“AND THERE STOOD BY THE CROSS OF JESUS HIS MOTHER.”

New Zealand Tablet, 31 May 1917, Page 27

“AND THERE STOOD BY THE CROSS OF JESUS HIS MOTHER.”

I think the most tragically beautiful thing in all the Bible (said the Rev. L. O. Bricker, Protestant Minister of Atlanta, Ga.), is that one short sentence in the story of the Crucifixion, “There stood by the cross of Jesus His Mother.” There is nothing in all the Bible that goes to my heart like that. The multitudes whom He had taught and fed and healed and helped were not there. The treacherous disciple had betrayed Him, the boastful disciple had denied Him, they all had forsaken Him and fled; but “there stood by the cross of Jesus His Mother.” What a pitiless storm beat about that poor lone woman ! What thoughts crowded in upon her poor tired brain? It seemed but yesterday that she had held Him in her arms and kissed His baby lips; but yesterday that they two had walked hand in hand through the wood and wild flowers, her heart full of mother pride at His, quick intelligence and His winsome ways. And now He was dyingdying before her eyes but beyond he'r reach like a vile and cruel criminal; the rulers of her nation and leaders of her religion, looking out in scornful hatred, and the rabble shouting insults. And she, standing there alone, in all the world the one who still believed in Him. For was He not hers Had she not borne Him ? Had she not loved Him and called Him “ Son ? ” and had He not loved and called her “Mother?” Yet, come what will, He was still hers, and she will be with Him to the end. “And there stood by the cross of Jesus His Mother.”