hrough an earnest desire for information and
explanation, Mary, conscious of her unmarried status and sure of her
virgin condition, asked: "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?"
The answer to her natural and simple inquiry was the announcement of a
miracle such as the world had never known--not a miracle in the sense of
a happening contrary to nature's law, nevertheless a miracle through the
operation of higher law, such as the human mind ordinarily fails to
comprehend or regard as possible. Mary was informed that she would
conceive and in time bring forth a Son, of whom no mortal man would be
the father:--"And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow
thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall
be called the Son of God."[202]

Then the angel told her of the blessed condition of her cousin
Elisabeth, who had been barren; and by way of sufficient and final
explanation added: "For with God nothing shall be impossible." With
gentle submissiveness and humble acceptance, the pure young virgin
replied: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to
thy word."

His message delivered, Gabriel departed, leaving the chosen Virgin of
Nazareth to ponder over her wondrous experience. Mary's promised Son was
to be "The Only Begotten" of the Father in the flesh; so it had been
both positively and abundantly predicted. True, the event was
unprecedented; true also it has never been paralleled; but that the
virgin birth would be unique was as truly essential to the fulfilment of
prophecy as that it should occur at all. That Child to be born of Mary
was begotten of Elohim, the Eternal Father, not in violation of natural
law but in accordance with a higher manifestation thereof; and, the
offspring from that association of supreme sanctity, celestial Sireship,
and pure though mortal maternity, was of right to be called the "Son of
the Highest." In His nature would be combined the powers of Godhood with
the capacity and possibilities of mortality; and this through the
ordinary operation of the fundamental law of heredity, declared of God,
demonstrated by science, and admitted by philosophy, that living beings
shall propagate--after their kind. The Child Jesus was to inherit the
physical, mental, and spiritual traits, tendencies, and powers that
characterized His parents--one immortal and glorified--God, the other
h