-A Virgin will conceive, &c.-In the gospel, Mary appears before Jesus. She does not come forth from the side of the God-Man, but the God-Man is conceived and formed in her chaste body; she could say to him with perfect truth; thou art bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

It was not the new Adam from whom she learned her destiny, and who gave her a name; it was to her that the Most High revealed the grandeur of his Son, and conferred upon her the right of bestowing on him the adorable name of Jesus. She was not only the aid and companion of the Savior; she was his mother, and in this quality, she commanded for thirty years, Him, before whom every knee must bow, in Heaven, on earth and in Hell.*

Heaven did not reveal to the first woman the designs which it had for her; it did not ask her consent; it was without her knowledge and by the absolute will of the Creator, that she was called to share the sovereignty of the world.

God dealt differently with Mary; he deigned to communicate to her the great mystery by a prince of the celestial court. Mary makes her own conditions, stipulates the preservation of her virginity, and the act of the Incarnation which for so many ages had held Heaven and earth in expectation, is delayed until the Virgin has consented to it.†

What human eye can measure the distance from the Mother of God to the companion of Adam! But let us continue, Scripture in hand, the history of these two women.

Eve had scarcely come forth from the hands of the Creator, instructed by Adam in her duties, than we see her conversing with the angel of darkness, plucking the fatal fruit. from the tree, and transmitting death from her own person to that of her husband and to all posterity. The two criminals,

Luke ii. 51.

† Bossuet, I. Sermon pour la Nativité de la Sainte Vierge, III. Point.

filled with terror and confusion, endeavor to conceal themselves from their own eye and that of the Creator. God appears and announces long and terrible punishments.

Mary, after her interview with the messenger of Heaven, had no sooner conceived the Author of Life, than devoured by the flames of charity, she climbed mountains and entered the house of Elizabeth, a ray of life from her entered the bosom of her cousin, and awakened the infant who was sleeping there in the shades of death. The greatest of the children of men, having become the first of the adopted children of Mary, celebrated by a movement of joy his deliverance and the presence of his divine benefactress. The joy of the son was communicated to the mother; Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, lavishes upon the Mother of her Lord the tribute of her love and reverence. Mary celebrates in a divine canticle, the accomplishment of the promise which mitigated the decree of death, long before uttered in Eden, and the streams of mercy which the Lord will pour forth through her over all generations.*

Eve brought forth her first-born, and in the joy which she feels at finding herself the mother of a man, she called him her possession, a sad possession, indeed, a child who is to become the first fratricide, and people the earth with an impious and accursed race!

Mary brought forth her only son, and by the name of Savior which she gave him, she announced that he was the possessor and the possession of the world. She heard the angels celebrating the glory which he will render to God and the peace he will bring to men. She saw with grief, mingled with joy the first drop of blood shed by him, at the circumcision, for the salvation of the human race. She offered him as the victim of propitiation on the altar of the Most High, and the Most High announced to her, by the prophet Simeon, † Gen. iv. 1.

*Luke i. 46, et seq.

that, associated herself in the sacrifice of her Son, the sword of sorrow shall pierce her soul.* Hence with the slow martyrdom of the Son, began the slow martyrdom of the Mother, in the exile which they endured in Egypt, and in the hard and humiliating life which they led in Nazareth.

The Scripture makes no more mention of Eve after the birth of her third son; but her work survives her. The error, crime, misery and death which she introduced into the world. continue their devastations and secure to her name a sad immortality.

The office of Mary expands with that of her Son. Jesus came forth from his long and obscure retreat of Nazareth, was present with some disciples at the nuptials at Cana, and Mary was at his side. Her watchful charity perceived the embarrassment of the married pair, and wishing to spare them confusion, she asked of Jesus a miracle. He seemed at first to repel her by his answer; but this answer which the enemies of the worship of Mary pervert, contains under a severe form, a magnificent eulogium upon her power. What do these words, indeed, signify: My hour is not yet come,† followed immediately by the miracle demanded, except that the prayer of Mary can hasten the movement of Omnipotence and abridge the delay which it imposes!

This miracle, observes the evangelist who relates it, the first that Jesus worked, manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him. Thus it was by the ardor of her charity and the power of her prayer that this ever-blessed Mother contributed to reveal to the world its Savior, and planted in the heart of the Apostles that faith which, some years after, covered the earth with its flowers and fruits.

Mary, during the public life of Jesus, returned to her life. among her people, and was seen no more except at the foot of the Cross. How can the presence of so loving a mother

Luke ii. 35.

† John ii. 4

John ii. 11.

at so heart-rending a spectacle be explained, if her place had not been designated there for the accomplishment of a great mystery, by the order of heaven!

Golgotha is the divine counterpart of the infernal drama of Eden. What do we see on both sides? A tree, a man, a woman, the invisible demon under a visible form. There is the tree of the knowledge of evil, loaded with the fruit of death; here, the tree of salvation bearing the fruit of life.

There, at the word of the infernal angel, the fruit of death fell from the tree into the lap of the woman, and passed from her hands into those of the man; and these two corrupted beings, united by the instinct of pleasure, introduced a stream of death into the veins of the human race.

Here, the fruit of life, conceived in the Woman, after her interview with the Celestial Messenger, passed from her bosom into her arms, and thence by the power of a vast charity was lifted on the tree of the Cross, where, cruelly crushed under the weight of Divine justice, he diffused over regenerated humanity a flood of blessings and of life.

There, the devil crept towards the feet of the woman, and offering her the temptation of pleasure and of grandeur he brought her with man into subjection, and precipitated both into an abyss of grief and confusion.

Satan, at the foot of the Cross, appeared to triumph over the Woman by the outrages with which he overwhelmed her, and the rage with which he assailed her Son; but it was there that the victorious foot of Mary crushed his head, and before leaving Calvary the Sorrowing Mother hears heaven, earth and even the demons of hell rendering homage to the Divinity of her Son, and at the same time to her Divine Maternity.*

But the point to which we should particularly give our attention in the comparison, is this; Eve having brought death into the world by drawing man into rebellion, lost all claim

* Matth. xxvii. 54.

to the glorious title of Mother of the Living, and if it was given her by Adam, it was on account of the blessed Daughter full of grace and life whom God announced to him as proceeding from a mother blighted by sin and death.

Mary, delivering up her soul to the sword of grief and associ ating herself with an heroic charity to the sacrifice of her Son, restores us to life by him, and receives in her maternal arms the family of the children of God, the fruit of the cruel pangs of Calvary. Woman, said the Savior to her, just before expiring, behold thy Son, showing her the only Christian present; and to the latter he said: Behold thy Mother.

Are not these various titles sufficient to establish the rights of Mary to the veneration, gratitude, love and confidence of the Christian, and will it be said that her divine substitution for Eve in the prerogatives and functions of common mother of the children of God is an illusion?

CHAPTER LVII.

DEVOTION TO MARY INNATE IN THE CHRISTIAN.-FIRST SOURCE OF THIS SENTIMENT.-ITS UNIVERSALITY.— CONCLUSION.

THE question which now occupies us is one of the heart rather than of the intellect.

Can a true Christian be found, that is to say, one animated with a sincere love for Jesus Christ, who does not turn with gratitude and affection towards the mother who bore him and whose breast has nourished him! Where is the sinner touched with grief for his faults, and struck with fear of the judg ments of God, who does not invoke with confidence that Mother of mercy whose persuasive prayer smooths the brow