“I’d like to love one such as she, but could not if she were haughty or lofty, like the great of earth.”
“It would have made such as thou proud, perhaps; but there was none of the serpent in her whose Offspring was to crush the serpent’s head.”
“Is there any of the serpent in me?”
“I’m not thy judge.”
“Then she was immaculate?”
“Ah, that’s a question for the doctors. I’m too simple to know beyond what is written. I’m glad to know that she rejoiced in her son, as a God and a Saviour!”—“She was of noble family, though her parents were poor,” the priest continued. “Her mother was by name Anna, and worthy of the name, which is by interpretation ‘gracious.’ Traditions of her goodness are many, and the good and great have honored her memory. I paid Anna homage, that of a youth respectful of worthy motherhood, at Constantinople, in a church erected in the year 710 to commemorate that saint. Among others, also Justinian, the Emperor, in the year 550, dedicated a sacred place to Mary’s mother.”
“Then she had her meed of praise, at last?”
“Tradition, though tardy, has been just; but I trust not tradition alone. I easily reason that there must have been much of goodness and womanly beauty in the mother that bore such a woman as Mary. I know that God can bring forth angels from the offscourings, but that is not His way. He works by steps upward. I tell thee, girl, the mother gives her life to her offspring, and in spite of training, almost in spite of regeneration, the characteristics of this parent will reappear in the child. But to my story about Mary’s parents, Jehoikim and Anna.
“Blessed be God, Anna and Jehoikim were untainted by the pride of life, and, though living in a time of loose morals, walked lovingly, constantly with each other, through all their days. I talk to thee as to a prudent, but not prudish, young woman. Society is well rotted when divorce is about as common as marriage; it was that way in Anna and Jehoikim’s time. Why, even the exacting Pharisees then taught that a man might divorce a wife who had lost her personal beauty, or badly cooked her husband’s meat. Jehoikim might have left Anna, for she was childless; that was reason enough for divorcement to the average Jew, then. But their love was beautiful. The man, as was his duty, clung tenderly to his wife; her misfortune making her all the more in need of his tenderness. Dost thou not think so?”
“I suppose so. I don’t know.”