DOCTRINE OF THE DAY.

281

cedent. The Annunciation was, in fact, the inception, the first stage, of the Incarnation; and its design was 'to give a Saviour to the world, a Victim of propitiation to the sinner, a Model to the just, a Son to the Virgin remaining still a Virgin, and a new Nature to the Son of God-the Nature of man, capable of suffering pain and anguish in order to the satisfaction of God's justice for our transgression.** It was the Day on which the prophecy was fulfilled: 'Behold, a Virgin shall conceive' a Son, whose name at His birth should be Immanuel; it was the Day on which 'the Word of God was for ever united to humanity ;'t the Day whereon 'the womb of the Virgin became the gate of heaven, by which God descended to men, that He might afford an access to heaven for them.' It was the Day on which were fulfilled, or made immediately possible of fulfilment, those promises that had been the stay of prophets and kings through a long succession of tearful, prayerful, expectant ages.

To a devout mind like that of the Virgin, well instructed in the fondest yet, for each individual, the most shadowy-hopes of her countrywomen, the vision called up by the announcement that it was She-She, who had been chosen as the vehicle of the fulfilment of all the Messianic prophecies, would come upon her, not gradually, as these had been delivered, but suddenly, cumulatively, overwhelmingly. It was not a panorama which stretched before her, at one end of which glimmered the Morning Star, whilst at the other, through a long interval of chequered and fitful yet ever-increasing light, blazed the Sun of Noon; but it was one abrupt and transcendent scene of glory, in which she saw herself girt all at once and on all sides with an Infinite and a Divine Effulgence. Blessed, indeed, was the humility that could dictate even to her ecstasy the pious response to the angelic message: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord! All the isolated Messianic prophecies, which, from Eden downwards, had trickled or meandered along their lonely courses, had been merged as mere affluents in that full rolling tide of Evangelical prediction which had been discovered by Isaiah, much of whose wondrous imagery our own Pope has grouped together in his well-known' Sacred Eclogue,' entitled Messiah,' and first published in the Spectator for May 4th, 1712. This poem, it may be remarked in passing, was professedly written in imitation of Virgil's Pollio,' which itself was almost certainly an adaptation from the inspired bard whose lips had been touched with a live coal from off the altar of God.

.

Ye Nymphs of Solyma! begin the song;
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.

* Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints.

+ Ibid.

+

Ivo Carnotensis: De Annuntiatione Beatæ Mariæ.

The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and the Aonian maids,
Delight no more--O Thou my voice inspire,
Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire!

Rapt into future times, the Bard begun :-
A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son!
From Jesse's root behold a Branch arise,

Whose sacred Flower with fragrance fills the skies :
The Ethereal Spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic Dove.
Ye Heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
The sick and weak the healing Plant shall aid,
From storms a Shelter, and from heat a Shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;

Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,

And white-robed Innocence from Heaven descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise the expected Morn!
Oh, spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!
See, Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing Spring;
See lofty Lebanon his head advance :
See nodding forests on the mountains dance;
See spicy clouds from lowly Sharon rise,
And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers :
Prepare the way! a God! a God appears!
A God! a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity.
Lo earth receives Him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye mountains; and ye valleys rise!
With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay;
Be smooth, ye rocks; ye rapid floods, give way!!
The SAVIOUR comes! by ancient bards foretold:
Hear Him, ye deaf; and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eyeball pour the day.
'Tis He the obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
And bid new music charm the unfolding ear;
The dumb shall sing; the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear ;
From every face He wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound;
And Hell's grim Tyrant feel the eternal wound.
As the good Shepherd tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pastures and the purest air;
Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs,
By day o'ersees them, and by night protects;
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms :
Mankind shall thus His guardian care engage,
The promised Father of the future age.

HONOURS OF THE DAY.

No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sowed shall reap the field.
The swain in barren deserts with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys once perplexed with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn :

To leafless shrubs the flowering palm succeed,
And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.

The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead;

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake;
Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,

And with their forky tongue and pointless sting shall play.
Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise!

Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn!
See future sons and daughters yet unborn
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;

See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,
And heaped with products of Sabæan springs!
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See Heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze,

O'erflow thy courts: the LIGHT HIMSELF shall shine
Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine;
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fixed His word, His saving power remains ;

Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

283

It would be difficult indeed to exhaust the admiring and afectionate epithets and sentiments which poets and others have

lavished on the Feast of the Annunciation. The Day is the commemoration of the grandest embassy of the Universe; an embassy sent by the King of kings, not to kings or potentates, but to a poor and simple Virgin. The Ambassador is not an envoy sent at random, but one of the chief princes of the court of Heaven. To-day the Spirit which brooded over chaos, broods over the Virgin; to-day a star prepares to bring forth the Sun. To-day Heaven greets the earth, an Angel salutes a Maid ; and to-day Infinity shelters in her womb. To-day the divine praises are celebrated by the angelic choirs ; and to-day the whole world rejoices by reason of the exceeding joy at the coming of Christ through the overshadowing of the Spirit.

When we see of what unprecedented and unexampled incentives to pride the blessed Virgin was the object—when we turn our eyes to the giddy pinnacle of her elevation above all other mortals, the half-celestial level on which she comported herself with such quiet grace and dignified propriety-when we regard these things, we at once comprehend how it should be that the humility of the Maid-Mother has always been reckoned, if not her most illustrious, at least as her most exemplary, because her most difficult, virtue. Humility, indeed, was the typical virtue which we saw suggested by her conduct at the Purification, when it was displayed in association with such a reverence for Law as shrank from availing itself of a just and reasonable exemption. To-day, on the Feast of the Annunciation, we see the same humility in alliance with an entire deference and submission to the will of Heaven. Already she is a partaker of the mind of Jesus. The spirit of Christ in the depths of His singular agony is the spirit of Mary at the summit of her singular blessedness. 'Not My will, but Thine, be done!' is the analogue of 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy word!'

The poetry of submission, that is, of a baptized stoicism, which takes for its motto, 'Thy will be done!' is, as is natural in a world of crosses and sufferings, of very plentiful occurrence, and of very popular appreciation. There is no one to whose heart and experience such poetry does not appeal; and the sentiments it fosters and enunciates are equally due to God, and expedient in man. Towards the Infinite and infinitely Powerful, the discerning feeble and finite can hold but one attitude. In transcribing a single representative of this kind of poetry it is our wish to present excellence as thorough as possible, without risking the offence of offering verses whose over-popularity, as it may have rendered them trite, would render their insertion an impertinence. Upon verses of the desired character we seem to have fallen in the following poem from Miss Winkworth's Lyra Germanica,' in which it has for its title, The Annunciation;' for its motto, the final speech of St. Mary to the just-departing Gabriel; and for its object to exhibit the

SUBMISSION OF THE WILL.

285

'happiness of the soul that has no will but God's.' It must be conceded that its picture of resignation and acquiescence is so complete as to be worthy of that symbol with which it concludes, of an ocean of glass spreading out broadly, and without a ripple, under the azure peace of a faithfully reflected heaven. Its author was John Joseph Winkler, a native of Luckau, in Saxony, where he was born, December 23rd, 1670. 'Winkler was first pastor in Magdeburg, afterwards chaplain in the army, and accompanied the troops to Holland and Italy. Subsequently he returned to Magdeburg, where he became chief minister at the Cathedral, and member of the Consistory. He died there August 11th, 1722. He was an excellent man, of a deeply cultivated mind, and left ten very good hymns, contained in Freylinghausen's hymn-book.'*

*

Yea, my spirit fain would sink

In Thy heart and hands, my God,
Waiting till Thou shew the end

Of the ways that Thou hast trod;
Stripped of self, how calm her rest
On her loving Father's breast!
And my soul repineth not,

Well content whate'er befall;
Murmurs, wishes, of self-will,

They are slain and vanquished all;
Restless thoughts, that fret and crave,
Slumber in her Saviour's grave.

And my soul is free from care,

For her thoughts from all things cease
That can pierce like sharpest thorns,
Wounding sore the inner peace.

He who made her careth well,
She but seeks in peace to dwell.
And my soul despaireth not,

Loving God amid her woe;
Grief that wrings and breaks the heart,
Only they who hate Him know;
They who love Him still possess
Comfort in their worst distress.
And my soul complaineth not,

For she knows not pain or fear,
Clinging to her God in faith,

Trusting though He slay her here.
'Tis when flesh and blood repine,
Sun of joy, Thou canst not shine.
Thus my soul before her God

Lieth still, nor speaketh more,
Conqueror thus o'er pain and wrong,
That once smote her to the core;
Like a silent ocean, bright

With her God's great praise and light.

Rev. Theodore Kübler's Historical Notes to the Lyra Germanica.