It is enough! With Him no good is lost;
All has its own just value : All the cost—
The sacrifice by which our work is done —
Eevealed before Him stand:
Already in His hand
The fragments have been gathered into one.'
(3) A lesson of luarniix^g. — The Jews had come to see God only in the Temple at Jerusalem. As a consequence they became formalists — the surrender of their souls was forgotten, and the splendid Temple fell ! So now and ever ; forget the Divinity of all life, and the temple of your soul will become desolate.' A service which is merely formal becomes degrading ; it seeks a reward outside itself. But when Christ fills the temple of the soul, all service is based on love and brings its own reward.
» H. Elvet Lewis, " E. H. Divall, A Believer's Best, 137.
» E. L. HuU.
ST. MARK 367
IF Love is the greatest thing that God can give us, for Himself is Love ; and it is the greatest thing we can give to God, for it will also give ourselves, and carry with it all that is ours. Let our love be firm, constant, and inseparable ; not coming and returning like the tide, but descending like a never-failing river, ever running into the ocean of Divine excellency, passing on in the channels of duty and a constant obedience, and never ceasing to be what it is, till it comes to what it desires to be ; still being a river till it be turned into a sea, and vastness, even the immensity of a blessed eternity.^
I into life so full of love was sent.
That all the shadows which fall on the way Of every human being could not stay.
But fled before the light my spirit lent.
They said, "You are too jubilant and glad; The world is full of sorrow and of wrong, Full soon your lips shall breathe forth sighs — not song ! "
The days wear on, and yet I am not sad.
They said, "Too free you give your soul's rare wine; The world will quaff, but it will not repay." Yet into the emptied flagons, day by day,
True hearts pour back a nectar as divine.
Thy heritage ! Is it not love's estate ?
Look to it, then, and keep its soil well tilled.
I hold that my best wishes are fulfilled, Because I love so much, and will not hate.^
* Jeremy Taylor. • Ella Wlieeler Wilcox:
A Ministering Woman and a Grateful Saviour.
ST. MARK — 24
LITERATURE.
Alexander (S. A.), The Mind of Christ, 19.
Bellew (J. C. M.), Sermons, ii. 188.
Binney (T.), Sermons in King's Weigh-house Chapel, 2nd Ser., 188,
Brandt (J. L.), Soul Saving, 23.
Bushnell (H.), Christ and His Salvation, 39.
Cowl (F. B.), Digging Ditches, 23.
Hopps (J. P.), Sermons of Hope and Sympathy, 53.
Huntington (F. D.), Sermons for the People, 134.
Jowett (J. H.), Our Blessed Dead, 19.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year, xi. 58.
Pearce (J.), The Alabaster Box, 9.
Pearse (M. G.), In the Banqueting House, 107.
Thompson (J. R.), Burden Bearing, 135.
Drew Sermons on the Golden Texts for 1910, 259 (NeflF).
Christian World Pulpit, Iviii. 305 (Wilberforce).
Treasury, xix. 585 (Genie).
37®
A Ministering woman and a grateful
Saviour.
She hath done what she could.— xiv. 8.
1. The pathetic story of the woman and the alabaster box of ointment is related by three out of the four Evangelists by way of introduction to the record of the Passion of Christ. It has always kept a peculiarly strong hold upon Christian thought and sentiment, partly because of the beauty and pathos and unique character of the incident itself, partly because the woman's act won for her a commendation such as no other person ever received from Him, when He declared that her story should be told throughout the whole world wherever His Gospel should be preached.
^ "We have a word in our language called " unction." It signifies thorough devotedness and enthusiasm of heart, incited by the outpouring of God's Spirit ; and it efiects spiritually what the ointment poured over the body does naturally. Unction and the act of anointing, in their primary meaning, are the same. Mary's anointing of our Lord was figurative of the unction of her own heart which led her to break the alabaster vase, and scatter its perfumes round. There are many others who, like her, in the unction and devotion of their hearts, have their vase to break, and their perfume to shed around. Do not, then, coldly scorn in the present that which you applaud in the past.^
^J-^ 2. The incident was the very beginning of the end. The ^ public ministry of our Lord closes with the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew : " When Jesus had finished all these words, he said unto his disciples, Ye know that after two days the passover Cometh, and the Son of man is delivered up to be crucified " (Matt. xxvi. 1, 2), Then the Evangelist lets us look forth from
1 J. C. M. Bellew. 37'
372 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
the quiet home in Bethany to see the dreadful forces that are at work. " Then were gathered together the chief priests, and the elders of the people, unto the court of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas ; and they took counsel together that they might take Jesus by subtilty and kill him."