n. We love her with an interior love, a love
proceeding from the heart; nor should we fear to let this love appear
outwardly. When others revile her, speak disrespectfully of her, we
should shrink from the very idea of acting similarly toward her. We
should then remember that she is the Mother of Our Saviour, and should
ask ourselves how we would have acted toward her had we lived in her day
and been witnesses of the honor shown her by her divine Son. By so doing
we will show her that love which is her due. Our respect, our veneration
for her, should be affectionate and deep. When we remember that it was
her hand that first lifted from the ground and received in maternal
embrace the sacred body of Jesus, just born and just dead; when we think
how respectfully Elizabeth greeted her; when we recall to mind the
reverent salutation of the archangel; when we consider the honor shown
her by the apostles and by her own divine Son, can we help feeling a
deep love, respect, and veneration for her? You see, dear reader,
honoring Mary is scriptural and reasonable.

But if we should honor her principally because she is the Mother of God,
we should also honor her because she is the peerless glory, the
matchless jewel of her sex. She constitutes a sole exception to a
general law. Sin never contaminated, never touched her fair soul. This
is what we mean by the Immaculate Conception.

God created the first man free from sin. But he transgressed the law of
God, and, by his transgression, all his posterity are born in sin and
conceived in iniquity. For St. Paul says: "By one man sin entered into
this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom
all have sinned" (_Rom._ v. 12). But God promised that the woman, Mary,
should crush the head of the serpent. Now if she was to crush the head
of the serpent, it was fit that she should never be under his power,
that she should be pure, free from sin of every kind.

There have been exceptions to all general laws. At the time of the
deluge Noe was saved. Lot was saved from the destruction of Sodom. In
like manner, the Blessed Virgin is an exception to the general law that
all sinned in Adam. Isaias and St. John Baptist were sanctified in their
mother's womb. Was it any more difficult for God to sanctify Mary at the
moment of her conception, at the moment of the union of her soul with
her body? God chose His own Mother. If He had the power to choose her
did He not also have t