The One Thing Needful

But one thing is needful: for Mary hath chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.—Luke 10:42.

1. An unending interest broods over this story. We return to it again and again, finding fresh lessons in it every time. Martha and Mary are sisters to whom every reader of the Lord’s life is drawn. In a certain way we feel grateful to them. They opened their home to the Lord when others cast Him out. They believed in Him; they ministered to Him; they worshipped Him. Yet to many readers they are a perplexing study. The one seems to exhibit a life ideal and spiritual; the other a life care-filled and worldly. It is a contrast which everybody feels to be painful; against which we all, at one time or another, have uttered our silent protest. Yet it continues to be felt. The two sisters have come to be looked upon as types of contrasted life rather than living beings—types vague and conventional, mere figures in an old story, portraits of which the true features are effaced, the legend over the one being a word of praise, under the other a word of blame.

But the memory of the two women was not preserved in the Gospels to be a perplexity, or a contrast, or a mere mist cloud of vagueness and uncertainty. It is plain that to the two writers who have recorded their story, the forms of the sisters were definite, clear cut, natural, very human, and such as were to be studied in after days, and pondered, and profited by. And certainly the Lord had two very real, very greatly esteemed souls in His presence when He addressed them as He is here represented.

2. Martha was determined to provide a fine entertainment on this occasion. She was doubtless a notable housewife, and, not unnaturally, a little proud of it; and she had with her now her dearest and most honoured Guest, and was bent on setting before Him her best, and in her best style. So there was much anxious discussion, we may suppose, about what dishes should be prepared, and not a little anxiety about their being properly cooked and served, and that the honoured Guest should have what might please Him most. It was a loving impulse on her part, and our Lord did not fail to appreciate it. All natures do not express their affection in the same way. What a blessed fact it is that our Master and Judge sees the love behind the differences, and tolerates the differences for the love’s sake!

The genuine kindness and mingled humour with which this old man of eighty-eight [Dr. Döllinger] looked on at youthful ways, is observable in the following letter, in which he described to me his holiday ménage with his nieces at Tegernsee:—

“We, uncle and nieces, are leading an idyllic life here, if an unsentimental one. I sit much in my room, and the girls go their different ways. Elise lives here much as the sparrows do, and has no cares except as regards the weather; she skips about, upstairs and down, now in the house, now in the garden, and finds room in that spacious heart of hers every day for a fresh friend. I believe she counts half the female population as her allies and patronesses. Jeanette, on the other hand, goes thoughtfully about, burdened with our household and culinary cares. She has a problem to solve which much resembles the squaring of a circle. It is her ambition to carry the art of saving to its highest point, and to eclipse, if possible, in this respect my old pensioned housekeeper. With all this, the old uncle is not to miss any of his comforts, nor is the dinner-table to be worse served than formerly, but rather better. Such opposite ends cannot of course be attained without much wear and tear of brain, especially here at Tegernsee, where living is dear, and the resources of Munich are not at hand.”1 [Note: Louise Von Kobell, Conversations of Dr. Döllinger, 60.]

3. Custom in all ages has prescribed a feast as an appropriate way of honouring a guest. You give a man a mark of your confidence and respect by inviting him to your table; but you do not, after all, if you will think of it, show him the highest mark of respect by inviting him to a splendid and formal banquet, assuming that he is best entertained by the gratification of his appetite. You show him a higher token of your regard when you invite him to partake of your informal family meal; taking him into your private life, and assuming that he cares more for your society than for your fare. Mary discerned this fact, with a loving woman’s quick perception; and so she was less anxious than Martha about the details of the feast. She had done all that she thought necessary for comfort and decency; and she valued her Guest enough to desire to get something more out of His visit than the mere pleasure of seeing Him eat, or the gratification of having Him praise her viands. Call it a kind of selfishness, if you will—indeed, Martha had no hesitation in calling it so—it was nevertheless true, that Mary was bent on enjoying as well as entertaining her Guest. Surely we are all selfish to that extent. She knew the blessing of Jesus’ presence in the house.

When the allied armies entered Paris after the great battle of Waterloo, the British Ambassador prepared a banquet for the Duke of Wellington. The lady of the house observed that the Duke talked much, but ate little. So she called his attention to the fact that he was not eating. “No,” said he,—“No! I don’t care much about eating and drinking.”

There are many aspects in which the incident of the text may be viewed. Let us take three of them, and consider:—

I.  Two Temperaments.

  II.  Doing and Being.

  III.  First Things First.

I

Two Temperaments

1. There are some natures which are essentially passive, whose power is in their receptivity, and whose chief ministry is in their presence. Their lives pronounce benedictions, just as the activities of others confer benefactions. The bequests with which they enrich the world are not great charities and noble deeds, but sacred memories and gracious influences. They are the flower-gardens of humanity, whose value is in their beauty, not the orchards and fields, whose value is in their utility. Their charm is not in what they do, but in what they are. They are no drones in the hive of human industry, nor yet busy bees hurrying here and there in the prosecution of their useful task. They are flowers in the garden, distilling fragrance and supplying sweetness. They do not toil, neither do they spin; yet the aroma which they exude no toil can produce, and the exquisite beauty in which they are clothed no spinning can equal. They transform the crude materials in their environment into fragrance and sweetness, but the operation is carried on within, the aroma and the nectar are in their own natures. While they thus work for themselves, they live for others. They exude their aroma with generosity, they part with their nectar with liberality.1 [Note: Conversations with Christ, 160.]

While a most pleasant and delightful companion, enjoying nature and all good and innocent things in this life, Robert M’Cheyne had in a rare and singular degree his “conversation in heaven,” and the influence for good he left in every place which he visited was quite extraordinary. I remember Dr. Anderson of Morpeth telling me how, when he was minister of St. Fergus, which he left at the Disruption, M’Cheyne had spent a day or two in his manse; and not only while he was there, but for a week or two after he had left, it seemed a heavenlier place than ever before. Associated with M’Cheyne’s person, appearance, and conversation, on the walls of the house and everything around seemed to be inscribed, “Holiness unto the Lord.”2 [Note: Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie, i. 217.]

2. The contrast drawn here is not between two types of character, one of which is held to be inferior to the other. Our Lord is not commending a contemplative life, and reproving a life of action. As there are varieties of hue and form among the flowers of earth, as one star differeth from another star in glory, so there will ever be diversities of gift and nature among the members of Christ’s mystical body. He would not in this sense have all His Marthas become Marys, or all His Marys Marthas; only He would that both, that all, whatever their natural disposition or acquired character, choose the good part, and supremely and constantly approve their choice.

Both sisters were sincere and warmly attached disciples of our Lord. It is expressly stated by St. John that “Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” The whole family were alike the objects of His tender regard. He honoured them with His friendship, blessed them with His society, and was well-pleased to make His abode within their dwelling. And when He came to raise Lazarus from the grave, He distinguished the two sisters, and Martha even more than Mary, by the full and comforting assurances of His power and grace. We must view both the sisters, then, as His faithful and devoted followers. Both of them looked to Him in faith as the Redeemer of Israel. Both of them acknowledged His claims, received His doctrine, relied upon His promises, and, in the face of obloquy and persecution, were ready to confess His name, and willing to bear His cross.

3. The contrast is between a bustling outward spirit in Christian service, even where the service is real, and that spirit which acts or rests, works or hears, gives or receives, speaks to others or feeds itself, prepares for Jesus or sits at His feet, always with the one thing in view, Christ Himself and His glory in our salvation. This one thing determines all life and work for the Christian, as it is the only hope and portion for the seeker after salvation. When working, even, as we think, in Christ’s name, takes us away from Christ Himself, working is wrong; we must then be content to be nothing, and to do nothing but sit at His feet. When this again would degenerate into selfishness or sentiment, we must bend our love to show itself in active serving. Ever the one thing—Christ last, first, everywhere. His glory in us, our love to Him. For that which is needful, after all, is not our providing for Him, or even our sitting at His feet, but that He do show Himself in us, that we have Him dwelling in our hearts by faith.

The Martha and Mary type of character and disposition, if allowed to develop separately, must lead to extremes that would be pernicious to both. The one tends to materialism, and the other to asceticism and monkish laziness. But if these different modes of existence, viz., a life of activity and a life of contemplation, in germ already found in every man, were allowed to develop in a reasonable and just proportion, and brought into harmony with each other, then we should have a character well-pleasing to God and man. If the rational and sober care for the things of this world is counterbalanced by the care for the things of the spiritual world, and if the one thing needful is allowed to influence, control, and regulate our life and conduct, we should have a Christian character tending to perfection.1 [Note: A. Fürst, True Nobility of Character, 22.]

I cannot choose; I should have liked so much

To sit at Jesus’ feet,—to feel the touch

Of His kind, gentle hand upon my head

While drinking in the gracious words He said.

And yet to serve Him!—Oh, divine employ,—

To minister and give the Master joy,

To bathe in coolest springs His weary feet,

And wait upon Him while He sat at meat!

Worship or service,—which? Ah, that is best

To which He calls us, be it toil or rest,—

To labour for Him in life’s busy stir,

Or seek His feet, a silent worshipper.1 [Note: Caroline A. Mason.]

4. Christ gladly accepted the offering presented to Him by different types of followers. He sat at Martha’s table. He proclaimed His pleasure in Mary’s offering. Special qualities, even when in excess, He did not reject. Martha’s extravagant activity, and Mary’s extravagant generosity, did not offend Him. He looked at the motive, and, knowing that was right, He did not disdain the deed. He saw in the one a desire to honour Him in life, and in the other a desire to honour Him in death; and the desire consecrated the meal, and made of the anointing an embalming. Thus, whatever may be our native characteristics, love to Jesus will render them all acceptable to Him. And without that love, they will all be to Him an offence. Though some or all faculties and sensibilities be developed in you to the utmost possible extent, though you had all knowledge, and could remove mountains, and gave your body to be burned, without love you would be nothing.

It is worth remarking how much the poco più—a little more—will add to a whole character. Two persons may seem to have equal elements of mental power, but there is an indescribable somewhat in the one which gives a flavour to all he has, or a certain direction to it, and which makes him more diverse, or even opposite. Mood is its passive form, purpose its active. It is like the perfume of a plant, or the amalgam in a conglomerate stone, and gives the man this individuality. By the first of these—what may be called the perfume of a character—our likings and friendships are determined; by the second—the purpose of it—we guide our moral judgment. If we are to have a true friend these should go together.1 [Note: J. Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, 12.]

II

Doing and Being

1. Of the two sisters we have speaking likenesses. Their characters are of that pronounced type which is stamped on every act and manifested in every scene. In joy or in sorrow, at the feast or at the funeral, the individuality of each is clearly marked, the position of each is definitely fixed. Christ knows them perfectly. He has no need to ask Mary where Martha is at the time of feasting, or to ask Martha where Mary is at the time of mourning. There is the hall-mark of goodness on each of them, but we must look for it in the activity of the one and in the receptivity of the other. The goodness of Martha will be manifested in her many duties, that of Mary in her deep feeling and serious thinking. They were ideal sisters, and together took the place of the ideal wife, whom Lazarus must have despaired of finding. The one sister was the complement of the other in the home at Bethany. Martha made the home complete with every comfort; Mary filled it with peace and joy. If Martha was absent Lazarus felt uneasy, if Mary was away he was depressed. Neither sister could fill the other’s place. Martha would have made a most fidgety Mary, and Mary a most unconcerned Martha. The one was a perfect head of the house, the other was the heart of the home. A division of work could never have been discussed between them, for it divided itself. Each instinctively took the part that naturally fell to her, and their united efforts made the home at Bethany an elysium of comfort and happiness.

The Master does not extol sentiment at the expense of practical duty. We once knew a lady who sat for hours mooning over religious themes, and who grew quite lyrical on the subject of entire sanctification, whilst her fire-grate was choked with ashes, and her house became a veritable chaos. She mistook herself for Mary.

Our Lord delicately touches the defect of Martha in the word “cumbered,” or, as it is given in the margin, “distracted.” Simply, we must not allow legitimate cares to impair our full and free fellowship with our Master. It is here that so many of us err. The sisters represent two types, in themselves equally admirable; as an old writer puts it, Martha is good before dinner, and Mary after. Happy the Christian who combines the two!1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, The Gates of Dawn, 280.]

2. It is easier to do than to be. God has planted in us so strong an impulse towards doing that into that, almost by a necessity of our nature, our main strength ordinarily flows. He has made us restless in childhood, active and energetic in youth, that we may not sink into sloth. There is an inherent delight in one’s own activity which makes all in some degree, and some, perhaps, even to excess, long to be on the move, to have a share, or, if they can, to take a lead, in all that is to be done. Every one knows that an unemployed life is not the happiest; and if no employment is a necessity of our position, we are forced to make employment, or otherwise we are wearied out with having nothing to do. And with this natural spur to activity, God has further linked some of the highest gifts that He has put within our reach. It is generally in active service that we learn the warmest love. Those to whom we give our labour almost always at last win our hearts also. Those for whom we have made sacrifices we involuntarily cherish with the truest affection. If we wish to learn to love, the way to it is generally to serve.

3. But the life of being is higher than the life of doing. Perhaps we can quite see that the heavenly mind, and the pure soul, and the inner life which is true quite through, and which, the nearer we approach it, only shines with a purer and more unearthly light, is higher, is better, is more God-like, than any service that we can render. Perhaps when we compare the two, we are able to prefer in our judgment the Christian saint to the Christian hero, the highest of those who have attained to the life of inward holiness to the highest of those whose chief excellence is in their active service. Yet in our ordinary life, in our hopes and wishes for ourselves, in our judgment of our own conduct, the lower often supplants the higher.

We know full well that unless the fire of Christian self-surrender be within, all that we can see without is but hollow and dead, at the very best a mere part of the machinery of the world, having no more true spiritual value than the revolution of the earth on its axis. But what we are slow to know is that the inner fire, even when it has no outer service to set in motion, even when it burns alone, simply for the sake of burning, in the presence of the Lord, is still doing its appointed service, is still a power in the world of spirits, still preaches and teaches, and inspires and upholds, and is a channel of grace connecting earth and heaven, while it seems to be so still and so unemployed. Such lives are fountains of holiness, and nothing else has equal value.1 [Note: Archbishop Temple, Rugby Sermons, ii. 160.]

As for matters of Huswifery, when God puts them upon you, it would bee sin either to refuse them or perform them negligently, and therefore the ignorance of them is a great shame and Danger for women that intend Marriage. But to seek these kinds of Businesses for pleasure, and to make them your delights, and to pride yourselves for your care and curiositie in them, is a great vanitie and Folly at the best, and to neglect better things and more necessarie by pretence of being imployed in these things is surely though a common Practize, yet a peice of sinfull Hypocrisie. Doe them therefore when God puts them upon you, and doe them carefully and well, and God shall reward you, however the things themselves bee but meane, accepting them at your hands as if they were greater matters, when they are done and undergone out of Obedience to His Command. But let your Delight bee onely in the better part.2 [Note: Mary Ferrar.]

“O Sister! leave you thus undone

The bidding of the Lord;

Or call you this a welcome? Run

And deck with me the board.”

Thus Martha spake: but spake to one

Who answered not a word:

For she kept ever singing,

“There is no joy so sweet,

As musing upon one we love

And sitting at His feet!”

“O sister! must my hands alone

His board and bath prepare?

His eyes are on you! raise your own:

He’ll find a welcome there!”

Thus spake again, in loftier tone,

That Hebrew woman fair.

But Mary still kept singing,

“There is no joy so sweet,

As musing upon Him we love

And resting at His feet.”1 [Note: Aubrey de Vere.]

III

First Things First

1. “One thing is needful.” According to some commentators, the reference is to Martha’s unnecessary preparations, and the meaning is: “A single dish is sufficient.” But our Lord has a deeper purpose than to give a lesson on simplicity of diet, and the phrase has passed into popular and universal use in a purely religious sense.

The saying of our Lord may be read thus: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things; few things are needful, or one.” Or, paraphrasing the words, we might take the Saviour’s statement to be this: “You do wrong to be thus encumbered, divided between this care and that. I appreciate the motive, I commend the aim; yet I cannot but blame the method. You are forgetting in your ministrations to Me what others forget in their provisionings for themselves—that the real requirements of existence are few, few for the purpose of life’s maintenance, and few for the purpose of life’s fulness. Given certain great general elements, certain great general treasures, you have all that is really necessary; the heart that possesses them will be happy, the lot that includes them will be safe. Nay,” continues the Saviour, “I will go further. Did I say man wants few things? It would be truer to say he really wants only one thing. But that is the thing that ensures all, binds all, sums all, surpasses all—namely, the knowing, the loving, and the following of Me.”

(1) One thing is needful even for worldly success.—This saying of our Lord may be viewed with perfect truth as giving the law of success in earthly things. The way to get on in this world is to feel strongly that “one thing is needful”; to have one paramount object to which all others shall be subordinated, and to which the undivided efforts of mind and body shall be devoted.

Amongst an otherwise infinite variety of qualities, one is always the same, one always appears prominent, in the characters of those who have stamped their image and superscription on the history of man. They have been men devoted to one grand object; men not careful and troubled about many things, but to whom one thing, whatever that thing might be, seemed needful; men of one idea, of one pursuit, to which they made all else accessory. And this was the secret of their success. For this unity of purpose is to the mental powers what the burning glass is to the sun’s rays. By concentrating them it makes them irresistible. The faculties which, if scattered, would have been weak and ineffectual, when made to converge on a single object, become a consuming fire. No opposition, unless equally concentrated and therefore equally energetic, can in the long run resist the concentrated force of all the powers of even a single average mind, steadily directed to one darling purpose.1 [Note: C. P. Reichel.]

(2) One thing is needful for spiritual attainment.—Just as for success in this life, considered as far as possible irrespectively of the next, we have seen that it is needful to have one main object, so does the same truth apply to the next life, with this limitation only, that as success in the next life means only one thing, so it can be attained in only one way. For it is obvious that nothing can give satisfaction to the immortal spirit save the being at one with Him from whom it is derived—“the God of the spirits of all flesh.” Union with God is therefore the “one thing needful” for eternal happiness; and unless that union be attained already here, we have no sure ground for hope that it may be attained hereafter. For death, which is simply the transition from this world to the next, cannot at once, as by magic, change the character. He that is filthy here will after death be filthy still; death cannot make him holy; death cannot give the one thing needful. It must be sought and gained now, if it is to be possessed then. The one thing needful for eternity must therefore be the one thing needful for time. Here then we have an object set before us, in comparison with which all other objects are insignificant; an object, to succeed in which is a greater triumph than to gain the empire of the whole world.

Many things we may have, but one thing we must have, if life is to be life. Many things are useful, many are important; but one is necessary, absolutely necessary. Mary had chosen it; and we are almost given to understand—though Jesus gently refrains from saying so—that Martha had not. While Martha was preparing one meal, Mary was enjoying another; for the “portion” of which Jesus speaks is the word used elsewhere for the share of a meal. Two banquets were preparing in that house; and Mary was already sitting at the table of her Lord in the heavenly world, partaking, at His gracious hand, of that bread of which he who takes shall never hunger again. This portion could never be taken away from her.1 [Note: J. E. McFadyen, The City with Foundations, 16.]

As ’mid the thickness of some leafy wood

The sun-beams find a passage here and there,

And light some spot which erst in shadow stood,

Making each leaflet look more bright and fair,

While other patches, that lie round it, miss

The ray of radiant Light that fills itself with bliss,—

So is it in the tangled wood of life:

Some souls there are that keep the open way,

Free from the boughs of earthly hindrance, rife

For every advent of the Heavenly ray;—

Ready to catch it as in love it comes

To seek the loving souls that are its willing homes.2 [Note: John Sharp, Poems and Hymns.]

(3) One thing is needful for Christian service.—We all know the difference between the gift that is the expression of a grateful heart and the gift the value of which lies in its costliness. The worth of the one is exactly measured by its price in the market, by the immediate use to which it can be put, or in the exchange which it will secure. The other may have no market value. It is but a withered flower, a bit of ribbon, a leaf sent in a letter, some fragment of handiwork; but it is the expression of a love that is embodied in the gift, a love that tries to find utterance, that does not wait to obtain a gift of value, but that knows its own worth, and rejoices in the opportunity to pour itself out upon the one who has called it forth.

One of the family was a little lad who was weak-minded, and him the father and mother specially loved. Yet there was little response to their affection. But one day, when the other children were gathering flowers and bringing them to their parents, the poor little lad gathered a bundle of dry sticks and brought them to his father. “I valued those sticks,” said the father afterwards, “far more than the fairest flowers.” We are not all equally gifted—some can bring lovely flowers to God’s service and honour; others can only gather dry sticks. But even the “cup of cold water” is accepted by Him.

2. The one thing needful does not supersede all other things. It does not rob us of all other interests. In accepting and following Christ, we are not as a rule called to withdraw from any of those great primal influences that replenish and illuminate life, and make natural living bright and full and glad; we receive them afresh from the hand of the Saviour we have accepted, to be ours with a new safety, ours by a new right. Society may remain to us; but social intercourse will be purified. Beauty may remain to us; but our sense of the beautiful will be regulated, our standard of the beautiful will be raised. Culture may remain to us; but it will be culture through the purest sources, culture for the highest ends. Relaxation may remain to us; but it will be relaxation guarded by Christian principles, and made subservient to Christian aims. In the choosing and pursuing of the one thing, we have the assurance that the lower things will be sanctified, so long as these lower things abide. And if they abide not, but pass, then the gospel will make up for their absence by more than compensating elements in itself: for society, the fellowship of the faithful; for beauty, the beauty of holiness; for culture, the enlightening, the expanding, and the refining influences of the Word of God; for relaxation, the quiet of Christian meditation, or the timely relief of changes in Christian work.

To all highly sensitive natures which shrink from action and effort, which are revolted by the coarseness, the stupidity, the brutality of the world, it is a great temptation to get away from it all, and to live life more congenially in the contemplation of perfection. The contemplative man finds the vision of moral purity and holiness so ineffably beautiful and sacred that he is sorely tempted to conceal it, to enjoy it, to lose himself in it. If he speaks of it, the rough comments and the dull derision of the world are so wounding, so cruel, that he does not venture to profane it. Here he diverges from the method of Christ, whose whole teaching was devoted to setting out in the simplest terms the beauty of holiness; and the amazing secret growth of Christianity, which ran like an electric pulse over the world, testifies to the fact that thousands of hearts had the same dim vision, and only needed that it should be defined.1 [Note: A. C. Benson, Thy Rod and Thy Staff, 141.]

3. The one supreme thing keeps other things in their proper place and colours the whole of life. The nearness of the Divine, as it diffuses itself over the soul’s horizon, permeating the inner and outer courts thereof, will give colour and character to all the things of the life that now is. Earth will be purified by being taken up into the embrace of the spiritual. All will be informed with a “light that never was on sea or land.” As heaven bows down, overshadowing and permeating our spirits, earth, standing in the presence thereof, will be compelled to put off its shoes and be made in its expression to harmonize with it. It will then become a help instead of a hindrance to the upward longings, affections and movements of the soul. There has been no natural antagonism placed between them on the part of their Maker. They are full of mutual analogies, the one being but the vestibule of the other, or the lower part of a ladder by which the soul is, or should be, helped upward to the vision and joy of Divine things.

What if earth be but the shadow of heaven,

And each to other like more than on earth is thought?

Astronomers were long puzzled by certain minute bodies that revolve in the highway of the planets, too small and too numerous to be accounted separate satellites, revolving round the sun in mixed and interlacing orbits. At length the thought was hit upon that these were the fragments of a larger planet shattered out of its original unity, yet retaining the direction of its original impulse and continuing to revolve as disjointed members of that which was a planet no more. The finger of their great Former had implanted in them a law under which they still moved even in ruins. So it is with our human heart; the restless search, the constant care and cumber, the unslaked thirst for happiness, the saying “Who will shew us any good?”—these are the traces of a divinely implanted law. The soul is dislocated and out of joint, and hence the law breeds nothing but confusion and distraction. Only get the central gravitating power restored, only let all desires and strivings find their satisfaction in the one thing needful, and the same law is the harmony of the soul—the equilibrium of the heart.1 [Note: J. Laidlaw, Studies in the Parables, 232.]

4. The “one thing” is a lasting possession. In all the years to come, Mary was to carry as a treasure in her soul the memory of that hour. She had sat at Jesus’ feet, she had looked into His loving face, she had seen in the depths of His eyes the preparation for the giving of Himself for her and for the sins of the world. The memory of that hour was to remain so vivid, so satisfying, so compelling, in all her later life, that she entered at once into the knowledge of that new intimacy with the Risen Lord which was expressed in His promise: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

Mary was quick to perceive that there are times and seasons in our relations to God. The Lord’s ministry was rapidly passing away. The opportunity for the privileges of loving expression and for personal service would be few. Mary seizes this one as it passes; and the wisdom of her act, not to say its supreme importance, is what the Lord recognizes and approves. There are times when the Lord means to give us surcease of care, and to lift our spirits into the light of His countenance, and to create in us the radiant joy of a Divine companionship,—times when our spirit responds to the Spirit of God, and when we are permitted to hear the voice of God calling to us as the still small voice spoke to the prophet after the whirlwind and the fire. Then is the golden opportunity for the man who would know God. In such hours the Master calls us to new duties, or opens to us new doors of opportunity, or seeks to bestow upon us new joys in new revelations of Himself. Well for us if, with Mary, we recognize the hour and the privilege.2 [Note: H. A. Stimson, The New Things of God, 151.]

She sitteth at the Master’s feet

In motionless employ;

Her ears, her heart, her soul complete

Drinks in the tide of joy.

Ah! who but she the glory knows

Of life, pure, high, intense,

In whose eternal silence blows

The wind beyond the sense!

In her still ear, God’s perfect grace

Incarnate is in voice;

Her thoughts, the people of the place,

Receive it, and rejoice.

Her eyes, with heavenly reason bright,

Are on the ground cast low;

His words of spirit, life, and light—

They set them shining so.

Sure, joy awoke in her dear heart

Doing the thing it would,

When He, the holy, took her part,

And called her choice the good!

Oh needful thing, Oh Mary’s choice,

Go not from us away!

Oh Jesus, with the living voice,

Talk to us every day!1 [Note: G. MacDonald, “The Gospel Women” (Poetical Works, i. 243).]

The One Thing Needful

Literature

Aitchison (J.), The Children’s Own, 247.

Chadwick (W. E.), Christ and Everyday Life, 144.

Crawford (T. J.), The Preaching of the Cross, 255.

Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, iii. 512.

Flint (R.), Sermons and Addresses, 123.

Fürst (A.), True Nobility of Character, 15.

Gray (W. A.), Laws and Landmarks of the Spiritual Life, 27.

Goulburn (E. M.), Thoughts on Personal Religion, 278.

Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Miscellaneous, 289.

Laidlaw (J.), Studies in the Parables, 231.

McFadyen (J. E.), The City with Foundations, 13.

Martineau (J.), Hours of Thought, i. 59.

Morris (A. J.), The Open Secret, 74.

Morrison (G.), The House of God, 159.

Newman (J. H.), Parochial and Plain Sermons, iii. 318.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, i. 137.

Reichel (C. P.), Sermons, 237.

Rutherford (R.), That Good Part, 1.

Stimson (H. A.), The New Things of God, 141.

Temple (F.), Rugby Sermons, ii. 154.

Vincent (M. R.), God and Bread, 39.

Winterbotham (R.), Sermons, 359.

Homiletic Review, lvi. 383 (J. Williams).

Preacher’s Magazine, xi. 369 (J. W. Keyworth).

Sunday Magazine, 1893, p. 205 (B. Waugh).