directed this request through their mother, because they remembered the rebuke which had followed their former contention about precedence. She asked simply, directly, humbly, nothing for herself, but what she thought was her due. He gave her no rebuke, as He would have been sure to do if she had asked through any selfish motive. Turning to James and John He questioned them about their fitness for such promotion. Could they drink of His cup and be baptized with His baptism? They thought they were able. They knew better what He meant when Herod beheaded James, and John was banished to Patmos.

Salome remained true to her Lord. When the terrible death-hour came she stood beside the cross, held there by her faith and love through the jeers of the mocking crowd, the dying agony of her Saviour, and the darkness which veiled His terrible suffering.

SEEKING THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD.

After the body was taken down from the cross, Salome, with others, “beheld where He was laid.” O, this loving, faithful woman, true to her nature, how she clung to her Lord to the very last. And on the morning of the resurrection, “as it began to dawn,” we find Salome among the company of women hastening to the sepulchre to complete the anointing of the body of our Lord which had been so hurriedly buried on the evening of the crucifixion. But, upon reaching the garden, these women were amazed to find the tomb open and empty. These women—Salome, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and others with them—came seeking a dead body, but, instead, they found a living angel, who asked, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” “He is risen; He is not here; behold the place where they laid Him!”

What these women, in company with Salome, had seen was enough to fill them with astonishment, and what they had heard from the lips of the angel was enough to fill their hearts with joy. Wonderful that He whom they had mourned as dead was indeed alive again, though they could hardly believe it.

But Salome’s prayer for her sons had sure answer. To James was given the high honor of being the first apostolic martyr. John had the distinction of caring for the Virgin Mary during her last years, and, on Patmos, the little rocky isle of his banishment, where he could hear only the sea-bird’s cry and the melancholy wash of waves, he listened to apocalyptic thunderings that were enough to tear any common soul to tatters. He was permitted to put the capstone on the magnificent column of Holy Scripture, a column that had been forty centuries in building.

Salome, the peaceful and brave, at the last went gladly away to her reward; for she was sure that her sons, having drank of His cup, and been baptized with His baptism, were now seated with Him in the throne of His glory.

In connection with our Lord’s Galilean ministry, we find the name of Joanna mentioned. She was the wife of Chuza, the steward of Herod Antipas. No doubt she followed Jesus, and ministered to Him out of her substance, out of gratitude for having restored her child to health. Her husband was the nobleman who went all the way from Capernaum to Cana, and besought our Lord that He “would come down and heal His son, for he was at the point of death.” Joanna was both at the crucifixion, and is mentioned by name as being one of those who brought spices and ointments to embalm the body of our Lord on the morning of the resurrection.

These women must have possessed means, as well as a spirit of liberality. All this is very beautiful indeed.

The last woman in White Raiment during the ministry of our Lord, is the widow with two mites. Her act of benevolence has associated with it many tender and pathetic touches. The circumstances, so far as they relate to the ministry of our Lord, are inexpressibly sad. He had come down to the last day of His public teaching, and the last hour of that ministry. Indeed the time of His departure from the Temple was at hand. He had taught in their streets, by the wayside, in desert places, in the Temple. He had wept over Jerusalem that had seen so many of His mighty works, and as in mental vision He saw the coming doom, He sobbed out, “Oh if thou hadst known ... the things which belong to thy peace!” But they refused to know, and had finally rejected Him as they had rejected His teaching. The very tears of the suffering Saviour broke out in great sobs of grief in the words, “Ye would not!” So, in the very last act, all efforts having failed, He exclaims, “Behold your house,” it was no longer God’s house, “is left unto you desolate!” As Jesus on that last day, and at the close of the last hour of the day, closed the door of mercy, how that word, “DESOLATE” must have sounded through its God-forsaken courts.

At a time when such a burden of unrequited toil and sorrow was resting upon the grieved heart of Jesus, the touching incident of this poor widow comes to our view. Jesus had left the inner court of the Temple, and, on His way through the court of the women, paused over against the treasury to point out one more beautiful lesson to His disciples. The people were casting their offerings into the thirteen great chests set to receive their gifts. These offerings were gifts of the people, and had no reference to “tithes.” These Jews, though they had utterly failed to comprehend the “day of their visitation,” were, nevertheless, liberal givers. They did not content themselves with giving a tenth of their income. So it was the “freewill offering,” the love gifts, that Jesus was watching. Twice in Exodus, once in Deuteronomy and once in Leviticus had God commanded, “And none shall appear before Me empty.” Three times a year was every Jew required to come before the Lord, and not one time empty-handed. Never was there an exception for rich or for poor, for great or for small. Not a pauper from Dan to Beer-sheba, would have dared to come without his offerings. In these modern times a sickly sentimentality has well-nigh made void the commandment of God. He made no discrimination in favor of the poor. He that had little, gave little. He that had much, gave much. A lamb or a kid was an offering acceptable. If any were too poor to furnish either, “a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons” might be brought. If this was too much, a few “tablespoonfuls of fine flour” was enough, and any neighbor would furnish them these. The money value of gifts might be brought, but the law was inexorable, “None shall appear before Me empty-handed”—none at these great feasts. At all other times they might be brought, at these they must.

So while the people brought their offerings, “Jesus sat over against the treasury.” He noted carefully each person, and the ability of each one, as the long line of contributors moved forward toward the treasury. No one escaped His notice. The rich, from their mansions of luxury, rulers of the people, clad in costly robes, stately Pharisees, nobles, grand and lordly, jingling with ornaments of their social standing, swept over the tessellated floor to the treasury as if by special training for that particular occasion; and there, from soft white hands whose fingers were decked in gold, cast into the treasure chests such offering as their liberality prompted. Among the throng came a “certain poor widow.” No one knew who she was, or where she came from. Gliding so softly that no ear heard her footfall, and shying so timidly that no eyes but His saw her, until her hand was over the trumpet-shaped mouths through which the money was cast into the chests. She deliberately of her “penury cast in all her living that she had.” How much was that? Mark tells us her offering consisted of “two mites, which make a farthing.” They were the smallest copper coin, and the two were equivalent to two-fifths of a cent of our money. As these two mites slid down the narrow tube of the trumpet-shaped aperture into the chest below, they did not ring as did the gold and silver pieces of the rich, but they rang to the echo in our Lord’s ears.

She was a “poor widow” before this contribution, but now she is an utter bankrupt. If she ever had any financial standing, this rash act of giving swept it all away. She would have to go without her supper, for there was no opportunity, at the Passover time, to earn money. On the contrary, it was a time for spending it. These great conventions absorbed the small earnings of poor people. But such sacrifices never go unrewarded, and that poor widow had her supper through some God-appointed channel.

Jesus was so well pleased with her gift, and the faith which prompted it, that He called the attention of His disciples to this act of benevolence, and said, “This poor widow had cast in more than all they.” Not more money. Two mites can not be more than the “abundance” of the rich. How more, then? All gifts have double value—their commercial and their representative value. They represent the self-denial, the faith and the love of the giver. In the markets of the world the two mites would hardly have been looked at, but in the eyes of the King they represented more than all.

If ever there was an exception, or if ever one could be exempt, surely this widow would have been. She was in the weeds of widowhood; in the depths of poverty; in the extreme of want; with only “two mites” in the world and no bread for the morrow. Her own weary fingers her only means of living; with her earthly all in her hands she freely cast it into the treasury. Jesus was sitting where He saw it all. He who—

Did He stop her? He came to preach the gospel to the poor; did He tell her she was too poor to do as she had done? He brought all His apostles to witness the sight; did He say, “It shall not be so among you?” He was giving laws for His Kingdom for all generations; did He say, as He did in other cases where He intended any modification, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of olden times that ‘none should come before Me empty,’ but I say unto you, that whosoever is poor and needy shall bring no gift into mine house?” Did He say it, or anything like it? Can there ever be another occasion half so thrilling on which to say it?

The contrast between the rich and noble, the grand and lordly, who offered tithes of all their stores, and this shy and shrinking woman, in her garb of widowhood, is very striking. There is not a word of reflection on the gifts or the motives of the rich. “The rich and the poor meet together—the Lord is the maker of them all.” “No respecter of persons” is He. All honor to the rich who bring their treasures into the storehouse of God. All honor to the poor who make “their deep poverty abound unto the riches of their liberality.” May we not from this lesson draw illustrations of consecration?

God requires of every Christian a complete consecration of soul, body, time, talent, means, and everything else. Consecration means giving to God. When a thing is given away, ownership is transferred in the act of giving, or presenting from the giver to the receiver. In consecration the Christian gives himself literally to the Lord, and is henceforth not his own, but the Lord’s. This transaction must be as real as any in life, and divine ownership of all given to God must be recognized.

If we wholly consecrate our souls, our bodies, our time, our several abilities, then God can use us. The Holy Spirit dwelling in the soul will dictate to the eyes where to look, and what to look upon, that the soul may be enriched by seeing. He will direct the feet in paths of safety and usefulness. He will teach the hands to labor skillfully, laying up treasures in heaven. He will give the lips messages of love, comfort and sympathy to speak. He will direct us how to use our time, that the best possible results may be achieved for both God and man, and also for heaven and earth. When such consecration is made, and we recognize fully God’s supreme ownership, then we are in a condition to “bear much fruit.”

Few men would banish God from the universe. Too many worlds are wheeling in their orbits, and their orbits cross and recross each other too often to be left without a guiding hand. Moreover, the one we inhabit is the home of the earthquake and the volcano; hurricanes and tornadoes are born and bred on every continent and island; plague and pestilence ride on every breeze; death and destruction waste at noonday. In the presence of such dangers it is a comfort to know “the Lord reigneth.” But, alas! how many would banish God from their hearts! The clouds are the commissary trains of the nations; who would have them without their driver? Men want God on the throne, but not in their hearts. They would have Him watch the worlds, the clouds, the seasons, but not their actions. As if God was not a discerner of the very thoughts and intents of the heart.

And then this poor widow loved much. And in God’s sight no offering of love is too small. Love is sometimes a babbling brook, leaping, laughing, sparkling, splashing. It is beautiful then. It is sometimes a mighty river—deep, broad, swift and strong, shouldering the burdens of a continent and bearing them without a murmur. It is glorious then. But it is sometimes the boundless ocean—feeding all the brooks and rivers, bearing the commerce of the world, and yet never losing one note in its everlasting lullaby. It rolls against all its shore lines and moans, “If there were no bounds, I’d bring your ships to all your doors.” Love is sublime then. The widow’s love was like the ocean; it rolled against its farthest shore and longed to go farther. “She of her penury” had cast into the treasury all that she had, and therefore had given “more than all they,” for, not what is given, but what is left, marks the grade of self-denial. There may be trust for bread when the storehouse is full, but the faith that empties the storehouse and then trusts for bread, is a purer and diviner faith. This poor widow was a heroine of faith.

This apparently trifling event in the life of our Lord is of inestimable importance. It shows, after He had ended His oppressive day’s labor in the Temple, how he would still pause, in retiring from it, to bless the loving act of a poor widow, rendered unto the Lord in faith, and to adorn even so lowly a head with the crown of honor. We need no other proof for the celestially pure temper in which He left the inner courts of the Temple after He had pronounced His great denunciations against the hypocritical professions of Scribes and Pharisees. It is as if He could not so part, as if at least His last word must be a word of blessing and of peace.

This incident of the poor widow with the two mites is also a new proof of the power of little things, and of the gracious favor with which the Lord looks upon the least offering which only bears the stamp of love and faith. The last object on which our Lord’s eyes rested as He departed from the Temple was the widow’s two mites.