"My soul doth magnify the Lord; My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaid; For, behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed! For he that is mighty hath done great things to me, And holy is his name, And his mercy is on them that fear him From generation to generation. He hath showed strength with his arm; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, He hath put down the mighty from their seats And exalted them of low degree, He hath filled the hungry with good things And the rich hath he sent empty away, He hath holpen his servant Israel In remembrance of his mercy, As he spake to our fathers, To Abraham and his seed forever." In these words we see, as in the song of Hannah, the exaltation of a purely unselfish spirit, whose personal experiences merge themselves in those of universal humanity. One line alone expresses her intense sense of the honor done her, and all the rest is exultation in her God as the helper of the poor, the neglected, the despised and forgotten, and the Saviour of her oppressed country. No legend of angel ministrations or myths of miracle can so glorify Mary in our eyes as this simple picture of her pure and lofty unselfishness of spirit. We are told that this sacred visit lasted three months. A mythical legend speaks of a large garden, pertaining to the priests' house, where Mary was wont to walk for meditation and prayer, and that, bending one day over a flower, beautiful, but devoid of fragrance, she touched it and thenceforth it became endowed with a sweet perfume. The myth is a lovely allegory of the best power of a true and noble Christian woman. On returning to Nazareth, Mary confronted the danger which beset her situation with the peculiar, silent steadfastness which characterized her. From the brief narrative of Matthew, which mainly respects the feelings of Joseph, we infer that Mary made no effort at self-justification, but calmly resigned herself to the vindication of God in his own time and way. As the private feelings of Mary are recorded only by Luke, and the private experiences of Joseph by Matthew, it is to be supposed that the narrative is derived from these two sources.