Thus ends the words we have imagined St. John might have spoken with the Gospels of Matthew and Mark in his hand.  The additions to their story are suggested by his own Gospel.  He has drawn a beautiful picture of Mary, in brighter colors and more delicate shades than has any other.  To him artists are chiefly indebted for their ideas of her.  His own character was so completely in harmony with hers that he understood what his fellows did not.  By them she was misjudged and condemned; he saw and admired the sweetness of her spirit, and the purity and nobleness of her motive.  Upon the monument reared by other Evangelists, he inserted her name.  In her he saw a reflection of her Lord and his.  His memory and his record alone secured for her in particular the fulfilment of the Lord’s prophecy concerning the remembrance of her deed.  Every Christian home in the whole world has been, or will be, filled with the spiritual fragrance of her offering.  But the prophecy is more than fulfilled.  That which she hath done is not only “spoken of,” for in many a home inspired by her spirit, her name has been given as a memorial of her whom John distinguished from all others as “that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair.”  It was of Mary that Jesus said, “She hath done what she could.”

John’s picture of her is all the brighter because of his dark background of Judas.  He has forever associated their names in contrast.  In his mind, the anointing was ever suggestive of the betrayal.  He remembered how the “thief” asked his hypocritical question at the moment of the greatest perfume; and how Judas was planning the betrayal while Mary was meditating on the death to which it would lead.  It appears almost certain that Judas, stung by the Lord’s reproof of him and defence of Mary, ready to sell his Lord’s body for a less sum than he valued the ointment, turned from the feast in anger, hastening to the chief priest with the cursed question and promise, “What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you?” Wheresoever the gospel is preached throughout the whole world, that also which this man hath done is spoken of—­but not for a memorial of him.

John’s picture of Mary, Judas and Jesus is a most suggestive grouping.  What harmony and contrast!  What light and shade!  What revelation of love and hate, of friendship and enmity, of devotion and sacrilege!  To no other scene does Christ sustain quite the same relation.  The friendship of His first feast—­that of Cana—­is deeper and tenderer in His last, at Bethany.

There is something sublime in this Son of God having all power, pleading with Judas that Mary might be permitted to continue her service of love for Him.

Add John’s own likeness to the three at whom we have been looking, and what a grouping we have—­Jesus with His loved Mary, and John the most beautiful illustration of human friendship, and Judas the betrayer.  Let imagination complete what no artist has attempted.