She had treasured up that precious unguent against the day,--( with the presentiment of true Love, she knew that it could not be very far distant),--when His dead limbs would require embalming.

But lo, she beholds Him reclining at supper in her sister's house: and yielding to a Divine impulse she brings forth her reserved costly offering and bestows it on Him at once.

Ah, she little knew,--she could not in fact have known,--that it was the only anointing those sacred feet were destined ever to enjoy!...

In the meantime through a desire, as I suspect, to bring this incident into an impossible harmony with what is recorded in St.Mark xvi.

1, with which obviously it has no manner of connexion, a scribe is found at some exceedingly remote period to have improved our Lord's expression into this:--'Let her alone in order that against the day of My embalming she may keep it.' Such an exhibition of the Sacred Text is its own sufficient condemnation.