Virgie

“ Worcester was the name of the county, as the court and jail might tell.
Hidden in the sand, like Benjamin's cup in the bag of flinty corn, a golden lustre yet seemed to betray Snow Hill, as the sun rose into its old trees, and woke the liquid-throated birds, and finally made the old brick and older whitewashed houses gleam, and exhale a soft, blue smoke. Virgie heard a sound as of hoofs upon a bridge, and saw, across the lily-bordered river, the Custis carriage winding up a golden road.
"Alone!" said Virgie; "love has gone. Now I must live for freedom." ”

“ Virgie did not reply, but she turned away from the window where she, too, had been watching the receding horseman, with a shy, sweet smile on her red lips. William Heath's last glance had been for her, as he doffed his hat and bowed low in his saddle when he turned down the road. ”

“ So you will give yourself to me, Virgie?"
"Yes," she answered, with grave sweetness; "if papa thinks it is right, I cannot put my cup of happiness away untasted."
Sir William Heath bent and touched the beautiful girl's lips with his first lover's kiss.
"My beloved," he said, "life looks to me now like one long vista of happiness—may it prove so to both of us."
They sat there beneath the shadow of the great pine for more than an hour, wearing bright plans for the future, while the twilight gathered around them. ”

“ Miss Farnum colored slightly, then said boldly, with a light laugh:
"Pray do not think me very bold, Mrs. Heath, but I have been seeking an introduction to your little daughter. She is very lovely, and I am so fond of babies."
While she spoke her eyes had been fixed upon Virgie's face, and she thought she had never looked upon any one more beautiful than this woman who was her rival—for so she regarded her.
She wore a delicate blue lawn, trimmed profusely with filmy white lace; there was a dainty cap upon her head, while she had a few blush-roses fastened in her belt. ”

“ Virgie looked up inquiringly as he paused abruptly.
"I was thinking," he continued, in reply to her glance, "that this mountain must be a wild and lonely place for one like you to spend your life in."
"Yes, it is lonely," the young girl responded, with a wistful gleam in her violent eyes.
"Have you lived here long, Miss Abbot?"
"Five years—a little more."
"So long? Surely you cannot have had much congenial society," Mr. Heath remarked, as he contemplated with no favoring eye the rude hamlet far below them on their right. ”

“ Harvey glanced cautiously around over those whom he could see, and became greatly amused at their enthusiastic reception of it. As the sermon commenced the whispering subsided, and all eyes seemed turned on Virgie. Frank looked past her father, who sat studiously attentive to all that the parson was saying, and he thought at first that she was serenely unconscious of her position as she glued her eyes on Kent, but there was the excitement in her eyes that indicated plainly her feelings. ”

“ While the Virgin was associated with the moon by the early pagans, there is no doubt that they also understood her position as a constellation in the heavens, for nearly all the peoples of antiquity credit her as being the mother of the sun, and they realized that although the moon could not occupy that position, the sign of Virgo could, and did, give birth to the sun out of her side on the 25th day of December. Albertus Magnus states, "We know that the sign of the Celestial Virgin rose over the Horizon at the moment at which we fix the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ And, while the priests with pray’r the gods invoke,
She feeds their altars with Sabaean smoke,
With hourly care the sacrifice renews,
And anxiously the panting entrails views.
What priestly rites, alas! what pious art,
What vows avail to cure a bleeding heart!
A gentle fire she feeds within her veins,
Where the soft god secure in silence reigns.
Sick with desire, and seeking him she loves,
From street to street the raving Dido roves. ”

“ Terrified and gasping I held up the little cross on my rosary to the thing I imagined in the corner of the room and made with it the sign of the cross. But not till I called to my mother did I feel that the awful thing which seemed to shiver at the knowledge of the rosary, crouched and shivered and vanished through the window. ”

“ O Queen of heaven, rejoice, Alleluia, for He Whom thou wast meet to bear, Alleluia, hath risen, as He said, Alleluia; pray for us to God, Alleluia.
During Advent
Ant. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, Mary; fear not, thou shalt hold within thy womb the Son of God, Alleluia.
From Christmas until Candlemas
Ant. How great the mystery of our inheritance! The womb of one that knoweth not man hath become the temple of God! He was not defiled in taking flesh of her. All nations shall come and shall say: Glory be to Thee, O Lord. ”

“ The Queen of the basilica, the Virgin, is the soul of this cosmos, the centre from which everything radiates.
She is crowned by Christ beneath the daïs of the great gable, and this composition, which is still brightened by the remains of the gold background from which it stands out, is one of the most exquisite creations of Christian Art; the Virgin is also on the pier; she is directly or indirectly in every scene of the life of Jesus. Her memory, her legend, her poetry are everywhere: she is at once the culminating point and the humble pretext of all this magnificence. ”

“ Blessed Virgin Mary. — If you love Jesus, you will love and honor His blessed Mother. Be most devout to her and daily perform some acts of piety in her honor. A pious servant of Mary will erect a home altar in honor of the heavenly Queen and Mother of God before which he will recite his prayers. On our Lady's feast-days he will place an offering of fresh flowers on this altar. Hear Mass and receive holy communion on the great feasts of the Blessed Virgin. Daily renew your act of consecration and say the Memorare for a happy death. ”

“ Believing that God Sol was necessitated to remain at his post to direct the course of the sun, the ancient astrologers conceived the idea of teaching that, attended by a retinue of subordinate genii, he descended to earth through the medium of incarnations at the end of 600 year cycles, to perform the work of man's redemption and, having made Virgo of the Zodiac the mother of the Solar divinity, they taught in their allegorical Astronomy, or scriptures, that his incarnations were born of a Virgin. ”

“ History attests that they have been continued from age to age, for the glory of religion and the edification of the faithful. Among these heavenly apparitions, those of the Blessed Virgin occupy a prominent place, and have been an abundant source of blessing to the world. As the traveller journeys over that part of the earth which has been the home of Christianity, he everywhere meets temples consecrated to the Mother of God; and many of them owe their origin to an apparition of the Queen of heaven. ”

“ Virgil creates a new ideal of happiness for the contemplation of his countrymen by combining the old realistic delight in the husbandman’s life with the imaginative longing for the peace and innocence of a Saturnian Age, and with that new delight in the living beauty of the world and in the charm of ancient memories which it was his especial office to communicate. ”

“ Scarce spake I, suddenly the bays divine
Shook, and a trembling seized the temple door.
The mountain heaves, and from the opening shrine
Loud moans the tripod. Prostrate on the floor
We hear a voice; 'Brave hearts, the land that bore
Your sires shall nurse their Dardan sons again.
Seek out your ancient mother; from her shore
Through all the world the Æneian house shall reign, 109 And sons of sons unborn the lasting line sustain.'
XIV . ”

“ But the four medallions of Christ, the Madonna, St. John the Baptist and St. Francis, which ornament the centre of the nave, are among the most beautiful things in the church, and quite perfect as decoration. At each corner of the spandrels stands an angel upon a globe, with wings uplifted, delicate in outline and brilliantly coloured, while the whole is bordered by the most exquisite design of blossoms and green foliage rising out of slender vases, which mingle with cupids, angels, winged horses and rabbits on a dull red ground. ”

“ At the feast of Christmas, the Roman catholics have exhibited in their churches a cradle, with an image of an infant in it, which is rocked with great seeming devotion; and on Good-Friday they have the figure of our Saviour on the cross, and then they perform the service which they call the Tenebres; having abundance of lighted candles, all of which they extinguish one by one, after which the body is taken down from the cross and put into a sepulchre, and men stand to watch it. ”

“ In Fra Angelico's 'Coronation of the Virgin,' to the right and left of the isolated knoll on which Christ sits under a carved stone canopy, placing the crown He holds with both hands on His Mother's bowed head, we see a perfect espalier of Apostles, Saints, and Patriarchs, rising in close and crowded ramification at the lower part of the panel, to burst into a luxuriant blossoming of angels relieved against the blue sky, their heads in a sunshine of glories. ”

“ HAIL, Mary, full of sorrows, the Crucified is with thee; tearful art thou amongst women, and tearful is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of the Crucified, give tears to us, crucifiers of thy Son, now and at the hour of our death. ”

“ He himself set up in
the grove this altar, which shall ever be named by us
the greatest, and shall ever be the greatest in truth.
Come then, warriors, and in honour of worth so glorious 10
wreathe your locks with leaves, and present in your hands
brimming cups, and invoke our common deity, and pour
libations with gladness of heart.” As he ended, the white-green
poplar cast its Herculean shade over his locks and
hung down with a festoon of leaves, and the sacred goblet 15
charged his hand. At once all with glad hearts pour
libations on the board and make prayers to heaven. ”

“ LET us prostrate ourselves before the majesty of the most Holy Trinity, and, uniting our dispositions with those of our Blessed Lady and the holy Apostles in the upper room at Jerusalem, let us say one Our Father and one Hail Mary, in honour of the transfiguration and ascension of our most dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the ineffable love of the Holy Ghost in all his manifestations to his creatures. ”

“ Virgil here has ceased to be his guide; but Beatrice, robed in celestial loveliness, conducts him from circle to circle, and explains the sublimest doctrines and resolves his mortal doubts,—the object still of his adoration, and inferior only to the mother of our Lord, regina angelorum, mater carissima, whom the Church even then devoutly worshipped, and to whom the greatest sages prayed. ”

“ Ceres the lawgiver, to Phœbus, and to father Lyæus [171] —above 5
all to Juno, who makes marriage bonds her care.
Dido herself, in all her beauty, takes a goblet in her
hand, and pours it out full between the horns of a heifer
of gleaming white, or moves majestic in the presence of
the gods towards the richly-laden altars, and solemnizes 10
the day with offerings, and gazing greedily on the victims’
opened breasts, consults the entrails yet quivering with
life. Alas! how blind are the eyes of seers! What can
vows, what can temples do for the madness of love? ”

“ Herself, the holy cake in her pure hands, hard by the altars, with one foot unshod and garments flowing loose, she invokes the gods ere she die, and the stars that know of doom; then prays to whatsoever deity looks in righteousness and remembrance on lovers ill allied. ”

“ None of the Latin poets your fellows, or none but Virgil, seem to me to have known so well as you, Horace, how happy and fortunate a thing it was to be born in Italy. You do not say so, like your Virgil, in one splendid passage, numbering the glories of the land as a lover might count the perfections of his mistress. But the sentiment is ever in your heart and often on your lips. ”

“ In the astronomical records of every age and race extant we find references to the constellation of the Virgin, and there is every reason to believe that it was one of the first star groups to receive a name.
On the ancient maps, the Virgin is generally represented as a woman with wings, in a walking attitude. In her left hand she bears a head of wheat, or ear of corn, which is marked by the brilliant first magnitude star Spica. ”

“ The springers are arranged to form canopies over a series of sixteen figures—Angels, Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs and Holy Church, the Archangel Gabriel and the Blessed Virgin in the Annunciation flanking the east window. The head of our Lord crowns the eastern vault, and in the surrounding bosses angels bear the emblems of the Passion. The Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, surrounded by angels bearing the insignia of the various learned societies with which the donors are associated, decorate the western bay. ”

“ The religious sentiment of the age forbade the portrayal of any sign of decrepitude in the Virgin even at the hour of her death, and except for the substitution of the palm for the lily and the reversal of the usual places of the figures, the Virgin being placed on the left and the angel on the right, it would be difficult to distinguish the scene where the Virgin receives the news of her approaching death, from that in which her approaching motherhood is announced to her. ”

“ The identity of Ceres, the goddess of the harvest, with this star group quite evident. This figure of the fruitful Virgin was placed in the zodiac as emblematic of the harvest season because the sun is in those stars at that time. The word 'Virgo' originally implied not only a Virgin but any virtuous matron. By an astronomical allegory, the Virgin of August became a goddess who descended to the earth, presided over the harvest, taught mankind agriculture, and was worshipped under various names. ”