ral desire, that this holy personage, so "highly favoured, so blessed among women," should unite her prayers with those ascending from the world. For this benefit and satisfaction, accordingly, habitual importunities were offered to the great Jehovah. But in Mary's case, as in that of all the departed spirits, through faith and patience now inheriting the promises," any example of direct invocation would probably be vainly sought among the most ancient monuments of English theology.

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Yet the blessed Virgin was esteemed among our distant ancestry far more highly than any other member of the great human family. For placing her claims to gratitude and veneration in the most striking point of view, a comparison was instituted between her and Eve. The great progenetrix of mankind, it was observed, had unhappily afforded occasion for closing the gates of heaven against her posterity. Mary's inconceivably better fortune had rendered her an instrument for the reparation of this mighty mischief. Through the everlasting Son, who deigned to veil his Godhead under a corporeal frame derived from her, the fallen race of Adam was again allowed to hope for entrance into

f St. Luke i. 28.

g Heb. vi. 12.

their heavenly Father's glorious and blissful kingdom. Hence to Mary was esteemed justly due the highest strains of respectful commemoration; and she was ordinarily designated, in language long indeed established, yet certainly of doubtful propriety, as the mother of God. In thus, however, honouring the most venerable among women, AngloSaxon divines aimed professedly at the honour of God. It was not to any created being, it was to Him who spared not his beloved Son, it was to Him also, who, " to deliver man, disdained not the Virgin's womb," to whom praise and glory were avowedly offered, in celebrating the high distinction of her who gave Emmanuel birth ".

Curiosity was naturally on the watch for particulars respecting the personal history of one so prominent in the Church of Christ. Current traditions, accordingly, as to the blessed Virgin, appear to have been generally received in Anglo-Saxon times. It was believed that she bore the Saviour when sixteen, and having lived with him three and thirty years, that she survived his crucifixion sixteen more; thus dying at the age of sixtythree 12. Her perpetual virginity was likewise maintained, but her immaculate conception was denied. When "the Holy Ghost

came upon her, and the power of the Highest overshadowed her," it was taught, that she was cleansed from every taint of sin13. In unison with this wise and becoming abstinence from thinking of any creature "above that which is written," was the silence of our early divines respecting the blessed Virgin's parents. These were merely described as religious observers of the Mosaic law, but an expressed anxiety to be free from the charge of giving currency to erroneous relations restrains the homilist from enlarging upon their history". Equally cautious were the fathers of our national theology respecting Mary's actual condition. Pilgrimages to Palestine had, probably, rendered it notorious. throughout the west, that in a tomb shewn as hers the corpse would now be sought in vain. The superstitious were hence anxious to conclude, that the frame once so highly favoured had been translated to the regions of eternal blessedness. Nor do marvellous accounts, harmonizing with this conclusion, appear to have been wanting. The plain good sense and sound theological discretion of our ancient homilist would not, however, allow him, zealous as he was for the Virgin's honour, to repeat any such legendary tales.

h St. Luke i. 35.

i 1 Cor. iv. 6.

Holy Scripture, he wisely says, affords them not the least encouragement. If men, therefore, aid in their circulation, their conduct is like that of heretics who fain would give to dreams and fictions the authority of truth".

Such reserve extended, however, only to Mary's history. Mere eulogy upon her was allowed a dangerous license. She was styled Lady, as being the mother of him who is Lord of all things; Queen, as coming of a princely lineage; Star of the sea, as having brought into the world the pole-star of a course toward heaven". An anxious wish to connect Mary's name with every distinction earned within the Church of Christ, led also to a claim for her of more than the glory of martyrdom. The sufferings, it was observed, of those who had contentedly poured out the vital stream in testimony to their holy faith were merely physical. But when Mary stood before the cross, crimsoned from the wounds of her beloved and ever-blessed Son, her agonies of mind exceeded infinitely any that ever. racked the dying martyr's tortured frame. If intensity of anguish, therefore, affect estimates of eminence among the faithful, who shall challenge so high a place as our Lord's earthly mother"? To the world of spirits, accordingly, was attributed a full acknow

ledgment of this unapproachable superiority. When released from human life, Mary is painted as appearing amidst this holy company, welcome as the rising dawn, fairer than the moon, graceful above the sun, more majestic than the embattled host 18. An apostrophe" similarly rhetorical, occurs in a discourse commemorating the whole company of heaven. "O thou blessed mother of God," rapturously exclaims the homilist, "Mary ever virgin, temple of the Holy Ghost, virgin before conception, virgin in conception, virgin after conception; great is thy glory among the ransomed of the Lord."

Of such embellishments the Fathers have undoubtedly supplied examples. To veil, however, the majestic simplicity of heavenly truth under the tinsel ornaments of a meretricious eloquence, is to lay a snare before undiscerning minds. It is, therefore, greatly to be lamented, that the spiritual guides of ancient England imitated those flights of a licentious fancy which are among the conspicuous blemishes of their models. In yielding to such temptations, they naturalized eventually among their countrymen usages and principles unknown originally to the na

k Wheloc. in Bed. p. 313. ex Hom. Angl. Sax. in Natali Omn. SS.