uman--woman.

Jesus Christ was to be born of mortal woman, but was not directly the
offspring of mortal man, except so far as His mother was the daughter of
both man and woman. In our Lord alone has been fulfilled the word of God
spoken in relation to the fall of Adam, that the _seed of the woman_
should have power to overcome Satan by bruising the serpent's head.[203]

In respect to place, condition, and general environment, Gabriel's
annunciation to Zacharias offers strong contrast to the delivery of his
message to Mary. The prospective forerunner of the Lord was announced to
his father within the magnificent temple, and in a place the most
exclusively sacred save one other in the Holy House, under the light
shed from the golden candlestick, and further illumined by the glow of
living coals on the altar of gold; the Messiah was announced to His
mother in a small town far from the capital and the temple, most
probably within the walls of a simple Galilean cottage.

MARY'S VISIT TO HER COUSIN ELISABETH.

It was natural that Mary, left now to herself with a secret in her soul,
holier, greater, and more thrilling than any ever borne before or since,
should seek companionship, and that of some one of her own sex, in whom
she could confide, from whom she might hope to derive comfort and
support, and to whom it would be not wrong to tell what at that time was
probably known to no mortal save herself. Her heavenly visitant had
indeed suggested all this in his mention of Elisabeth, Mary's cousin,
herself a subject of unusual blessing, and a woman through whom another
miracle of God had been wrought. Mary set out with haste from Nazareth
for the hill country of Judea, on a journey of about a hundred miles if
the traditional account be true that the little town of Juttah was the
home of Zacharias. There was mutual joy in the meeting between Mary the
youthful virgin, and Elisabeth, already well advanced in life. From what
of Gabriel's words her husband had communicated, Elisabeth must have
known that the approaching birth of her son would soon be followed by
that of the Messiah, and that therefore the day for which Israel had
waited and prayed through the long dark centuries was about to dawn.
When Mary's salutation fell upon her ears, the Holy Ghost bore witness
that the chosen mother of the Lord stood before her in the person of her
cousin; and as she experienced the physical thrill incident to the
quickening spirit of her