to eat the Passover. He[39] did that as master in his own house, with a family of little children of his own choosing. Mary was not at the first Eucharistic feast. Undoubtedly there was foreknowledge and divine design in all this, and doubtless Jesus and Mary were so completely one in will and purpose that she was of perfect accord with him in all these arrangements. There are souls so perfectly attuned to each other, with such an exact understanding and sympathy, that personal presence no longer becomes a necessity. They are always with each other in spirit, however outwardly separated. But we find her with him once more, openly and visibly, in the hour when all others forsook him. The delicacy of woman may cause her to shrink from the bustle of public triumph, but when truth and holiness are brought to public scorn she is there to defend, to suffer, to die.

Can we conceive what this mob was, that led Jesus forth to death? Mobs in our day are brutal, but what were they then? Consider what the times must have been when scourging was an ordinary punishment for criminals, and crucifixion an ordinary mode of execution; what were the sights, the sounds, the exhibitions of brutality among which Mary and the women friends of Jesus followed him to the cross!

And Mary did not faint—did not sink. She did not fall to the earth when an angel predicted her glory; she did not fall now, when the sword had gone through her heart. It is all told in one word, "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother." The last word that Jesus spoke to any mortal ear was to commend her to his dearest friend.

After the resurrection Mary appears once more among the disciples, waiting and praying for a descent of the Holy Ghost—and then in the sacred record we hear of her no more.

But enough is recorded of her to make her forever dear to all