ne; He had a group of friends with Him, and
such an influx of city visitors would throw any country home into
perturbation. I suppose also the walk from the city had been a good
appetizer. The kitchen department that day was a very important
department, and I suppose that Martha had no sooner greeted the guests
than she fled to that room. Mary had no anxiety about household
affairs. She had full confidence that Martha could get up the best
dinner in Bethany. She seems to say: "Now, let us have a division of
labor. Martha, you cook and I'll sit down and be good."

DIFFERENCE IN SISTERS.

So you have often seen a great difference between two sisters. There
is Martha, hard working, painstaking, a good manager, ever inventive
of some new pastry, or discovering something in the art of cooking and
housekeeping. There is Mary, also, fond of conversation, literary, so
engaged in deep questions of ethics she has no time to attend to the
questions of household welfare. It is noon. Mary is in the parlor with
Christ. 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.

TROUBLE IN THE KITCHEN.

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, me! 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?"

Christ scolded not a word. If it were scolding I should rather have
his scolding than anybody else's blessing. There was nothing acerb. He
knew Martha 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