s
eternal. To all who thus love Him Christ cannot but say, "Because I
live, ye shall live also."

Another point in our Lord's defence of Mary's conduct, though it is not
explicitly asserted, plainly is, that tributes of affection paid
directly to Himself are of value to Him. Judas might with some
plausibility have quoted against our Lord His own teaching that an act
of kindness done to the poor was kindness to Him. It might be said that,
on our Lord's own showing, what He desires is, not homage paid to
Himself personally, but loving and merciful conduct. And certainly any
homage paid to Himself which is not accompanied by such conduct is of no
value at all. But as love to Him is the spring and regulator of all
right conduct, it is necessary that we should cultivate this love; and
because He delights in our well-being and in ourselves, and does not
look upon us merely as so much material in which He may exhibit His
healing powers, He necessarily rejoices in every expression of true
devotedness that is paid to Him by any of us.

And on our side wherever there is true and ardent love it must crave
direct expression. "If ye love me," says our Lord, "keep my
commandments"; and obedience certainly is the normal test and exhibition
of love. But there is that in our nature which refuses to be satisfied
with obedience, which craves fellowship with what we love, which carries
us out of ourselves and compels us to express our feeling directly. And
that soul is not fully developed whose pent-up gratitude, cherished
admiration, and warm affection do not from time to time break away from
all ordinary modes of expressing devotion and choose some such direct
method as Mary chose, or some such straightforward utterance as Peter's:
"Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee."

It may, indeed, occur to us, as we read of Mary's tribute to her Lord,
that the very words in which He justified her action forbid our
supposing that any so grateful tribute can be paid Him by us. "Me ye
have not always" may seem to warn us against expecting that so direct
and satisfying an intercourse can be maintained now, when we no longer
have Him. And no doubt this is one of the standing difficulties of
Christian experience. We can love those who live with us, whose eye we
can meet, whose voice we know, whose expression of face we can read. We
feel it easy to fix our affections on one and another of those who are
alive contemporaneously w