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Show THE BLESSEDNESS Of THE VIRGIN MOTHER The Model of the Wedded and the free-Woman, free-Woman, Loving Christ Only, and Devoting Her Life in Ministering to Affliced Humanity, is the Heavenliest Image of God's Love and Mercy. To take the most obvious view of the subject. wb:if profound influence ha.s not this new ideal of v.. manhood exercised upon the character and destiny des-tiny .if Christian women and consequently of Chris-mi! Chris-mi! society! The Amazon was the perfect woman ' paganism; and to this type the famous examples ..;' Greece and Rome conform, as the Spartan mother and the mother of the Gracchi. The ideal j w;i masculine ratiier than womanly, and. so far, lain- and without general effectiveness. Heroic and . I ive courage is the virtue of men more than of j voiiHii. Woman is abler to suffer, and man to act; I "d hence meekness, patience, humility, modesty, faith and love are the virtues which most become j ii r: as courage, truth and candor are the comple ments of manliness. Man trusts more to knowl- Iedjro; woman, to love, lie is greater by the mind; slm. by the heart. lie is the type, of God's creative , power and wisdom; she, of His all-enduring love ! ( and mercy. Jle, by nature, is more pagan; she, i mure Christian; and St. Ambrose teaches that her fault was less in the original fall, as her bearing I was beyond dispute the more generous. Hence God chose a woman to bear to man the Christ; 'and having mice given Him to us through her. says I liossuet, this order remains forever and for all. I .A a mother's love brought Christ into the world. I so they who love Him are taught by a mother's I heart. What a noble part in Christian history does I not woman play, from the pure and spotless Mary to that other one, all sin-defiled, whose burning tears of love washed her guilt away! I The whole life of our Blessed Lord is attended I by the ministries of holy women. Their love holds i tlitim true in His hour of agony, when men had fled ' .-sway and God Himself had seemed to forsake His Son: and that same love reveals Him first to wo- j man's eyes in His risen and immortal life. Jii that awful struggle, in which for centuries j it was contended whether Love and Faith or 3 Force and Knowledge are the stronger, women I crowded the bloody arena and bore fearless and I triumphant the martyr's palm; and in the final t victory, when the Cross was advanced high up 1 above all earthly dignities, St. Helena led the way for Constantino. Could anything be more touching touch-ing or leautiful than the characters of St. Agnes and St. Cecilia so pure, so innocent, so gentle, so unconscious in their invincible strength? Who has ever suffered with more patient and enduring fortitude than St. Blandina? St. Perpetua was i' rn by the horns of a wild bull, and her last movement move-ment when' she had been thrown upon the ground I wa- to draw together her dress; her perfect purity triumphing over the agony of the most frightful I death. St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Basil, St. ! 1irysotom and St. Gregory Xazianzen owed the depth of their religious faith and character to the example and teaching of holy women. And who f' e,in ,-vcr forget the faithful band of Koman ma-iron ma-iron va gathered about St. Jerome, and whose Iiiamev lie has made immortal ? Paula above all. who to a fortitude of soul worthy of her Aemilian hl"ol added the tenderest and sweetest graces of Christian character, remains forever the perfect 1. ,,' ii true and noble woman. In giving to chastity a new value, the Church imvo to woman a higher power and a new mission. I'liiity of mind and conduct is not only her ei 'vn and glory: it is also her strength and sure i- fence. Whatever heightens the delicacy of the vaercj feeling of modesty, fortifies morality and .-'i'Toimds woman with a sanctity more inviolable ifii any legal enactments. King Arthur made : lo- knights lay their hands in his and swear: ' i i lo eal sweet lives in purest chastity; I o love one maiden only, cleave to her And worship her by years of noble deeds ("ntil ihey ivon her. For indeed I know ('i no more subtle master under heaven I ban is the maiden passion for a maid, N'ot unly to keep down the base in man, Mm teach high thought, and amiable words. And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man. . - I' is- impossible to believe that virginity is a I i ike virtue without at once thinking more v " liily of woman. Sensuality and love, though : -'(rioiisly related, are contrary as religion and. ! ' 1 " :t i 1 ioi 1. The baser passion grows upon the J- of iK. fin virtue. Woman, like religion, : to what is highest in man. Her power ' r i.itn is that of sentiment, and to seek to place mi rivalry with him in the rude business of life 01 aim worthy of an atheistic and material ago. l or woman is not undevelopt man. lint diverse. Could we make her as the man, Sweet love wore .-lain: his dearest bond is this, ot like to like, but like in difference. Vjieu I hear a woman use intellectual argu-i argu-i ' Ms J dismayed. Her best, reason, as it is 1 world's lust, is the inspiration of a pure and j I ' oevinjr )f.art. sle is happiest when she devotes I "self, olwdicnt to her patient and unselfish na- I ' l!' . t some loved being or high cause; and glory --elf. s;lvs la,anie de Stael, would be for her j ' splendid mourning-suit for happiness de- (,nr Blessed Lord has dwelt with most em-1 em-1 n-'-is upon virtues which are, above all, womanly " i-mity. meekness, obedience, faith and love. 1-ie-M-d are the clean of heart! Blessed are the I""T in spiril! Blessed are the meek! Blessed , tlv the merciful! And when He speaks of cour- J'" and strength it is not of the human sort, but that which comes of humble, loving trust in I "Let not your heart be troubled." He said. ! -j'' " believe in God, believe also in' Me." He doe's h'A -ialt intellect and enterprise and heroic dar- I i y i t' ' ' i ' j r. -.'. r ; ' ; At morn, at noon, at twilight dim, j , - . j Thy grace did guide to thine and Maria, thou hast heard my hymn; h ' . thee" In joy and woe, in good and ill, "f V ' " . ) Now, when storms of fate o'ercast Mother of God, be with me stilL j : ' ' - ' rkly my present and my past, When the hours flew brightly by, j X . ' V- Let my future radiant shine And not a cloud obscured the sky, t : ' " - " j With sweet hopes of thee and thine. My soul, lest it should truant be, v . ' ' fc ' -Edgar Allen Poa. i r J ing, but gentleness and lovingness and sweet chas-i chas-i tity. The strong will always be bold and eager, j They will protect themselves. He clothed the weak j in heavenly panoply when He placed purity above j strength and humility above pride. I Now. of this true womanly phase of Christianity Christian-ity the Blessed Virgin is forever the ideal. Mother and Virgin, she is the model of the wedded and the free; and. like all best things, she is near to the level of our common nature. She is no fine lady, she is no worldly queen. The peasant mother toiling toil-ing beneath, her thatched, roof, knows such was M ary s lot. She makes us content wiih quiet virtue, with common life and familiar things. They are the best, and they are near to ajl. God's Mother sat by her spinning-wheel, and angels watched near her. Of the 'higher life of perfect purity, she is equally the model. The moment virginity is preached as a virtue, women will be found to embrace em-brace it, all the more gladly because it is possible only through self-denial. And woman, without father or mother or brother or sister, loving Christ only, and the children whom He loved, and the poor and the sick, is the heavenliest image- of God's charity and tender mercy that walks the earth. "Whatsoever ye have done to one of these," He said, "ye have done to Me." And nearly always it is a woman's hand that ministers to Christ. How poorly inspired was Protestantism! It knew not woman's nature. How could it. when it mistook human nature '. Controversies, arguings, doubts.' schisms and sects give no joy to woman. She yearns for a certain faith to lean upon, and a great and holy cause to which she may give herself. Protestantism has never won her heart. "There is," says Mr. Lecky. "as I conceive, no fact in modern history more deeply to be deplored than that the Reformers, who in matters of doctrinal doc-trinal innovations were often so timid, should have leveled to the dust, instead of attempting to regenerate, re-generate, the whole conventual system of Catholicism." Cathol-icism." This great revolution was occasioned by the sins of Catholics, from the Popes, downward. It finally settled upon Bible-texts, became an intellectual intel-lectual process, and was condemned to the sterility which characterizes mere theories, of whatever kind. All its phases are stages in the disintegration' disintegra-tion' of Christianity which is taking place outside i the Catholic Church; otic of which is known as the question of Woman's Rights. The aim is to make woman as strong and intellectual as man. and the-result the-result must be to make her profane and vulgar. For her. above all.' the question of right lies in' the fulfillment of duty. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul speaks of the glory of the woman as of a thing distinct from the glory of the man. Their endowments are unlike, their work is different, their provinces are distinct. If she ape the man she will lose the heart of love and yet not gain the commanding mind. The women who speak from our public platforms are so sharp and unlovely because they ere displeased with themselves. To live in the hearts of those who make the laws is more than to have a vote. And if we must take a gloomy view, Madame de Stael. the most intellectual of women, says: "It were far better in order to keep something sacred on earth, that in marriage there should be one slave rather than two free-thinkers." In any case, whatever increases the real influence influ-ence of woman will give greater power to religion and to the Catholic Church; and I believe that she will extend her sway only by walking in the pathway path-way which has been opened to her by Jesus Christ, whose Immaculate Mother remains forever the glory and the ideal of all women. |