with hay and grass,
And died for us upon the cross.
Gloria Tibi, Dominie.

To our Lady make we our moan,
That she may pray to her dear Son,
That we may to His bliss come.
Gloria Tibi, Dominie.

Sixteenth Century.

PART TWO

CHAPTER IX

THE PRESENTATION

And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were
accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord.

S. Luke II. 22.

O come let us worship the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost,--we the Christian nations, for He is our true God.

And we hope in Holy Mary, that God will have mercy upon us through her
prayers.

Hail to thee, Mary, the fair dove, who hath borne for us God the Word.

COPTIC

The reading of a story in the Gospels is often like looking through a
window down some long arcade; there is in the foreground the group of
actors in whom we are presently interested, and beyond them is the whole
background of contemporary life to which they belong, of which they are
a part. If we have time to think out the meaning of this surrounding
life we gain added insight into the meaning of our principal characters.
It is so now as we watch this group of humble peasant folk coming up to
the temple to fulfil the demands of the law of Moses. In the precincts
of the temple they are merged in a larger group whose interests are
clearly identical with their own, and whom we easily see to be the local
representatives of a party--the name, no doubt, suggests an organisation
which they had not--scattered throughout Judea. Their interest was the
redemption of Israel. They were the true heirs of the prophets, and
among them the prophecies which concerned the Lord's Christ were the
subject of constant study and meditation. Amid the movements and
intrigues of political and religious parties, they abode quietly in the
temple, as Simeon and Anna, or in their homes, as Zacharias and
Elizabeth, _waiting_. Their power was the silent power of sanctity, the
power that flows from lives steeped in meditation and prayer. They
constitute that remnant which is the depository of the hopes of Israel
and the saving salt which prevents the utter putrefaction of the body of
the nation.

We cannot for a moment doubt that Mary and Joseph were of this remnant,
and that they were in complete sympathy with those whom they found here
in the temple when the Child Jesus was brou