have been taken away. At the beginning of His life He would have anticipated the lessons

of its end - nay, not those of His Death only, but of His Resurrection and Ascension, and

of the coming of the Holy Ghost.

In all this we have only been taking the subjective, not the objective, view of the

question; considered the earthward, not the heavenward, aspect of His life. The latter,

though very real, lies beyond our present horizon. Not so the question as to the

development of the Virgin-Mother's spiritual knowledge. Assuming her to have occupied,

in the fullest sense, the standpoint of Jewish Messianic expectancy, and remembering,

also, tha t she was so 'highly favoured' of God, still, there was not as yet anything, nor

could there be for many years, to lead her beyond what might be called the utmost height

of Jewish belief. On the contrary, there was much connected with His true Humanity to

keep her back. For narrow as, to our retrospective thinking, the boundary-line seems

between Jewish belief and that in the hypostatic union of the two Natures, the passage

from the one to the other represented such tremendous mental revolution, as to imply

direct Divine teaching.  1 An illustrative instance will prove this better than argument. We

read, in a commentary on the opening words of Gen. xv. 18,2 that when God made the

covenant with Abram, He 'revealed to him both this Olam (dispensation) and the Olam to

come,' which latter expression is correctly explained as referring to the days of the

Messiah. Jewish tradition, therefore, here asserts exactly what Jesus stated in these

words: 'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was gla d.'3 Yet

we know what storm of indignation the enunciation of it called forth among the Jews!

Thus it was, that every event connected with the Messianic manifestation o f Jesus would

come to the Virgin-Mother as a fresh discovery and a new surprise. Each event, as it took

place, stood isolated in her mind; not as part of a whole which she would anticipate, nor

as only one link in a chain; but as something quite by itself. She knew the beginning, and

she knew the end; but she knew not the path which led from the one to the other; and

each step in it was a new revelation. Hence it was, that she so carefully treasured in her

heart every new fact,4 piecing each to the other, t ill she could read from it the great

mystery that He, Whom Incarnate she had borne, was, indeed, the Son of the living God.

And as it was natural, so it was well that it should be so. For, thus only could she truly,

because self- unconsciously, as a Jewish woman and mother, fulfil all the requirements of

the Law, alike as regarded herself and her Child.

The first of these was Circumcision, representing voluntary subjection to the conditions

of the Law, and acceptance of the obligatio ns, but also of the privileges, of the Covenant

between God and Abraham and his seed. Any attempt to show the deep significance of

such a rite in the case of Jesus, could only weaken the impression which the fact itself

conveys. The ceremony took place, as in all ordinary circumstances, on the eight day,

when the Child received the Angel- given name Jeshua (Jesus). Two other legal

ordinances still remained to be observed. The firstborn son of every household was,