and more vast and splendid than the heathen temples they displaced; and that thus, poor, weak, and human as she was, she would be exalted as an object of worship. This indeed is an exaltation which throws all human honors into nothing. What are thrones and diadems to this? What queen so great, though she were the mother of a long line of kings, as to be worthy to be named in the presence of her before whom even kings and queens bow, hailing her as Regina Cœli and Mater Dei!
It would be a long history that should trace the growth of superstition, which culminated in this exaltation of the mother of Christ to a degree that became nothing less than idolatry. In the Roman Church not only is Mary revered as the mother of our Lord, but she is exalted to be a partner of his throne — the sharer of his divinity. She is the object of ceaseless intercessions and prayers. In every cathedral in the Catholic world, the Ave Maria mingles with invocations of the Redeemer.
This is more than honor: it is worship. It is giving to the creature that which belongs only to the Creator. These superstitions and idolatries have produced in Protestant minds a revulsion of feeling, which sometimes carries them to an equal extreme the other way. We are so shocked by a false estimate that we hardly take pains to get a true one. We find it difficult to disentangle our thoughts from this mass of legend, and to form a just conception of a character which is beautiful because of its freedom from all pretension, its simplicity, its modesty, purity, and truth. But surely it is worth the attempt. Shutting out all false lights, can we not, by the light of Scripture alone, form a just conception of the mother of our Lord?
In such a spirit let us study once more the group in this Grotto of the Nativity, and what do we see? A Hebrew maiden, of humble birth, with nothing of the
