"In thee, O Lady, have I trusted; let me not be confounded for ever: in thy grace take me. "Thou art my fortitude and my refuge; my consolation and my protection. {358} "To thee, O Lady, have I cried, while my heart was in heaviness; and thou didst hear me from the top of the eternal hills. "Bring thou me out of the snare which they have hid for me; for thou art my succour. "Into thy hands, O Lady, I commend my spirit, my whole life, and my last day.--Gloria Patri," &c. In the 31st psalm we read, "Blessed are they whose hearts love thee, O Virgin Mary; their sins shall be mercifully blotted out BY THEE...." [Beati quorum corda te diligunt, Virgo Maria; peccata ipsorum A TE misericorditer diluentur.--P. 481.] In the 35th, v. 2. "Incline thou the countenance of God upon us; COMPEL HIM to have mercy upon sinners. O Lady, thy mercy is in the heaven, and thy grace is spread over the whole earth." [Inclina vultum Dei super nos. COGE illum peccatoribus misereri; Domina, in coelo misericordia tua, et gratia diffusa est super terram.] In the 67th, instead of, "Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered," the Psalter of the Virgin has, "Let Mary arise, and let her enemies be scattered." [Exurgat Maria, et dissipentur inimici ejus.--P. 483.] In the opening of the 93rd psalm there is a most extraordinary, rather, as it sounds to me, a most impious and blasphemous comparison of the Supreme God with the Virgin Mary, in reference to the very Attribute, which shines first, last, and brightest in HIM,--His eternal mercy. Nay, it draws the contrast in favour of the Virgin, and against God. Most glad should I be, to find that I had misunderstood this passage; and that it admits of another acceptation[133]. But I fear its real meaning is beyond controversy. [Footnote 133: A similar idea indeed pervades some addresses to the Virgin of the present day, representing the great and only potentate as her heavenly husband, in himself full of rage, but softened into tenderness towards her votaries by her influence. See a hymn, in the Paris collection already referred to, p. 353, &c. of this work (Nouveau Recueil de Cantiques, p. 183).