INFLUKNCE OF CHBISTIANITY ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN. 37 



the six, three are women, and these are fully as prominent as the 

 men. Now of this retired little company, four added new 

 Psalms to our Psalter, and again two of these are written by 

 women — Elizabeth comes first and is " filled with the Holy 

 Ghost." Her hymn is not suitable for pubhc singing, but Mary's 

 glorious Magnificat, Zachariah's beautiful Benedictus, and 

 Simeon's Nunc Dimittis, are in unforgotten use among us. Such 

 a glimpse into the hidden life of Israel speaks volumes to us, for 

 doubtless there were many more like these. 



At last the Sun arose, radiant, glorious, the Sun of righteous- 

 ness with healing in His Wings, healing every sore of the world, 

 and, therefore, among them the great, radical, far-reaching 

 one of the position of women. 



I am not going into the details of our Lord's life with regard 

 to His remarkable relation to women. You can hear in sermons 

 about the ambitious mother and the weeping Magdalene, the 

 active Martha and the Mystic Mary, and how women never 

 said a single unkind thing to or about our Saviour, as the men 

 so cruelly did, but were faithful to Him throughout — " last at 

 the cross and earhest at the grave." These things are often 

 told and I leave them, save to point out two very shoit incidents. 



When men are dying they make their will and leave their 

 library or any treasure they possess by name to the person who 

 will value it most. Our Lord Jesus had only one precious thing 

 to leave behind Him, and that was His mother. In the midst 

 of the stupendous task of bearing the sin of the world, a task 

 that produced the storm of pain we see in Gethsemane and the 

 prolonged agony of Calvary, He turns aside for a single minute 

 to leave His one treasure to the man who would most love and 

 cherish her. That is an example of the perfection of His private 

 relation ; now for the pubhc relation. Once, pointing to the 

 crowd of disciples, the material out of which His Church was to 

 be made, He said, " The same is my brother, and my sister, and 

 my mother." The idea of the brethren is often repeated, but 

 here, added to that, we have the pure, friendly, brotherly affec- 

 tion for the girl and the sweet deference to the older woman ; 

 these. He said, are to be constant elements in His Church. The 

 son may know a hundred times more than his mother — that is 

 not the point ; it is faithful, self-denying love that is to be thus 

 honoured. When we think of what Christ has done for us as 

 women, it seems a shame that every woman who has heard the 

 Gospel story should not be His devoted follower ! To my mind, 



