represent the three branches of the Gentile world as it was understood
at the time. The importance of their mission was reflected in the
presentation of them as kings--no less persons were required to fill
the dignity of the part. There was, too, a whole mass of prophecy to be
reckoned with and interpreted in its relation to the event, the most
obvious of which was that of Isaiah: "And the Gentiles shall come to thy
light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising."

The Church story is essentially true, is but a dramatic rendering of the
Gospel story. We may however content ourselves with the more simple
rendering. We can hardly think of the stable as the setting of the
reception of the Eastern Sages. Just when they came we cannot tell; but
we seem compelled to put the Epiphany where the Church puts it in her
year, somewhere between the Nativity and the Presentation, and the scene
of it will still be, the Gospel implies, Bethlehem. "Now when Jesus was
born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, Behold, there
came Magi from the East to Jerusalem." And at the direction of Herod,
and guided by the Star they came to Bethlehem and offered their gifts
and their worship. "They saw the young child with Mary his mother, and
fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures,
they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh."

We try to get before us what would have been the mind of S. Mary through
all these happenings which attended the birth of her Child. What is
written of her here is no doubt characteristic: "Mary kept all these and
pondered them in her heart." Wonder at the ways of God had been hers for
so many months now--wonder, with devout meditation upon their meaning.
Where there is no resistance to God's will but only the desire to know
it more fully there is always the gradual assimilation of the truth. S.
Mary moves in a realm of mystery from the moment of the Annunciation to
the very end of her life. It is so difficult to understand what is the
meaning of God in this unspeakable gift of a Son conceived by the power
of the Holy Spirit, and in the constant accompaniment of pain and
disaster and disappointment which is the unfolding experience of her
life in relation to Him. But we feel in her no speculation, no
rebellion, no insistence on knowing more; but we feel that there must
have been a growing appreciation of the work of God, unhesitating
acceptance of His will