Luke's account is indeed very circumstantial, he says it was the angel Gabriel who visited Mary, but although he relates the very words which passed between them, it does not appear that Mary knew she was conversing with an angel; he did not announce himself as an angel, nor is there one word in the dialogue between them which can fairly be said to indicate any such understanding on the part of Mary: she does not appear to have been at all surprised at the visit, private and abrupt as it was. "_She was troubled at his saying_," not at his presence, "_and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be;_" at this salutation she might, to be sure, be somewhat confounded, although she immediately afterwards submitted herself so humbly to her guest. "_All these things she kept in her heart,_" for it does not appear that she communicated any of them to her husband; to him she never opened her lips on the subject; no angel visited him, sleeping or waking, to tell him of it; nothing is said about his "_knowing her not till she had brought forth her first-born_" they lived together in the ordinary way of poor people, as man and wife, until she was brought to bed in a stable, Joseph all the time considering the child as his. Luke's story, stripped of its verbiage, is this:--The angel Gabriel was sent by God to Mary, who was espoused to Joseph. The angel addresses her very familiarly--she becomes alarmed, and the angel tells her she shall "conceive in her womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus." Mary, in her simplicity, asks how that can be, "seeing I know not a man." The angel replies,--"The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." And Mary says, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word." Mary then went to her cousin Elizabeth, who lived at a distance "in the hill-country, where she staid about three months," and then she came home again. Afterwards Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem to be taxed, (enrolled); here Mary is delivered in a stable, there being no room in the inn. A Mr. Le Clerc, a very learned, that is, a very bookish man, made what he called a harmony of the Evangelists; he puts the relation of Luke first, and supposes all that he relates, happened to Mary, before Joseph and she got together: and that she concealed from him all that had passed between her and the angel Gabriel, and between her and Elizabeth; and that Joseph being left in utter ignorance of all that had passed, resolved to put her away. To prevent this, says the learned Doctor, an angel appeared to him in a dream (what does appearing in a dream mean, simply in his imagination) and told him the story as related by Matthew. The learned Doctor says: "Joseph being awaked from his dream, perceived it had been sent by God, as well because Mary, upon his enquiry, related to him what had happened to her just after the same manner as the angel had told him in his sleep."