V.

THE VISIT OF MARY TO ELISABETH.

LUKE i, 39-56.

The

Sacred

Journey. Luke i, 39, 40.

GABRIEL'S annunciation to the virgin of Nazareth-an annunciation so majestic and yet so mysterious, so glorious and yet so ominous of misunderstanding and ignominy-is too much for the lowly maiden to bear alone. She yearns to confide the wondrous secret to some pure-hearted, trusty friend. Who shall that confidant be? Some female friend at Nazareth? No; the secret is too sacred. He to whom she has plighted her troth? No; the secret is too feminine-too divinely peculiar. To whom, then, shall she turn? Far to the south dwells an aged and saintly kinswoman, concerning whom this same Gabriel has Luke i, 5-25. also made a glorious annunciation. To her she now feels drawn by the sense of a double kinship -a kinship in spirit as well as in nature. To Elisabeth, therefore, Mary now betakes herself with sacred haste. Considering those days of slow locomotion, it was a long and formidable journey for a solitary maiden to take. Yet how her steps must have been beguiled as she passed such memorable spots as Jezreel, and Samaria, and Jacob's

The Homage

tion.

Luke i, 41-45.

Well, and Ramah, and Bethel, and Jerusalem, and Rachel's Tomb, and Hebron ! What thoughts, too, must have absorbed her in her strange journey-thoughts of the angel's promise; her glorious future; her relation to her betrothed; the effect the disclosure of her secret would have on Elisabeth! Did ever mortal perform a journey so wondrously unique?

And now she has arrived at the priestly city. ful Saluta- Entering the house of Zacharias, she salutes her aged kinswoman. Unexpectedly reverential and joyous is the answer to her greeting: It came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb. It was the recognition and adoration by the yet unborn son of the desert. It was also a prophecy of the homage Matt. iii, 13-15. by the Jordan: Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized by him. But John would have hindered him, saying, "I have need to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me?" And not only does the unborn babe salute, the reverend mother joins in the salutation: Elisabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, lifts up her voice, and exclaims, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb! And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come unto me? For, behold, when the voice of thy salutation came into mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed; for there shall be a fulfillment of the things which have been spoken to her from the Lord." It is a beautiful instance of humility. For Mary was Elisabeth's

inferior in age and in station.

Yet Elisabeth

bowed before Mary, as the aged and anointed Eli 1 Sam. iii, 1–18. had bowed before the youthful and unmitered Samuel. Freedom from jealousy is ever a mark

of greatness.

cat.

Then burst forth from the lips of the Naza- The Magnifi rene virgin that glorious pæan known as the Magnificat, and which to this day is still chanted in many of our temples. And Mary said:

My soul doth magnify the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath looked upon the low estate of his hand

maiden:

For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call
me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath done to me great things;
And holy is his name.

And his mercy is unto generations and generations
On them that fear him.

He hath showed strength with his arm ;

He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their

heart.

He hath put down princes from their thrones,

And hath exalted them of low degree.

The hungry he hath filled with good things;

Luke i, 46-55.

And the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath holpen Israel his servant,
That he might remember mercy

(As he spake unto our fathers)

Toward Abraham and his seed for ever.

In glancing at the Magnificat, observe, first, that it is marked by that peculiar characteristic of Hebrew poetry known as parallelism. Our rhythm is the rhythm of meter, our rhyme is the rhyme of sound. The Hebrew rhythm was the rhythm

Peculiarities

of the Magnificat.

of clause or statement, the Hebrew rhyme was the rhyme of thought and sentiment; or, as Ewald beautifully expresses it, "The rapid stroke as of alternate wings," "The heaving and sinking as of the troubled heart." Viewed in this light, the Hebrew poetry is as much nobler than the classic as rhyme of thought is nobler than rhyme of sound. When will our colleges teach Job, and David, and Isaiah, and Habbakuk, as well as Homer, and Virgil, and Dante, and Shakespeare ? Again, observe the intensely Jewish character of the Magnificat, alike in its phraseology and in its reminiscences. Especially is it imbued with the 1 Sam. ii, 1-10. spirit of Hannah's thanksgiving song, improvised a thousand years before under circumstances somewhat similar. But intensely Jewish as both these songs are, they are at the same time intensely maternal, and so as true for mothers to-day as in the days of Mary or Hannah. Motherhood deepens into richer glory in the luster of these sacred lyrics. Once more, observe how in the holy strains of the Magnificat the Old Testament glides into the New. Mary's cadences are the interlude between law and gospel-at once the finale to the old covenant and the overture to the new-and so linking Sinai and Calvary, temple and church, Moses and Jesus. Very beautiful is the picture, this mutual greeting of aged Elisabeth and youthful Mary; it is the emblem of the mutual greeting of type and antitype, of law and grace.

Devotion and

Poetry.

Such is the story of the visitation.

In dismissing the story, it will not be amiss to say a few words on the matter of devotion and

All

poetry. All deep feeling is essentially poetical. It is so in all lands, and has been so in all ages. All deep emotion, whether of joy or of grief, instinctively yearns for the accompaniment of sound and measure. Hence the pæans of Miriam, and Deborah, and Hannah, and Mary; the laments of Job, and David, and Jeremiah, and captives of Babylon. Even the Delphian pythoness was wont to breathe forth the oracle in hexameter. this is pre-eminently true of religious feeling. The truest devotion is the highest poetry. Accordingly, the Bible is in way of eminence a book of poems. And the Psalter of the Bible has ever been the favorite praise-book of the Church. What does not the Church owe in way of devotion to the ancient doxologies and hymns, such as Gloria Patri, Gloria in Excelsis, Te Deum, Trisagion, Veni Creator Spiritus! What does she not owe in way of worship to Anatolius, and Ambrose, and Bernard of Clairveau, and Bernard of Cluny, and Thomas Aquinas; to Tauler, and Luther, and Eber, and Weiss, and Gerhard; to Quarles, and Herbert, and Vaughan, and Addison, and Watts, and Doddridge, and Wesley, and Toplady, and Olivers, and Cennick, and Beddome, and Newton, and Cowper, and Montgomery, and Lyte, and Bowring, and Heber, and Faber, and Newman, and Bonar, and Palmer, and Smith; to Anne Steele, and Letitia Barbauld, and Elisabeth Browning, and Sarah Adams, and Charlotte Elliott, and Alice and Phoebe Carey! Ah! here is the real concord of the ages-here is the true ecumenical.