But does the love and affection of that household find expression in nothing but words? Supper is being made ready. While Martha, with her wonted activity, is busied preparing the evening meal--doing her best to provide for the refreshment of the travellers--the gentle spirit of Mary (even if her name had not been given, we should have known it was she) prompts her to a more significant proof of the depth of her gratitude. Some fragrant ointment of spikenard--contained, as we gather from the other Evangelists, in a box of Alabaster--had been procured by her at great cost;[22] either obtained for this anticipated meeting with her Lord, or it may in some way have fallen into her possession, and been sacredly kept among her treasured gifts till some befitting occasion occurred for its employment. Has not that occasion occurred now? On whom can her grateful heart more joyously bestow this garnered treasure than on her beloved Lord. With her own hands she pours it on His feet. Stooping down, she wipes them, in further token of her devotion, with her loosened tresses, till the whole apartment was filled with the sweet perfume. And what was it that constituted the value of this tribute--the beauty and expressiveness of the action? _She gave her Lord the best thing she had!_ She felt that to Him, in addition to what He had done for her own soul, she owed the most valued life in the world. "Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, Nor other thought her mind admits; But, he was dead, and there he sits, And He that brought him back is there. "Then one deep love doth supersede All other, when her ardent gaze Roves from the living brother's face And rests upon the Life indeed. "All subtle thought, all curious fears, Borne down by gladness so complete; She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet With costly spikenard and with tears."[23] What a lesson for us! Are we willing to give our Lord the best of what we have--to consecrate time, talents, strength, life, to His service? Not as many, to give Him the mere dregs and sweepings of existence--the wrecks of a "worn and withered love"--but, like Mary, anxious to take every opportunity and occasion of testifying the depth of obligation under which we are laid to Him? Let us not say--"My sphere is lowly, my means are limited, my best offerings would be inadequate." Such, doubtless, were the very feelings of that humble, diffident, yet loving one, as she crept noiselessly to where her pilgrim-Lord reclined, and lavished on His weary limbs the costliest treasure she possessed. Hundreds of more imposing deeds--more princely and munificent offerings--may have been left unrecorded by the Evangelists; but "wherever this Gospel shall be preached, in the whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her."[24]