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 conversations with his disciples during that interval are recorded in the Gospel. Every one of the four Evangelists relates some act or some saying of our Lord on one or more of those occasions. Mention is made by name of Mary Magdalene, of Mary [the mother] of Joses, of Mary [the mother] of James, of Salome, of Joanna, of Peter, of Cleophas, of the disciple whom Jesus loved, at whose house the mother of our Lord then was; of Thomas, of Nathanael. The eleven also are mentioned generally. But by no one of the Evangelists is reference made at all to Mary the mother of our Lord, as having been present at any one of those interviews; her name is not alluded to throughout. On one solitary occasion subsequently to the ascension of Christ, mention is made of Mary his mother, in company with many others, and without any further distinction to separate her from the rest: "And when {285} they were come in (from having witnessed the ascension of our Saviour), they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." [Acts i. 13.] Not one word is said of Mary having been present to witness even the ascension of her blessed Son; we read no command of our Lord, no wish expressed, no distant intimation to his disciples that they should even show to her marks of respect and honour; not an allusion is there made to any superiority or distinction and preeminence. Sixty years at the least are generally considered to be comprehended within the subsequent history of the New Testament before the Apocalypse was written; but neither in the narrative, nor in the Epistles, nor yet in the prophetic part of the Holy Book, is there the most distant allusion to Mary. Of him to whose loving care our dying Lord committed his beloved mother of especial trust, we hear much. John, we find, putting forth the miraculous power of Christ at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple; we find him imprisoned and arraigned before the Jewish authorities; but not one word is mentioned as to what meanwhile became of Mary. We find John confirming the Church in Samaria; we find him an exile in the island of Patmos; but no mention is made of Mary. Nay, though we have three of his epistles, and the second of them addressed to one "whom he loved in the truth," we find neither from the tongue nor from the pen of St. John, one single allusion to the mother of our Lord alive or dead. And then, whatever may have been the matter