of the virginity of Mary.  I find it impossible to think of that virginity as other than of deliberate purpose from the beginning, and prompted by the Spirit of God for the purposes of God for which it served.  There is, to be sure, no revelation of this in Holy Scripture, but there are facts which suggest themselves to the devout meditations of saints which we feel that we may safely take on the authority of their spiritual intuitions.  Such a fact is this of Mary’s purposed virginity which I am content to accept on the basis of its congruity with S. Mary’s life and vocation.  Of the fact of her perpetual virginity there can be no dispute among Catholic Christians.

To S. Joseph thus preparing himself to be the guardian of the blessed Virgin it could only come as a tremendous shock that she should be found with a child.  Our character comes out at such times of trial as when something that we had taken quite for granted fails us, and we are left breathless and bewildered in in the face of what would have seemed impossible even had we thought of it.  What was S. Joseph’s attitude?  The beauty and sanity of his character at once shows itself.  Grieved and disheartened as he must have been, disappointed as he could not but be, he yet thinks at once of his bethrothed, not of himself.  How far could he save her?—­that was his first thought.  He would at least avoid publicity.  “Being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, he was minded to put her away privily.”  It is the quality that we express by the word benevolence—­the quality of mature and deliberate wisdom.  We feel that such a man could be trusted under any circumstances of life.

We feel, too, that God would not leave S. Joseph in doubt as to the course he was to pursue, or as to the character of Mary herself.  There could no shade of suspicion be permitted to rest upon her.  Hence “while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife:  for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.  And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:  for he shall save his people from their sins.”

It is not difficult to imagine the joy of S. Joseph at this angelic message.  We all know the sense of relief which comes when, after facing a most trying situation, and being forced to make up our minds to act when action either way is almost equally painful, we find that we are delivered from the necessity of acting at all, that the whole state of things has been utterly misunderstood.  It was so with S. Joseph; and in his case there was the added joy which springs from the nature of the coming Child as the angel explains it to him.  He who had accepted the charge of Mary was now to add to that charge the charge of her Child:  and the Child is the very Saviour whom his soul and the souls of all pious Israelites had longed for.  “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.”  We cannot expect that S. Joseph would have taken in the full meaning of this message, but he would have understood that he was called to a wondrous co-operation with God in the work of the redemption of Israel.