from her third year upward, ft was during the rule of Herod the Great, an Idumean, who had married Mariamne, a descendant of the Machabean line of princes, and thereby conciliated the favor of some of the most influential among the Jews. He restored the temple with the utmost magnificence, thus still further winning popular applause. He also built Cesarea on the sea-coast of the Mediterranean, naming it after the Emperor Augustus, together with other important cities here and there. But, to offset the service rendered to the national religion by the restoration and adornment of the temple, he erected in the cities, by him founded, magnificent houses of worship to the gods of Rome.
It was while this clever, but unscrupulous, prince was pushing forward the costly works on the temple, that Mary was being educated within its precincts. In what this education consisted we can only conjecture from the ascertained Jewish customs of that age, and from the fragmentary passages of Eastern fathers. The " Proto-Gospel of S. James," a work held in general esteem during the first centuries of the Christian era, describes Mary, as seated before a spindle of wool dyed purple. The Jews had borrowed and inherited from their neighbors, the Phoenicians, the art of giving to the fabrics they wove that exquisite purple dye so much prized in the ancient world. Besides this, S. Epiphanius says that the Blessed Virgin was skilled in embroidery, and in weaving wool, fine linen, and cloth of gold. Especially careful were the priests, after the Captivity, to teach these privileged maidens, and all the youth of the upper classes, the knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. What the study of these must have been to one "full of grace," like the future Mother of the Redeemer, we need only suggest to the intelligent reader.
In these peaceful studies and useful occupations, varied by the stirring scenes of the gorgeous Jewish worship, passed Mary's girlhood. Meanwhile, as tradition informs us, both her parents closed a holy life by the death of the saints. Her father died first, when his daughter was in her thirteenth year; and she returned to Nazareth to the house of her widowed mother. When the latter was also called to her reward, it became the duty of her nearest relatives to find her a protector and a husband among her own tribesmen, in accordance with the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law.
S. Gregory of Nyssa, who follows the best traditions of the East, relates that the noble maiden was unwilling to be bound by the ties of matrimony, and besought her kinsfolk to allow her to return to the temple and continue there the secluded Virginal lite which alone had a charm for her. To this they peremptorily refused to consent; and the orphan had, perforce, to choose the man who should be her husband and protector — one who, in the hidden councils of God, was to be the guardian of the Messiah and Hi» Mother, their devoted companion and support — and, through ail the Christian ages, the Protector, under God, of all those who believe in the Saviour.
Here come in the beautiful legends which have inspired Christian art, concerning the rivalry among the unwedded kinsmen of Mary for the honor of claiming her as bride. Among the descendants of David assembled in Nazareth, or in Jerusalem, at the town-house of Joachim and Ann, was Joseph, who,, impoverished, as were most of his kinsfolk, supported himself amid the hills and obscurity of Galilee, by following the trade of what the Gospels call "a carpenter," or what we would more properly call "a cabinet-maker." Among the many thriving cities and industrious populations of Galilee, the art of inlaying was much in demand. He too, like Mary, like the numerous bodies of Essenes, who practiced a life of self-imposed abstinence and seclusion, aiming at a moral perfection above the reach of the multitude — aspired to the Virginal life. By what inspiration, then, was he impelled to be a suitor for the hand of his kinswoman? Or were the names of all the persons eligible for that honor submitted to the Maiden in a list, permitting her to draw by lot from among the number? Having to be so intimately connected with the Saviour in His helpless infancy and childhood, Joseph was, of course, under a special providence; and our own Christian sense must divine and supply many links in the chain of facts that fill up his history.
S. Jerome, recalling the ancient tradition preserved in the narrative of the " Proto-Gospel of S. James," tells us that the suitors, after praying to Him in whose hand are our lots, brought each to the temple a rod of almond-tree, and left it over night before the altar. On the morrow, that which bore the name of Joseph had blossomed. It was a renewal of the miracle by which God in the Old Law had confirmed the sons of Aaron in the priestly office. This is the event referred to as
