wonders which he wrought--all these were signs, and the unbelieving spake against them, and the faithful believed. Then said the old Simeon to the blessed Mary, "His sword shall pierce through thy soul." The sword betokened Christ's passion. The blessed Mary was not slain nor martyred bodily, but spiritually. When she saw her child taken, and iron nails driven through his hands and through his feet, and his side afterwards wounded with a spear, then was his suffering her suffering; and she was then more than a martyr, for her mind's suffering was greater than her body's would have been, had she been martyred. The old Simeon said not that Christ's sword should pierce through Mary's body, but her soul. Christ's sword is here set, as we said, for his passion. Though Mary believed that Christ would arise from death, her child's suffering went, nevertheless, very deeply into her heart. When Simeon had prophesied this prophecy concerning Christ, then came there a widow, who was called Anna. "She had lived with her husband seven years; and had afterwards been a widow eighty-four years, and served God with fastings, and prayers, and with chastity; and was in all that time dwelling within God's temple; and came then to the child, and prophesied concerning him, and confessed to God." Rightly was so holy a woman worthy to prophesy concerning Christ, since she had so long served God in chastity. Behold, ye women, and understand how it is written concerning her. Seven years she had lived with her husband, and was afterwards continuing in widowhood eighty-four years; so living as the apostle taught. He, the apostle Paul, said, "The widow who liveth in luxuries, she liveth not, but she is dead." This Anna, of whom we speak, loved not luxuries, {149} but loved fasts. She loved not idle discourses, but occupied herself in prayers. She went not wandering through the land, but remained patiently within God's temple. If it happen to a woman to lose her husband, let her take example by this widow.