Going back further still, we find the same exception proving the same rule. In the history of God's chosen people special mention is made of five women who, at different times, were the joy and the crown of their age: Mary, the sister of Moses and Aaron, who led the Israelites through the Red Sea, chanting the while her magnificat to the Lord; Abigail, the wife of Nabal, David's enemy, whose eloquence and beauty so touched the king's heart that he spared her husband and her people, and styled her blessed among women; Ruth, whom filial devotion led far from home and fatherland, and whose faithfulness finally gained for her first place in her master's love and house; Judith, who having slain Holofernes, the scourge of her people, was styled by them " the Glory of Jerusalem, the Joy of Israel; " and finally Anna, the mother of Samuel, — Samuel whom she wrung from God by prayers and tears, only to return him magnanimously to the Lord. Now it is a singular fact, providential surely, that the initial letters of these five names — Mary, Abigail, Ruth, Judith and Anna, taken in order spell the name Maria; spell the name of her in whom were focused all the virtues of those that preceded her and those that followed; who was second only to the Man-God. If a greater than John the Baptist was never born of woman in the Old Law, surely, with the single exception of Christ, a greater than Mary was never born of woman in the New. The painter Zeuxis, we are told, depicted his ideal woman by copying the various graces of many models into one figure, and ancient mythology
