It is best to pause where we are in doubt and err-if to err it be -on that side which hails every apparent trace of the special presence and mighty power of the blessed Spirit of God.

To every reader of these pages we can still say, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." At the eleventh hour this is applicable. We are very much in ignorance of what in these days. constitutes the unpardonable sin, but we are not ignorant of this, that "Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost," and that "Him that cometh to Christ He will in no wise cast out."

Christ and the Virgin Mary.

Matt. xii. 46-50; Mark iii. 31-35; Luke viii. 19-21; xi. 27, 28.

HERE are observations not unfrequent in the teaching of Jesus which, referring to existing persons and occurrences, have yet a prospective and prophetic reference. One of these is the following:

"And it came to pass, as He spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto Him, Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked. But He said, Yea, rather, Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it." Another reference is, "one said unto Him, Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with Thee. But He answered and said unto him, Who is my mother, and who are my brethren and He stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said Behold my mother and my brethren, for whosoever shall do the

will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother."

These passages, while historically applicable to the cases referred to, have in their bosom also a disproof of a future and foreseen worship. They stretch to future ages and to circumstances then unknown in the Church, but certain to arise and overshadow with darkness the religion of a great part of the visible Church. The woman in the midst of the crowd gave expression to her feeling when she said, "Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the breast that Thou hast sucked." She, in that expression, conveyed, undesignedly, what is quoted now as a proof of Marian worship being sanctioned in Scripture.

The answer of Jesus was fitted to nip Mariolatry in the bud. He distinctly forbad the worship that places Mary in the place of Mary's Lord, and sets a sinner saved by grace on the lofty throne of Him who is the Saviour of all that believe. The reply of Jesus on this occasion was in perfect harmony with other replies on similar occasions. It is something in the same spirit, is almost in the same tone, as that which He uttered when Mary approached Him at the marriage feast of Cana of Galilee, and expected He would work a miracle to gratify her vanity, not to set forth his own glory.

The woman's exclamation on this occasion was perfectly natural; it was not her sin but her weakness. She heard the wonderful words that fell from his lips, she saw deeds done unprecedented for their glory and beneficence; and she gave utterance to the instinctive feelings of her heart, the native modesty of woman being overcome by the spectacle of power and goodness which extorted from her otherwise dumb lips the tribute so justly due, "Blessed is that woman that is the mother of such a son, for never did man speak like this man; never did man do like this man. I envy the mother of such a son." She too was probably a mother. Perhaps she had a mother's bitterest misfortune-a wicked and undutiful son; and

when she thought what her son was, and contrasted it with what this son seemed, recollecting how much she had endured from the undutifulness of one who was guilty of the greatest of all sinsingratitude to a mother; and when she thought of the goodness and the greatness, and the holiness and the purity of this son, she said, "Ah, I can speak from painful experience; I know what is the agony of having an undutiful son; and by the depth of that agony I can see the height of that happiness which springs from having such a son, so holy, so dutiful, so good."

Every wife in Israel longed to be the mother of Him who should be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel. To be childless in ancient Judea was a discredit and a shame. Every wife cherished the hope that she might be the woman in whom the prophecy should be fulfilled,—" The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head." And if she thought that Jesus was not simply the dutiful son of a loving mother, but the very Messiah promised to the fathers, she regarded it as the fulfilment of the ancient prophecy, and exclaimed, not merely as a mother and a wife, but as a Christian too, "Blessed is the mother of such a one; blessed is that daughter of Eve to whom the promise addressed to Eve has been made a glorious performance; He shall bruise the serpent's head."

Jesus, who knew what was in that woman's heart, whether she spoke as a wife or as a mother, or as a sympathizer in the crowd, impressed by the splendour and beneficence of his deeds, replied to her in language which is not rebuke, though it does rebuke what has incidentally sprung from her exclamation, "Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the Word of God and keep it." He admits that Mary is blessed; He does not deny that. It is proper to call her blessed. I do not see anything wrong in a person saying, "The blessed Mary." She herself said, "All generations shall call me blessed;" Elizabeth said, "Blessed art thou among