Zachary

“ I will pray thy God to protect thee. Thy God, is my God. I am called among warriours, Arrowhamet; but the name of Zachary was given me, when I bowed to the baptism of Christians. Thou wilt no longer fear me, when thou art convinced that our God is the same."
"Lost in wonder, in gratitude, in praise, to the Almighty Preserver, I made my orison with many tears, and sank into such a refreshing sleep, as had not visited me since my captivity. I awoke not, till the Sun, like a globe of gold, was burnishing the crowns of the kings of the forest. ”

“ And Zachary said to the angel: Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. [19] And the angel answering, said to him: I am Gabriel, who stand before God: and am sent to speak to thee, and to bring thee these good tidings. [20] And behold, thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be able to speak until the day wherein these things shall come to pass, because thou hast not believed my words, which shall be fulfilled in their time. ”

“ And Zachary seeing him, was troubled: and fear fell upon him.
1:13. But the angel said to him: Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard: and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son. And thou shalt call his name John.
1:14. And thou shalt have joy and gladness: and many shall rejoice in his nativity.
1:15. For he shall be great before the Lord and shall drink no wine nor strong drink: and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.
1:16. And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. ”

“ There are no brassy, east-coast skies here; but always sleepy, soft-shaped clouds, full of subtle stir and change. Passages of Zachary's Pearse's letter kept rising to my lips. After all he's the man that his native place, and life, and blood have made him. It is useless to expect idealists where the air is soft and things good to look on (the idealist grows where he must create beauty or comfort for himself) ”

“ His angelic and innocent youth prepared John for being a worthy preacher of penance and precursor of the Redeemer. O, how lovely a thing is youth passed in innocence!
The Benedictus is the name given to Zachary’s canticle of praise. It is a splendid song of thanksgiving for the blessing of redemption, and is therefore daily recited by the priests of the Church in their office at Lauds. In this prayer Zachary exhibits a truly priestly mind. He does not think of himself or of his own happiness, or of the honour which was brought to him by the birth of such a son. ”

“ At the time when Herod [1] was king in Judaea [2] , there lived, in a small city in the hill-country, a priest named Zachary, whose wife was called Elizabeth. They were both just before God, and walked blamelessly [3] in all the commandments of the Lord. They had no children [4] ; this was a cause of great affliction to them. They often prayed that God would give them a son; but their prayer seemed to remain unanswered, as they were both now advanced [5] in years.
It so happened that Zachary went to Jerusalem, when his turn came to perform the priestly office [6] . ”

“ Zachary had the same feelings, and so had the most holy Mother of God herself. The reason is, as Blessed Simon of Cascia wisely observes, that humanity is naturally disturbed and stricken with fear at the sudden sight of things extraordinary or greater than itself. ”

“ It was customary to give a child at his circumcision the name of some relative, and as none of Zachary’s family had the name of John, there was some hesitation about complying with Elizabeth’s wishes, without first learning the opinion of her husband. ↑ Signs. Zachary being deaf and dumb, they had to inquire of him by signs what name he wished to be given to his son. ↑ Tablet. Why did he write, “John is his name” ? Because this was the name which God, by His angel, had already given to the child. The name of John signifies “Jehovah has had mercy”. ”

“ The answer to their prayer was nearer than they thought. One day as Zachary was performing the most solemn part of his priestly office—offering incense on the golden altar that stood "over against the veil" which separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies—he saw an angel standing on the right side of the altar, who, after he had calmed his fear, told him that his prayer was heard, that the Messias was coming, and that his wife Elizabeth was to bear him a son who was to be His Precursor, "he shall go before Him." ”

“ Gabriel. Zachary is a good name.
Vintner. Where are you? Shew up into the Phoenix.”—Act. ii. sc. 2.
The contrast between Will or Harry, the nick forms, and Zachary, [20] the full name, is intentionally drawn, and Gabriel instantly rails at it.
In “Bartholomew Fair,” half the laughter that convulsed Charles II., his courtiers, and courtezans, was at the mention of Ezekiel, the cut-purse, or Zeal-of-the-land, the baker, who saw visions; while the veriest noodle in the pit saw the point of Squire Cokes’ perpetually addressing his body-man Humphrey in some such style as this:
“O, Numps! ”

“ Dr. Lloyd Zachary, was born in Philadelphia in 1701, the son of Daniel Zachary a native of England who had emigrated to Boston, and who married 9 April, 1700, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Lloyd, Lieutenant Governor of the Province. Deborah Logan says of him: "This worthy man, who had settled in Boston, but had married a Pennsylvanian, a daughter of Thomas Lloyd, upon the decease of his wife, went home to England, where shortly after his arrival he also died. He left one son, Lloyd Zachary, who became afterwards a distinguished physician in Philadelphia." ”

“ Assistance soon arrived, and from the interior of the clock-case (from which the weights and pendulum had been removed) , a well-known diminutive Doncaster tout was dragged to light, the man afterwards confessing that he knew my Uncle Zachary always slept in this particular room at race-time, and that he was sure to carry a large sum of money with him. The incensed host and his household consigned the miserable little culprit to the horse-trough for nearly a quarter of an hour, and then left him to dry in the village cage. ”

“ As the Lord of hosts thought to do to us according to our ways, and according to our devices, so he hath done to us.
1:7. In the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month which is called Sabath, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zacharias the son of Barachias, the son of Addo, the prophet, saying:
1:8. I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees, that were in the bottom: and behind him were horses, red, speckled, and white.
A man... An angel in the shape of a man. ”

“ Zachariah had some self-respect; he was cared for by God, and in God’s Book was a registered decree concerning him. These men treated him as if he were not a person, an individual soul, but as an atom of a mass to be swept out anywhere, into the gutter—into the river. He was staggered for a time. Hundreds and thousands of human beings swarmed past him, and he could not help saying to himself as he looked up to the grey sky, “Is it true, then? Does God really know anything about me? Are we not born by the million every week, like spawn, and crushed out of existence like spawn? ”

“ Zacharias hath been slain, and his blood shall not be wiped out until his avenger come. And when he heard that word he was afraid, and went forth and told the priests. 3 And they took courage and went in and saw that which was done: and the panels of the temple did wail: and they rent [3] their clothes from the top to the bottom. And his body they found not, but his blood they found turned into stone. And they feared, and went forth and told all the people that Zacharias was slain. And all the tribes of the people heard it, and they mourned for him and lamented him three days and three nights. ”

“ First, the birth of John the Baptist, the forerunner, was announced by the angel Gabriel to Zacharias, a devout priest, as he was ministering in the Temple. Luke 1:5–25. Zacharias was old; he had given up hope of children. The promise seemed to him too wonderful to be true; he doubted the angel's word. But the punishment which was inflicted upon him for his doubt was temporary merely, and the bitterness of it was swallowed up in joy for the child that was born. The tongue of Zacharias, which had been dumb on account of his sin, was loosed, and he uttered a wonderful song of praise. ”

“ You can do no good; you will lose your place here; it will cost you something; and when you get there you may have to stop there.”
Zachariah could not restrain himself.
“Good God!” he cried, “you hear that one of my best friends is about to be hung, and you sit there like a statue—not a single word of sympathy or horror—you care no more than a stone. Use of going! I tell you I will go if I starve, or have to rot in jail all my lifetime. Furthermore, I will go this instant.” ”

“ Zachariah did not reply. It was supper-time; the chapter from the Bible was duly read, the prayer duly prayed, and husband and wife afterwards once more, each in turn, silently at the bedside, with more or less of sincerity or pathos, sought Him who was the Maker of both. It struck Zachariah during his devotions—a rather unwelcome interruption—that his wife as well as himself was in close communication with the Almighty. ”

“ Zacharie, on the contrary, lived for nothing else; he would have devoured the soil to get back his sister. At night he shouted out that he saw her, he heard her, very lean from hunger, her chest sore with calling for help. Since that he had tried to dig without orders, saying that it was there, that he was sure of it. The engineer would not let him come down any more, and he would not go away from the pit, from which he was driven off; he could not even sit down and wait near his mother, he was so deeply stirred by the need to act, which drove him constantly on.
It was the third day. ”

“ Zachariah slept but little, and at four o’clock, with a bright moon, he started. He met with no particular adventure, and in the evening found himself once more in a wilderness of strange streets, with no outlook, face to face with the Red Sea. Happy is the man who, if he is to have an experience of this kind, is trained to it when young, and is not suddenly brought to it after a life of security. Zachariah, although he was desponding, could now say he had been in the same straits before, and had survived. ”

“ And if Zacharias' thoughts and prayers seem to have an earthward drift, his soul looks higher than his speech; and if he looks along the horizon-level of earthly hopes, it is that he may read the heavenly promise. It is not a son that he is looking for, but the Son, the "Seed" in whom "all the families of the earth shall be blessed." And so, when the silent tongue regains its powers of speech, it gives its first and highest doxologies for that other Child, who is Himself the promised "redemption" and a "horn of salvation;" ”

“ Zachariah, my dear, would you like to go?”
Zachariah did not reply. His thoughts were elsewhere. But at last the spirit moved in him:
“Miss Pauline, your Supreme Being won’t help you very far. There is no light save in God’s Holy Word. God hath concluded them all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all. As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous. That is the explanation; that is the gospel. ”

“ If prosperity and affliction were the certain effects of God's love and hatred, the constant marks of his favour and displeasure, it would be impossible to reconcile what we see every day, with what we are taught to believe. But prosperity and affliction have other causes, and there is a necessity of their happening uncertainly, 'one event to the righteous and to the wicked,' as well from the nature of men, as from their relations and mutual dependencies, and from the order of the life to the next as a state of probation. ”

“ For he was a man who had contained the full measure of love towards God and his neighbours. His mode of life had been so strict, that though he was a young man, he deserved to be described in the words used in regard to the elderly Zacharias: ‘He had walked therefore in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.’ [8] He was also eager to serve his neighbour in any way, he was very zealous for God, and he was fervent in spirit. ”

“ Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. These things have I spoken that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full;' St. Paul exhorts them, 'Rejoice in the Lord always. Be careful for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God: and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. ”

“ Then the believing husband and the unbelieving wife, the religious parents and ungracious children, the just magistrate and the seditious and unruly people, the good and charitable man and his envious and malicious neighbour, who could not be separated in many of the blessings and calamities of life, shall now for ever be separated, to be happy or miserable alone by themselves.
But whilst they live here, they must share one in another's fortune, and enjoy the same prosperity, or suffer the same affliction together. ”