ar more than to be honest,
truthful, sober, industrious, and decorous; it is also to be a
cross-bearer after Jesus; to love men, and to serve them. Ofttimes it
is to leave your fine room, your favorite work, your delightful
companionship, your pet self-indulgence, and to go out among the needy,
the suffering, the sinning, to try to do them good. The monk could not
paint the face of the Lord while he was neglecting those who needed his
ministrations and went unhelped because he came not. Nor can any
Christian paint the face of the Master in its full beauty on his soul
while he is neglecting any service of love.

We may follow a little the story of what happened after Mary brought
her alabaster box. Some of the disciples of Jesus were angry. There
always are some who find fault with the way other people show their
love for Christ. It is so even in Christian churches. One member
criticises what another does, or the way he does it. It will be
remembered that it was Judas who began this blaming of Mary. He said
the ointment would better have been sold, and the proceeds given to the
poor. St. John tells us very sadly the real motive of this pious
complaining; not that Judas cared for the poor, but that he was a
thief, and purloined the money given for the poor.

Jesus came to Mary's defence very promptly, and in a way that must have
wonderfully comforted her hurt heart. It is a grievous sin against
another to find fault with any sweet, beautiful serving of Jesus which
the other may have done. Christ's defence and approval of Mary should
be a comfort to all who find their deeds of love criticised or blamed
by others.

"Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on
me." The disciples had said it was a waste. That is what some persons
say about much that is done for Christ. The life is wasted, they say,
which is poured out in self-denials and sacrifices to bless others.
But really the wasted lives are those which are devoted to pleasure and
sin. Those who live a merely worldly life are wasting what it took the
dying of Jesus to redeem. Oh, how pitiful much of fashionable, worldly
life must appear to the angels!

"She hath done what she could." That was high praise. She had brought
her best to her Lord. Perhaps some of us make too much of our little
acts and trivial sacrifices. Little things are acceptable if they are
really our best. But Mary's deed was not a small one. The ointmen