The first effect of the Lord’s word then was deliverance; the next was attraction. We read that “the twelve were with Him” (Jesus), “and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene.” Mary, therefore, was one of those who had the unspeakable privilege of being with the Lord in some of His evangelistic journeys. How came she thus to be in His company, and almost to anticipate the blessedness of those who, in the glory of the kingdom, will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth? The simple answer to this question is that she was drawn, attracted by the grace of her deliverer. It is a characteristic of this gospel that grace flowed out so mightily from our Lord and Saviour that those who had become the subjects of it, in their needs and sorrows, were overmastered by it, and, detached from all that might have hindered them, were drawn, like Levi, to and after Him in the path of devoted discipleship. Henceforward they could not do without Him, for He had become the absorbing object of their hearts. It was so with Mary. Her one characteristic from the day of her deliverance was intense affection: she loved Him who had first loved her. As is often remarked, nothing satisfies love but the company of its object. Thus it came to pass that Mary was found with Jesus, with Him in the abounding joy of her salvation from the power of Satan, with Him in the sorrows of His pilgrim path, with Him in the day of His rejection, and with Him in adoration because her eyes had been opened to some extent to discern the glory of His Person. She had undoubtedly much yet to learn (as may be seen as we follow her history), but she was now in the company of God’s beloved Son, the One in whom all God’s thoughts and counsels were centered; she delighted in the One in whom God delighted, and the One, in whose company she was found, was the only channel through which any blessing could be received. There was then no place on earth equal to that which Mary, together with her companions, occupied when they were with Christ.