I have seen this exquisite story quoted as a defence of mere ritual. The method is obvious. The hardened lover of simplicity is represented as one of the disciples; and beholding the beauty of architecture, and the stateliness of the ceremonial, and listening to the superb eloquence of the liturgy and grandeur of the music, he asks, "To what purpose is this waste?" There is a superficial justification for such teaching. But it is only superficial. For if from this incident it be attempted to establish a precedent for permanent elaborate ritual of worship, it must be said this incident goes to prove its impossibility. For ask yourselves, What gave this deed its peculiar and unrivalled power and influence? There is only one answer. It lies in its solitariness. It was spontaneous. It was unique. It could not bear repetition. To repeat it were to rob it of its bloom. We repudiate, then, the idea that the form of this deed can become the basis of Christian worship. But we are now able to consider the truth that, when love realises itself thus in deeds of worship, it often receives assurances that it has done more than it knew. God interprets our poor intentions so liberally, so largely. He reads into our broken speech such divine meanings. It is ever so. We give a cup of cold water to a thirsty bairn; and lo! we have done it _unto Him_! We utter our coarse earthly strains of music; and, one day, He bids us hearken! Then there falls upon our ears ravishing heavenly music; and when we could fall down and worship, He tells us it is our own. Heaven's great melodies are perhaps no more than earth's poor ones, composed in pure love and praise of God, redeemed from their limitations and imperfections in the home of all true worship. So Mary struck her trembling chord, and waited fearful; broke her spikenard, and then marvelled at her own daring; and while, when love had spent itself, a colder mood began to question the propriety, and to strike fear to her woman's heart, Jesus spake and said, "In that she hath poured this ointment on Me, she hath done it for My burial."