OCR Text |
Show ACCORDING to the familiar old carol, St. Joseph was an old man. He probably was considerably consider-ably older than Mary, but people may have thought of him as being older than he actually was because he enjoyed earnest conversation and the companionship of selected friends rather than boisterous pleasures. When Joseph thought of Mary, he forgot the difference in their ages: she was the girl he had waited for, his beloved. They were espoused or, as we would say, engaged en-gaged which was almost as official of-ficial as being married. His heart soared on wings of the approaching approach-ing wedding day, and then . . . What Mary insisted had come to pass, simply could not be! Joseph wanted desperately to believe Mary, but such things just didn't happen, and if they did, they happened hap-pened to somebody else. Much as he loved Mary, Joseph was a righteous and God-fearing man and while he couldn't even think of making her a public example, ex-ample, he had just about made up his mind to put her away privily. That is, he thought he had made up his mind. In his heart, he knew he couldn't; what would become cf her ... of her child. . . . Then one night, after he had exhausted ex-hausted himself with tortured thinking, he fell asleep and the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream: saying, "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not . . ." And when Joseph awoke, he did as the angel had Lidden him, and took Mary as his lawful and cherished wife. "Fear not," the angel spoke unto un-to Joseph. "Fear not," the angel had declared de-clared unto Mary. "Fear not," the angel said unto the shepherds of Bethlehem. |