To-day is the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To-day she entered into the enjoyment of heaven. The trials and troubles of life are over. The time of banishment is ended. She closes her eyes on this world and opens them to the vision of God. She is exalted to-day above the choirs of angels to the heavenly kingdom, and takes her seat at the right hand of her Son. I do not mean to attempt any description of her glory in heaven. I am sure whatever I could say would fall far short, not only of the reality, but of your own glowing thoughts about her. {206} Who is there that needs to be told that the Blessed Virgin is splendid in sanctity, dazzling in beauty, and exalted in power? But, my brethren, it is possible to contemplate the Blessed Virgin in such a way as to put her at too great a distance from us. It is possible to conceive of her glory in heaven as flowing entirely from her dignity as Mother of God, and therefore to suppose it altogether unattainable by us; and as a consequence of this, to regard her with feelings full of admiration indeed, but almost as deficient in sympathy as if she were of an other nature from us. Now this is to rob ourselves of so ennobling and encouraging a part of our privilege as Christians, and at the same time to take away from our devotion to the Blessed Virgin an element so useful and important, that I have determined, on this her glorious Feast, to remind you that our destiny and the destiny of Mary are substantially the same. And the first proof I offer of this is, that the glory of the Blessed Virgin in heaven is not owing to her character as Mother of God, but to her correspondence to grace--to her good works--to her love of God--in a word, to her fidelity as a Christian. {207} This is certain, for it is the Catholic doctrine that the Blessed Virgin, like every other saint, gained heaven only as the reward of merit. Now she could not merit it by becoming the Mother of God. Her being the Mother of God is indeed a most august dignity, but there is no merit in it. It is a dignity conferred on her by the absolute decree of God, just as He resolved to confer angelic nature on angels, or human nature on men. It is no doubt a great happiness and glory for us to be men, and not brutes, but there is no merit in it; so there is honor but no merit in the Blessed Virgin's being the Mother of God. Now if she did not merit heaven by becoming the Mother of God, how did she merit it? for it is of faith that heaven is the reward of merit. I answer, by her life on earth. It was not as the Mother of God that she won heaven, but as Mary, the daughter of Joachim, the wife of Joseph, the mother of Jesus. It is impossible to read the Gospels without seeing how careful our Lord was to make us understand this. He seems to have been afraid, all along, that the splendor of that character of Mother of God would eclipse the woman and the saint. {208} Thus once when He was preaching, a woman in the crowd, hearing