have not rallied from their
flight enough to appear after their flight. James the brother of John is
not with him. As their mother looks upon Jesus between two robbers, does
she recall her ambitious request, "Command that these my two sons may
sit, one on Thy right hand, and one on Thy left hand"? She understands
now the fitness of the reply she had received,--"Ye know not what ye
ask"?

But Salome and John are loyal to the uncrowned King. Though they may
not share the glory of His throne, they are yet ready to stand beneath
the shameful shadow of His cross.

But another is there,--drawn by a yet stronger cord of affection. She
heads John's list of the women "by the cross of Jesus--His mother,"
whose love is so deep that it cannot forego witnessing the sight that
fills her soul with agony. Yes, Mary, thou art there.

"Now by that cross thou tak'st thy final station,
And shar'st the last dark trial of thy Son;
Not with weak tears or woman's lamentation,
But with high, silent anguish, like His own."
--_H.B. Stowe_.

As she stands there we seem to read her thoughts: "Can that be He, my
babe of Bethlehem, my beautiful boy of Nazareth, in manhood my joy and
my hope! Are those hands the same that have been so lovingly held in
mine; those arms, outstretched and motionless, the same that have so
often been clasped around me! Oh! that I might staunch His wounds, and
moisten His parched lips, and gently lift that thorny crown from His
bleeding brow."

But this cannot be. There is being fulfilled Simeon's prophecy, uttered
as he held her infant in his arms,--a foreboding which has cast a
mysterious shadow on the joys of her life.

"Beside the cross in tears
The woeful mother stood,
Bent 'neath the weight of years,
And viewed His flowing blood;
Her mind with grief was torn,
Her strength was ebbing fast,
And through her heart forlorn,
The sword of Anguish passed."

She can only draw yet nearer to His cross and give the comfort of a
mother's look, and perhaps receive the comfort of a look from Him,
and--oh, if it can be--a word of comfort from His lips for the
mother-heart. Perhaps for a moment her thoughts are on the future,--her
lonely life, without the sympathy of her other sons who believed not on
their brother. Oh! that they were like John, to her already more of a
son than they.

In childhood Jesus ha