the last to join in the festive song.
While she is silent, the notes are faint and uncertain; when her voice
joins in the chant, the song of praise becomes constant and universal.

It is scarcely necessary for me to add that the introduction of the
festival of the Conception after the lapse of so many centuries from the
foundation of Christianity no more implies a novelty of doctrine than the
erection of a monument in 1875 to Arminius, the German hero who flourished
in the first century, would be an evidence of his recent exploits. The
Feast of the Blessed Trinity was not introduced till the fifth century,
though it commemorates a fundamental mystery of the Christian religion.

It is interesting to us to know that the Immaculate Conception of Mary has
been interwoven in the earliest history of our own country. The ship that
first bore Columbus to America was named Mary of the Conception. This
celebrated navigator gave the same name to the second island which he
discovered. The first chapel erected in Quebec, when that city was founded
in the early part of the seventeenth century was dedicated to God under
the invocation of Mary Immaculate.

In view of these three great prerogatives of Mary--her divine maternity,
her perpetual virginity and her Immaculate Conception--we are prepared to
find her blessedness often and expressly declared in Holy Scripture.

The Archangel Gabriel is sent to her from heaven to announce to her the
happy tidings that she was destined to be the mother of the world's
Redeemer. No greater favor was ever before or since conferred on woman,
whether we consider the dignity of the messenger, or the momentous
character of the message, or the terms of respect in which it is conveyed.

"The Angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee called
Nazareth to a virgin ... and the virgin's name was Mary. And the Angel
being come in said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;
blessed art thou among women. Who, having heard, was troubled at his
saying and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be.
And the Angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with
God. Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus.... The Holy Ghost shall come upon
thee, and the power of the most high shall overshadow thee, and therefore,
also, the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of
God."(241)