The body which the Redeemer took of his Virgin Mother was not an inheritance of the flesh only, but the inheritance of a human heart and will. We all receive from our parents a heart and will made crooked by a perverted inheritance, in other words by sin. The heart and will of our Lord were clean and straight and without sin. His psychological processes were as God intended them to be—an orderly development from primitive yet honourable instincts moving towards completeness, which is perfection. “The sin is in the will.” There was no sin in the will of Mary, which was simply the will of God, so she was able to give her son what no other human parent has been able to give. The doctrine of the Virgin Birth proclaims that he took from her the feminine principle only—the vessel, the vehicle—while Godhead provided the masculine or quickening element. If he had been born according to nature he would have belonged to nature, but he was born the mediator of two worlds, the natural and the supernatural—“by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary.” Once more the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters, and the New Creation is begun. It was Mary’s privilege to give our Lord all that he took of manhood. She gave him human nature at its best—the perfect vehicle. She gave him not only a human body but a human mind—and she did more than give. What she had already given she trained and guided. Again and again, psychologists tell us, even a good inheritance will be wasted by the mistakes of the parents during the first years of their child. The delicate child-mind may be hopelessly warped and spoiled by the mishandling of those that train it. The more we learn of the discoveries of modern psychology the more we are impressed by the terrific responsibility of the Mother of God. To her care was committed not only her infant’s tender body, but his beautiful, perfect, sensitive mind. Those early years which psychologists tell us make or mar a whole life were entirely in her keeping. It was for her to sow the seed of early impressions, to impart the first teaching. Only the glory of her own submitted will could have guided her through the ocean of her motherhood’s cares—that will which was simply the perfect reflection of the will of God. The spirit of God moves over the face of the waters, and the waters become a miraculous source of life. Above the waters a single star is bright with the reflected glory of the sun. September _Month of the Sorrows of Mary_