be construed to imply, that our blessed Lord intended Mary to be held in
such honour by his disciples, as would be shown in the offering of
prayer and praise to her after her dissolution. He who could by a word,
rather by the mere motion of his will, have bidden the whole course of
nature and of providence, so to proceed as that all its operations
should provide for the health and safety, the support and comfort of his
mother--He, when He was on the cross, and when He was on the point of
committing his soul into the hands of his Father, leaves her to the care
of one whom He loved, and whose sincerity and devotedness to Him He had,
humanly speaking, long experienced. He bids him treat Mary as his own
mother, He bids Mary look to John as to her own son for support and
solace: "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his
mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When
Jesus, therefore, saw his mother and the disciple standing by whom he
loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son; then saith he to
the disciple, Behold thy mother." [John xix. 25.] And He added no more.
If Christ willed that his beloved mother should end her days in peace,
removed equally {284} from want and the desolation of widowhood on the
one hand, and from splendour and notoriety on the other, nothing could
be more natural than such conduct in such a Being at such a time. But if
his purpose was to exalt her into an object of religious adoration, that
nations should kneel before her, and all people do her homage, then the
words and the conduct of our Lord at this hour seem altogether
unaccountable: and so would the words of the Evangelist also be, "And
from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home."

After this not another word falls from the pen of St. John which can be
made to bear on the station, the character, the person, or circumstances
of Mary. After his resurrection our Saviour remained on earth forty days
before He finally ascended into heaven. Many of his interviews and