"the Son of Man." And why should we not attribute them
to "the Mother" herself? It has been truly said that mothers are the
natural historians of their children's early days--never tired of
observing them, they never tire of recounting their prodigies; and, in
an especial manner, Mary had kept all things, pondering in her heart
those wonderful circumstances which had left so indelible an impression
on her life. She who, in her over-welling joy, uttered "the
Magnificat," was surely capable, even judging from a literary and human
standpoint, of the language in which the story is told; and the facts
themselves would only stand out the clearer in her closing years, as
many another memory faded from her mind. The granite remains when the
floods have swept away the light soil that filled the interstices of
the rocks.

It were a theme worthy of a great artist to depict! Mary's face,
furrowed by deep lines of anguish, yet glowing with sacred fire and
holy memory. Luke, sitting at his manuscript, now letting her tell her
story without interruption, and again interpolating an inquiry, the
words growing on the page; while, nearer than each to either, making no
tremor in the hot summer air as He comes, casting no shadow in the
brilliant eastern light--He of whom they speak and write steals in to
stand beside them, bringing all things to their remembrance by the Holy
Spirit's agency, even as He had told them.

The story of John the Baptist was so clearly part of that of Jesus,
that Mary could hardly recall the one without the other. And, besides,
Elisabeth, as the angel said, was her kinswoman--perhaps her cousin--to
whom she naturally turned in the hour of her maidenly astonishment and
rapture. Though much younger, Mary was united to her relative by a
close and tender tie, and it was only natural that what had happened to
Elisabeth should have impressed her almost as deeply as her own
memorable experiences. So it is possible that from the lips of the
mother of our Lord we obtain these details of the House of Zacharias.

I. THE QUIET IN THE LAND.--God has always had his hidden ones; and,
while the world has been rent by faction and war, ravaged by fire and
sword, and drenched with the blood of her sons, these have heard his
call to enter their chamber, and shut themselves in until the storm had
spent its fury. It was so during the days of Ahab, when the eye of
omniscience beheld at least seven thousand who had not bow