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MARY THE VIRGIN.

Joseph not immaculate; and some reputed Catholics have confessed their unbelief in the God of the Jews, while they worship zealously the Virgin-mother of the Christians.

As usual, truth lies in the mean. Holy Mary is a character whom the church in all generations shall pronounce blessed. She is worthy of all honour in both worlds, ranks are known in heaven, for heaven is a monarchy, not a republic,-as the deputed cause of our Lord's humanity, the instrument of God's incarnation; as such she may fairly be accounted Queen among women, and foremost in the pure procession of martyrs and virgins. But here we stop no Christian man should refuse to a Gabriel all due honour, but, when it comes to worship,— "See thou do it not:" no Christian man could withhold all reverence from the mother of Jesus, but if he is to pray to her, he demands that she be invested with Godhead.

It has frequently struck the writer, (and doubtless others,) that of all the recorded sayings of our Lord to Mary there is scarcely one which to an English ear does not require some explanation, to excuse an apparent sharpness. The abrupt, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" especially, (although very much softened in the Greek,) is a strong case: and without doubt, the providence of God had a design for our good in that, and similar passages. It would seem that our Lord, particularly in the “Who are my mother and my brethren?" &c., foreknowing the

idolatrous nature of man, had purposely guarded against worship of his earthly mother: at the same time that her superior honours are amply provided for in the salutation of the heavenly messenger, the subjection of Jesus in his childhood, and his care for her when in the agonies of death. Who among the children of Adam has been similarly honoured? And in that brighter world, where Christ in his glorified manhood sits enthroned, who should receive more reverence, such as creature may render to creature, than the mother of the King of men,—“ the womb that bare him, and the paps that he hath sucked ?"

The distinction between reverence and worship cannot be too strongly insisted on. Reverence is paid to another as an act of duty to that Being who is worshipped from the heart, and only for his sake, and with reference to him. Reverence is the branch, which extends to many of God's creatures: but Worship is the root, which should be fixed in Himself alone.

THE TOPSTONE.

HE, to whom, and from whom, all Time dates, the goal of the law, the starting-place of the gospel, the fulfilment of the old covenant, the beginning of the new, HE, who nullified the curse, and created the blessing, who bound Satan and his angels in adamantine bondage, and opened to emancipated humanity the golden wicket of mercy, was given to us men, and for our salvation, in the year of the world 4004, or according to the Septuagint Chronology, 5478. The life of Emmanuel, God in our nature, was one unclouded blaze of beneficence and purity; the Lord our Righteousness ceased not to go about doing good, leaving us an example to follow his steps: Who hath not heard his report? to whom in our day hath He not been revealed? and where is the character of any intellectual eminence that has not been affected by the simple record of his virtues? Josephus, Antoninus, Napoleon, Frederick, Byron, and Voltaire, even ye are found reluctant witnesses to the beauty of his life, and unwillingly swelling the chorus of his praise: and, O fair company of virgin saints, O glorious army of undaunted

confessors, ye, throughout the persecutions of a Christian's life, and despite the bitterness of a martyr's death, with heart and voice raise the blessed pæan, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain !

But the Holy one of God receiveth not testimony from men. And yet, what shall we say? No heathen could, in natural justice, have omitted such a man, as man, from the briefest catalogue of the worthies of earth; the emperor Hadrian, liberal in enlightened paganism, set up the image of the holy Jesus in a high place among his demigods and heroes; and upon what principle should a Christian hesitate to praise him and name him above " a few, a very few, not all worthiest, not all best," of the excellent of the earth? It is true that such a light shines in our firmament "velut inter ignes Luna minores;" it is true that many here in the train of our King are frail, ignorant, unsoftened men; it is true that our song is weak, the wings of our fancy paralysed, the building hand, that in a bold freemasonry would raise so divine a character to the crown of our pyramid, hath poor skill, and feeble power in such Titanic architecture: but, should a temple in honour of the great and good, however homely in material, be found wanting in "Jesus Christ himself, as the chief corner-stone?" should these our greetings to men who from time to time have done honour to humanity, have no word of cordial welcome to Him, who, while in one nature no less than God, in an

other is no more than Man? Should our gallery of universal worth lack the Grand Exemplar? Should our visioned pyramid be robbed of its illuminated topstone, and not rather hear it "brought in with shoutings, of Grace, grace unto it?"

O Thou, my God, and yet my brother man,
My worshipped Lord, and sympathizing friend,
That so hath loved us all, ere time began,
That so wilt love us still, when time shall end,
Pardon and bless, if on my bended knee
As Best of Men I raise the song to Thee!
For we can claim Thee ours, as of earth;
To us, to us, the wondrous child is given,
And that illimitable praise of heaven

Prisons his fullness in a mortal birth:
Hope of the world, what were all life, all health,

All honours, riches, pow'rs, and pleasures worth, If from Thy gracious face, good master, driven, Whose smiles are joy, and might, and rank, and wealth?

Let no one cavil, if, as in the wonderful picture of Leonardo Da Vinci, the centre of our painting have least of the divinior aura: human adornments of intellectual cornice or poetic frieze ill befit the Stone,