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REV. JOHN HUNTLEY SKEINE, ON 



Joannas, Marthas, and jMaries who " ministered to Jesus in His 

 work," is made very visible in the records. To be " waiting for 

 the consolation of Israel " was to be going on the path on 

 which the Virgin went all the way. In the timid aspirations 

 which stirred in these bosoms there was already sacrifice, for 

 there was the rendering up of imaginations, affections, interest 

 in life, to a purpose of Jehovah ; there was a giving of self in 

 tliis cherishing of the great hope, which " the things that are 

 seen," the political facts of the time, so obstinately denied. 

 The selfish, the worldly, did not " wait for the consolation " ; 

 either they bartered it for the practical politics of Herodianism 

 or instead of "waiting" sought "to take it by force" of revolution 

 w^ith a Judas or a Theudas. It was a true unselfishness and 

 spiritual affinity in these " liumble and meek " folk " of low 

 degree " that carried them tluis far on the way of making ready 

 for Messiah ; aud sacrifice it was, though the cost in pain or depriva- 

 tion cannot in the nature of things be made very visible to us by 

 the records. Here, then, was the seed-plot in which could be let 

 fall from heaven the seed of the life of man. It must fall in 

 that seed-plot upon some one point; the soil of some one 

 woman's faith must be that point, that there may be a mother 

 of the Christ. We deem that Gabriel was sent from God unto 

 a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, because here was she whose 

 faith was able to achieve a sacrifice wdiich the rest could only 

 begin. And I find my parable of a maiden in Domremy, whose 

 name was Joan, helps me to understand the uniqueness of 

 Mary of Nazareth. The world- width that lies between the 

 wistful day-dreams of French girls, of whom no more was 

 heard, and the waking vision of the girl who dreamed, and also 

 did, aids my own mind, and may aid another, to measure the 

 interval between the faith of many women in Israel who could 

 have said, " The mother of Messiah, could it be I ? " and this 

 faith of the one who said, " The mother of Messiah — it is 1." 

 Theirs was sacrifice, if without pain, for they gave of self 

 something ; Mary gave self and gave it all. Their waiting and 

 hope was a faith ; Mary's faith was a victory that overcame. 

 So of her could be born Messiah. 



Yet I think one may look more narrowly into the 

 sacrifice of the Annunciation hour and still get light from 

 Domremy. An act of self-determination, such as was Joan's 

 acceptance of her call, is always an act of self-surrender. For 

 it is the abandonment of all the alternative courses and self- 

 interests. But in that decision of the French girl there was 

 also pain positive : there were the natural homely fears, " How 



