"O holy and spotless virginhood; with what praises to extol thee I know not: because Him, whom the heavens could not contain, thou didst bear in thy bosom. {332} Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Thou art blessed, O Virgin Mary, who didst carry the Lord, the Creator of the world. Thou didst give birth to Him who made thee, and remainest a virgin for ever. [Beata es Virgo Maria, quæ Dominum portasti Creatorem mundi: genuisti qui te fecit, et in æternum permanes virgo.--Vern. clxii.] Hail, holy parent, who didst in child-birth bring forth the King who ruleth heaven and earth for ever and ever. Amen." [Salve sacra parens enixa puerpera regem, qui coelum terramque regit in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.--Introit. at the mass on the Nativity of the Virgin.] In apostrophes like these, the members of the Anglican Church see nothing in itself harmful, so long as they are kept within due bounds. Many of the passages cited from the ancient writers in proof of their having espoused the doctrine, and exemplified in themselves the practice of invoking saints, are nothing more than these glowing addresses. They have been responded to by one of the brightest ornaments, and sweetest minstrels of the Anglican Church, whose apostrophe at the same time by its own words would guard us against the abuses and excesses in which in the Roman Catholic Church this practice, followed without restraint and indulged in with less and less of caution and soberness, unhappily ended; abuses against which also we cannot ourselves now be too constantly and carefully on our guard. "Ave Maria! Blessed maid, Lily of Eden's fragrant shade, Who can express the love, That nurtured thee so pure and sweet; Making thy heart a shelter meet For Jesus' holy Dove? {333} Ave Maria! mother blest, To whom, caressing and caress'd, Clings the Eternal Child! Favour'd beyond archangel's dream, When first on thee with tenderest gleam The newborn Saviour smiled. Ave Maria! thou whose name, ALL BUT ADORING love may claim, Yet may we reach thy shrine; For HE, thy Son and Saviour, vows, To crown all lowly lofty brows With love and joy like thine. Bless'd is the womb that bare Him,--bless'd The bosom where his lips were press'd; But rather bless'd are they Who hear his word and keep it well, The living homes where Christ shall dwell, And never pass away." J. Keble's Christian Year. "The Annunciation." Would that no branch of the Church Catholic had ever passed the boundary line drawn here so exquisitely by this Anglican Catholic, from whose lips or pen no syllable could ever fall in disparagement of the holy Virgin, as blessed among women, and the holy mother of our Lord. To bring about the re-union of Christians would in that case have been a far more hopeful task than it is now.