There is often a pause in God’s work between times of great activity—­a time of retreat, as it seems, which is a rest from what has preceded and a preparation for what is to come.  Such a pause were these years at Nazareth in the life of Blessed Mary.  The time from the Annunciation to the return from Egypt was a time of deep emotion, of spirit-shaking events.  Later on there were the trials of the years of the ministry, culminating in Calvary.  But these years while Jesus was growing to manhood in the quietness of the home were years of unspeakable privilege and peace.  The daily association with the perfect Child, the privilege of watching and guarding and ministering to Him, these days of deepening spiritual union with Him, although much that was happening to the mother was happening unconsciously,—­were strengthening her grasp on ultimate reality, so that she issued with perfect strength to meet the supreme tragedy of her life.  How wonderful God must have seemed to her in those thirty years of peace!  To all of us God is thus wonderful in quiet hours; and the quiet hours are much the more numerous in most of our lives.  But have we all learned to use these hours so that we may be ready to meet the hours of testing which shall surely come?  No matter how quiet the valley of our life, some day the pleasant path will lift, and we must climb the hilltop where rises the Cross.  It will not be intolerable, if the quiet years have been spent in Nazareth with Jesus and Mary and Joseph.

     Most holy, and pure Virgin, Blessed Mayd,
       Sweet Tree of Life, King David’s Strength and Tower,
       The House of Gold, the Gate of Heaven’s power,
     The Morning-Star whose light our fall hath stay’d.

     Great Queen of Queens, most mild, most meek, most wise,
       Most venerable, Cause of all our joy,
       Whose cheerful look our sadnesse doth destroy,
     And art the spotlesse Mirror to man’s eyes.

     The Seat of Sapience, the most lovely Mother,
       And most to be admired of thy sexe,
       Who mad’st us happy all, in thy reflexe,
     By bringing forth God’s Onely Son, no other.

     Thou Throne of Glory, beauteous as the moone,
       The rosie morning, or the rising sun,
       Who like a giant hastes his course to run,
     Till he hath reached his two-fold point of noone.

     How are thy gifts and graces blazed abro’d,
       Through all the lines of this circumference,
       T’imprint in all purged hearts this Virgin sence
     Of being Daughter, Mother, Spouse of God?

     Ben Jonson, 1573-1637.

PART TWO

CHAPTER XII

THE TEMPLE

     And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me?  Know ye
     not that I must be in my Father’s house?

     S. Luke II, 49.