hood. Throughout His life there are indications of
His deep reverence and affection for her who was His mother, and with
His latest breath he confided her to the care of His beloved disciple.

There are passages indeed which seem to indicate a depreciation of
family relationships.[4] The most important of these are the sayings
which deal with the home connections of those whom He called to special
discipleship.[5] Not only are father and mother to be loved less than
He, but even in comparison with Himself are to be hated.[6] Among the
sacrifices His servants must be ready to make is the surrender of the
home.[7] But these references ought to be taken in conjunction with,
and read in the light of, His more general attitude to the claims of
kindred. It was not His indifference to, but His profound regard for,
home ties that drew from Him these words. He knew that affection may
narrow as well as widen the heart, and that our {223} tenderest
intimacies may bring our most dangerous temptations. There are moments
in the history of the heart when the lesser claim must yield to the
greater. For the Son of Man Himself, there were interests higher even
than those of the family. Some men, perhaps even most, are able to
fulfil their vocation without a surrender of the joys of kinship. But
others are called to a wider sphere and a harder task. For the sake of
the larger brotherhood of man, Jesus found it necessary to renounce the
intimacies of home. What it cost Him to do so we, who cannot fathom
the depth of His love, know not. Even such an abandonment did He
demand of His first disciples. And for the follower of Christ still
there must be the same willingness to make the complete sacrifice of
everything, even of home and kindred, if they stand in the way of
devotion to the kingdom of God.[8]

(1) Our Lord's direct statements regarding the nature of the family
leave us in no doubt as to the high place it holds in His conception of
life. Marriage, upon which the family rests, is, according to Jesus,
the divinely ordained life-union of a man and woman. In His quotation
from Genesis He makes reference to that mysterious attraction, deeply
founded in the very nature of man, by which members of the opposite sex
are drawn to each other. But while acknowledging the sensuous element
in marriage, He lifts it up into the spiritual realm and transmutes it
into a symbol of soul-communion. Our Lord does not derive the sanctio