Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/39

 has it  that  each  divinity  lent  a  charm  to  grace  the Queen of  Love. A myth,  yes,  but  a  myth  founded on a  fact— on  Mary's  creation. She is  that  Ruth whose loving  heart  recked  not  of  home  or  country but only  of  her  people  and  her  Lord;  she  is  that Judith who  slew  man's  bitterest  foe  when  she  crushed the head  of  the  serpent;  she  is  that  Abigail  by  whose eloquent beauty  the  wrath  of  the  King  of  kings  was turned to  mercy. The Child  of  her  prayers  she  gave, like Anna,  freely  to  the  Lord;  but  most  of  all  she  is that  Mary  who  alone  of  mortals  passed  through  the sea of  this  sinful  world  dry-shod  and  without  a  stain. Man may  say  that  but  for  Eve  Adam  had  never sinned; he  may  point  to  his  sex  deified  in  the  person of the  Saviour;  but  still,  speaking  of  the  purely  mortal, we  can  and  do  turn  to-night  to  a  woman,  to Mary,  and  salute  her  in  the  words  of  the  poet  as: " Our  tainted  Nature's  solitary  boast."

Brethren, in  the  Apocalypse  Mary  is  described  as the  Woman  clothed  with  the  sun  of  God's  effulgent grace, the  moon — the  changeful  moon — under  her feet, and  on  her  head  a  crown  of  stars — the  brightest star of  them  all  her  Immaculate  Conception. Alone of mortals,  she,  from  the  instant  of  her  creation,  was preserved from  the  stain  of  original  sin. We read that the  prophet  Jeremias  and  John  the  Baptist  were sanctified in  their  mother's  womb,  but  still  each  was created, each  conceived,  in  sin. In fact,  with  Mary as a  solitary  exception,  every  child  of  Adam  is  heir  to Adam's  guilt. In the  beginning  God  made  man right, says  Ecclesiasticus,  right  with  the  rectitude