most remotely or faintly allude to any exaltation of her above the other
daughters of Abraham. "A sword shall pass through thine own soul also,"
a prophecy, as St. Augustine interprets it, accomplished when she
witnessed the sufferings and death of her Son. (See De Sacy, vol. xxxii.
p. 138.)

The next occasion on which the name of the Virgin Mary is found in
Scripture, is the memorable visit of herself, her husband, and her Son,
to Jerusalem, when he was twelve years old. And the manner in which this
incident is related by the inspired Evangelist, so far from intimating
that Mary was destined to be an object of worship to the believers in
her Son, affords {278} evidence which exhibits strongly a bearing the
direct contrary. Here again Joseph and Mary are both called his parents:
Joseph is once mentioned by name, and so is Mary. If the language had
been so framed as on purpose to take away all distinction of preference
or superiority, it could not more successfully have effected its
purpose. But not only so, of the three addresses recorded as having been
made by our blessed Lord to his beloved mother (and only three are
recorded in the New Testament), the first occurs during this visit to
Jerusalem. It was in answer to the remonstrance made by Mary, "Son, why
hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee
sorrowing." [Luke ii. 48.] "How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not
that I must be about my Father's business?"--[or in my Father's house,
as some render it.] He lifts up their minds from earth to heaven, from
his human to his eternal origin. He makes no distinction here,--"Wist YE
not." Again, I would appeal to any dispassionate person to pronounce,
whether this reproof, couched in these words, countenances the idea that
our blessed Lord intended his human mother to receive such divine honour
from his followers to the end of time as the Church of Rome now pays?
and whether St. Luke, whose pen wrote this account, could have been made