from God and became the Mother of the Man-God — the truth and the life. Eve consented to the prince of darkness, but it was to an angel Mary said: " Be it done unto me according to thy word." Mary brought forth her Son without loss of virginity and without pain, whereas had she ever even for an instant been the subject of original sin, God's words would have been verified of her as of every daughter of Eve: " I will multiply thy sorrows and in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children." Eve came to fill the world with the thorns and thistles of human afflictions, but the Canticle, speaking of Mary's conception, says: " The winter is now past, the rain is over and gone, and the flowers have appeared in our land." She is the flower of the field and the lily of the valley. "As the lily among the thorns," says the Canticle, " so is Mary among the daughters of Eve." She is the fleece of Gedeon, bathed in the heavenly dew, while all around was parched with the breath of hell. Upon Mary, says the Psalmist, grace came down as the dew upon the fleece, and from her it spread broadcast, and was increased by the preaching of the Apostles and their successors, until it became as showers gently falling upon all the land, for their sound hath gone forth into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world. She is the ark of Noe unsubmerged by the universal deluge of sin; alone on the world of waters, a solitary refuge for the remnant of mankind.
Brethren, there is one more text of Scripture from many that might be adduced concerning the Immac-
