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EEV. JOHN HUNTLEY SERINE^ D.D._, ON 



Syrian maiden's, yet within their range also great and 

 wonderful. Joan of Domremy, in France, bears to the history 

 of her own people a relation similar and proportionate to that 

 which Mary of Nazareth, in Galilee, bears to the race of man. 

 Each became mother of a deliverance. And if there seem no 

 measure of their respective deeds, if Joan's battles and Mary's 



• childbirth seem at first glance so disparate in character, 



• and so incommensurable in scale, as to make their juxtaposition 

 . an irreverence, a closer look will disclose a spiritual affinity which 



makes the comparative study not only reverent but religiously 



fruitful. 



It is only the French maiden's story which needs recalling, 

 .and that only in an outline in which we can trace the features 

 of the Nazarene. A European nation lies in the extreme of 

 ^political helplessness. The kingdom is occupied by invaders whom 

 its cowed soldiery can no longer face in battle rank, the king 

 'bankrupt, at refuge in a corner of his dominions, and despairing 

 of rescue from his abject plight. A peasant girl (she, too, 

 presently to be known as " The Maid ") has a vision of an 

 archangel, who announces to her the destiny of redeeming the 

 realm and setting the king on his throne. At first she cannot 

 believe it. " How can this thing be, seeing 1 am only Jeanne, 

 daughter of Jacques d'Arc, a yeoman of Domremy, and know 

 nothing about soldiering, nor have even learned to ride a 

 ihorse ? " The Visitant assures her that the powers of heaven 

 will have it so, and at last, after many reluctances, she is able 

 to speak her "Be it unto me," sets forth on the enterprise, 

 ■ converts to her belief the king's broken spirit by a feat of 

 thought-reading which that age thought a miraculous sign, leads 

 'her countrymen in battle, turns to flight the armies of the 

 ; aliens, and redeems the nation's life as a nation. It has been 

 iunto her according to that angel's word. 



There will arise at once the criticism that Joan's story, 

 •wonderful as in itself it is, throws no light on Mary's. So far 

 .as the French tale resembles the Syrian it is a mere consequence 

 rof it, an unconscious copy. Joan's age believed that the Holy 

 Ones could present themselves in vision, and every peasant 

 knew that an angel Gabriel had appeared to Mary. Accord- 

 ingly, the French girl, on whose nature a patriotic and 

 religious impulse had fallen, visualizes that impulse as another 

 angel, Michael, more suggestible to her than Gabriel, because 

 under the patronage of St. Michael French soldiers had of late 

 successfully repulsed the English from the Mount he guarded. 

 And then, after ail, who is St. Michael or what, that he should 



