Immediately after the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary, perhaps on the same day [5], she hastened to her cousin Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias, who resided in that part of Judea called the hill-country, which extended from Bethoron to Emmaus. The purpose of this visit was to congratulate her pious relative on the singular mercy which she was informed by the angel she had experienced, in the promise of a son at her advanced period of life, and to communicate an account of the heavenly intercourse with which she had herself been favoured. "Now theirs was converse such as it behoves Man to maintain, and such as God approves"-- worthy of the excellent characters who met, and calculated to confirm each other's hopes, and awaken mutual gratitude: "Christ and his character their only scope, Their object, and their subject, and their hope." If, when pious persons associate together, they have not to relate the visits of angels, or the miraculous interferences of Providence, it is surely in their power to diversify, enliven, and improve their social interviews, by some allusions to experimental religion, and some interchange of pious sentiment. The Christian world suffers incalculable loss by neglecting suitable opportunities for such communications, which might be eminently conducive to the great purposes of mutual comfort and instruction; for "------What are ages and the lapse of time, Match'd against truths, as lasting as sublime? Hearts may be found, that harbour at this hour That love to Christ, and all its quickening power; And lips unstain'd by folly or by strife, Whose wisdom, drawn from the deep well of life, Tastes of its healthful origin, and flows A Jordan for the ablation of our woes. Oh days of heaven, and nights of equal praise. Serene and peaceful as those heavenly days, When souls drawn upwards, in communion sweet, Enjoy the stillness of some close retreat, Discourse, as if releas'd and safe at home, Of dangers past and WONDERS YET TO COME, And spread the sacred treasures of the breast Upon the lap of covenanted rest." COWPER.