“Ave Maria!  Blessed maid,
  Lily of Eden’s fragrant shade,
      Who can express the love,
  That nurtured thee so pure and sweet;
  Making thy heart a shelter meet
      For Jesus’ holy Dove? {333}
  Ave Maria! mother blest,
  To whom, caressing and caress’d,
      Clings the Eternal Child! 
  Favour’d beyond archangel’s dream,
  When first on thee with tenderest gleam
      The newborn Saviour smiled. 
  Ave Maria! thou whose name,
  ALL BUT ADORING love may claim,
      Yet may we reach thy shrine;
  For HE, thy Son and Saviour, vows,
  To crown all lowly lofty brows
      With love and joy like thine. 
  Bless’d is the womb that bare Him,—­bless’d
  The bosom where his lips were press’d;
      But rather bless’d are they
  Who hear his word and keep it well,
  The living homes where Christ shall dwell,
      And never pass away.”

  J. Keble’s Christian Year.  “The Annunciation.”

Would that no branch of the Church Catholic had ever passed the boundary line drawn here so exquisitely by this Anglican Catholic, from whose lips or pen no syllable could ever fall in disparagement of the holy Virgin, as blessed among women, and the holy mother of our Lord.  To bring about the re-union of Christians would in that case have been a far more hopeful task than it is now.

III.  In the third stage, a prayer was offered to God, that He would permit the intercessions of the saints to help us; or the prayer contained the expression of a wish,—­a desire not addressed either to God or to the saint, merely words expressive of the hope of the individual.  The following are some of the many instances now contained in the Roman Breviary:  {334}

“May the Virgin of virgins herself intercede for us to the Lord.  Amen.” [Ipsa Virgo virginum intercedat pro nobis ad Dominum.  Amen.—­Vern. cxlviii.]

In the Post-communion, on the day of the Assumption, this prayer is offered:—­“Partakers of the heavenly table, we implore thy clemency, O Lord our God, that we who celebrate the Assumption of the mother of God, may, by her intercession, be freed from all impending evils.  Through,” &c. [Mensae coelestis participes effecti imploramus clementiam tuam, Domine Deus noster, ut qui Assumptionem Dei Genetricis colimus, a cunctis malis imminentibus ejus intercessione liberemur.  Per.—­Miss.  Rom.]

“We beseech Thee, O Lord, let the glorious intercession of the blessed and glorious ever Virgin Mary protect us and bring us to life eternal.” [Beatae et gloriosae semper Virginia Mariae, quaesumus, Domine, intercessio gloriosa nos protegat, et ad vitam producat aeternam.—­Vern. clv.]

“Pardon, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the offences of thy servants, that we, who cannot please Thee of our own act, may be saved by the intercession of the mother of thy Son, our Lord, who liveth with Thee.” [Famulorum tuorum quaesumus, Domine, delictis ignosce, ut qui tibi placere de nostris actibus non valemus, Genetricis Filii tui, Domini nostri, intercessione salvemur, qui tecum vivit.—­Vern. clxix.]