opinions which we hold; that they would not have spoken as they have spoken _unless_ they held it. For myself I have ever felt the truth of this principle, as regards the Scripture proof of the Holy Trinity; I should not have found out that doctrine in the sacred text without previous traditional teaching; but when once it is suggested from without, it commends itself as the one true interpretation, from its appositeness, because no other view of doctrine, which can be ascribed to the inspired writers, so happily {68} solves the obscurities and seeming inconsistencies of their teaching. And now to apply what I have said to the passage in the Apocalypse. If there is an apostle on whom, _à priori_, our eyes would be fixed, as likely to teach us about the Blessed Virgin, it is St. John, to whom she was committed by our Lord on the cross--with whom, as tradition goes, she lived at Ephesus till she was taken away. This anticipation is confirmed _à posteriori_; for, as I have said above, one of the earliest and fullest of our informants concerning her dignity, as being the second Eve, is Irenaeus, who came to Lyons from Asia Minor, and had been taught by the immediate disciples of St. John. The apostle's vision is as follows: "A great sign appeared in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet; and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered. And there was seen another sign in heaven; and behold a great red dragon . . . And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered, that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son. And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod; and her son was taken up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness." Now I do not deny, of course, that, under the image of the woman, the church is signified; but what I would maintain is this, that the holy apostle would not have spoken of the church under this particular image _unless_ there had existed a Blessed Virgin Mary, who was exalted on high, and the object of veneration to all the faithful. No one doubts that the "man-child" spoken of is an allusion to our Lord; why, then, is not "the woman" an allusion to his mother? This surely is the obvious sense of the words; of course it has a further sense also, which is the scope of the image; doubtless the child represents the children of the church, and doubtless the woman represents the church; this, I grant, is the real or direct sense, but what is the sense of the symbol? _who_ are the woman and the child? I answer, They are not personifications but persons. This is true of the child, therefore it is true of the woman.