Eight verses devoted to an alabaster box of ointment! This is more space than was given to many incidents seemingly more important, and at the very crisis of His career, too. But who will estimate the value of this narrative?
Judas complained that it was an inexcusable waste of money—Judas, the thief, as Mark calls him, pretended concern about the poor. The poor have received immeasurably more from the use made of this ointment than they would have received had it been sold and the proceeds distributed then. It was an expression of love, and love is the treasury box from which the poor can always draw. That box of ointment has spread its fragrance over nineteen hundred years. Give a man bread and he hungers again; give him clothing and his clothing will wear out; but give him an ideal—something to look up to through life—and it will be with him through every waking hour lifting him to a higher plane and filling his life with the beauty and the bounty of service. The money spent for a loaf of bread may stay the pangs of hunger for a few brief hours, but the same amount invested in the "bread of life" will give one an inexhaustible feast. A drink of water refreshes for the moment; the same amount invested in the "water of life" may make of one a spring overflowing with blessings.
A Bible costs a few cents and yet upon it may be built a life that is worth millions to the human race. It was a Bible that made William Ewart Gladstone for a generation the world's greatest Christian statesman; it was a Bible that made José Rodrigues for a quarter of a century the greatest moral force in Brazil. The Bible has given us great leaders in the United States. It is the Bible that has sent missionaries throughout the world to plant in little communities everywhere the teachings of the greatest of sentimentalists—and, at the same time, the most practical of philosophers. Christ has taught us the true value of those things which touch the heart and, through the heart, move the world.
"Suffer little children to come unto me;" Christ used the child to admonish those older grown. The Church is following in His footsteps when it makes the child the subject of constant thought and solicitude. It is when we deal with the child that we get the clearest conception of the superiority of faith over reason. The foundations of character are laid in faith and not in reason; they are laid before the reason can be accepted as a guide. No one who exalts reason above faith can lead a child to God, but a child can understand the love of the Saviour and the tender care of the Heavenly Father. For this reason the Sunday school increases in importance. Its lessons build character; its songs echo throughout our lives.
The law arbitrarily fixes the age of twenty-one as the age of legal maturity. No matter how precocious a young man be, the presumption of law is against his intelligence until he is twenty-one. He cannot vote; he cannot make a valid deed to a piece of land. Why? His reason is not mature, and yet the moral principles that control his life are implanted before he reaches that age. His ideals come into his life long before the reason can be regarded as a safe guide. Before the reason is mature he believes in God or has rejected God. If he lives in a Christian community he has accepted the Bible as the Word of God or rejected it as the work of man; if he is acquainted with Christ he has accepted or rejected Him. A child's heart cannot remain a vacuum. It is filled with reverence or irreverence. Those who think that the mind can remain unbiassed until one becomes of age and then be able to render impartial decisions, know little of human experience. Love comes first, reason afterward; the child obeys and later learns why it should obey. Morality rests upon religion and religion, taking hold upon the heart, exercises a control far greater than any logic can exercise over the mind.
Look back over your lives and see how much of real moral principle you have added since you became of age. You can better explain your faith; your will is more firm, your determination more deeply rooted, but what new seed of morality has been sown since you reached the age when the reason is presumed to be mature?
While Christianity builds upon the affirmations of the New Testament and the positive virtues taught by the Saviour it is loyal, as Christ was, to the Commandments which God gave to the people through Moses. Most of these commandments—those relative to man's duty to man—are written unto the statutes of state and nation; they form the basis of our laws. Those which relate to man's duty to God and which are not, therefore, legally binding are binding on the conscience of Christians.
The Christian Church from its earliest beginnings has enforced respect for parents. Parental authority is not only essential to the child's welfare during youth but it is necessary as a foundation upon which to build respect for government and for laws. The Christian home is the nursery of the State as well as of the Church. Loyalty to God and loyalty to government are easily learned by those who from infancy are taught obedience to those who have the right to instruct and direct.
The Christian Church stands also for Sabbath observance. The right to worship God according to the dictates of one's conscience is an inalienable right and any attempt to interfere with the full and free exercise of this right would and should arouse universal protest. Those who do not worship at all have no fear of molestation, but freedom of conscience is not interfered with by laws that provide opportunity for rest and guarantee leisure for worship.
Man's body needs relaxation from toil and man's mind needs leisure as well. These needs are so obvious that they are universally admitted. The spiritual nature requires refreshment also and this need is as imperative as the needs of body and brain. As the spiritual man is the dominant force in life and the measure of the individual's usefulness, the nation cannot be less concerned about the people's spiritual growth and welfare than about their health and intellectual strength.