3.05. Elizabeth — Motherhood and Humility

CHAPTER V Elizabeth — Motherhood and Humility THE charm of the character of Elizabeth is that while she was called to be the mother of the foremost man of his day, the most powerful reformer, and greatest of prophets, she had the grace to allow that her son was destined to take a second place, himself but the forerunner of a greater One, in whose rising glory his fame was to fade and vanish. We admire the humility of John, who could say of Jesus, “ He must increase, but I must decrease; “ but even more remarkable is the humility of his mother who could acquiesce in such a desting for her son from the first, and still bow before the higher desting of Him whom a jealous woman would have regarded as the supplanter of her child. If it is difficult for a man to be humble on his own behalf, surely it is ten times more difficult for a mother to be humble in her expectations for her son. This was Elizabeth’s duty, and she yielded to it without a shadow of complaint. We should like to know more than has been told us of such a woman; and the information that has reached us is worth the most careful study that we may extract from it as far as possible the secret of her lovely humility.

Elizabeth was a high-born lady, and she was married to a member of the Jewish nobility. St. Luke is careful to note these facts, calling attention to her pedigree as well as to the rank of her husband. Blood was highly esteemed among the Jews, even more highly than it is among our English county families, where a ducal house that is but of yesterday is less honoured than a plain untitled family of ancient lineage. The priests were the aristocracy of Israel, and the bluest blood of all was that in the line of Aaron. Of this, the noblest family in Israel, Elizabeth was a daughter. It has been mistakenly assumed that Zachai’ias was the high -priest of his time, an inference drawn from the supposition that it was in the Holy of Holies on the great day of Atonement that he beheld his vision. But while this is an error, simply as a priest he was of noblo rank. Therefore the union of the two might be called a marriage in high life. Let this be remembered when we are considering the rare humility of Elizabeth’s conduct.

Though high in rank these two yet lacked the richest joy and greatest honour with which God favours a home. The merry laughter of children was not heard in their house. It is clear from what she said later that though Elizabeth may have borne the deprivation with quiet submission to the will of God her heart was desolate and empty, vainly hungering for motherhood. It is often said that Jewish women longed for children in the hope that they might give birth to the Messiah. Was this the only source of their craving 1 Have no mothers of other races, who have not had this motive, experienced the same deep hunger 1 Surely the cry for the privilege of maternity is an instinctive utterance of woman’s nature. An artificial civilisation may suppress it; indolence, ambition, worldly interests may crush it down; in some cases the consciousness of a lofty mission may fill the place of it — a Boadicea taking her nation for her family, a Joan d’Arc consecrating her life to the saving of her people, a St. Catherine or a St. Teresa wedded to the service of her Lord, and treating those to whom she ministers as her children, may find in such vocations full vent for the emotions of motherly hearts. It cannot be denied that many a woman in less conspicuous places, as missionary abroad or helper of the needy at home, has so taken the people for whom she has laboured into her heart that she has been a true mother to them; and unselfish sisters have, risen to the same noble devotion in the home, and have had their reward in the peace that is given to those who forget themselves. And yet it remains true that the instinct of motherhood is one of the deepest facts of nature; when it is not supplanted by other interests, and the lonely woman sits in the silent home, while her husband is away fully occupied in affairs, she would be unnatural if she did not feel the desolation of childlessness.

Even men, to whom parentage is not so profoundly absorbing a fact as it is to women, know what this desolation means. The most exquisitely pathetic of Charles Lamb’s essays is his reverie on “Dream Children,” wherein he describes how it seemed as though his little ones crept about him one evening, how they looked and behaved while he told them tales of the old days, and how they grew fainter to his view, seeming to say, “ Wo are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence and a name.” But at length a great joy came to this childless house, and it woke up to a new life like the enchanted palace. The priest and his wife were well settled in years; the dream of a family had died down to a melancholy regret; others might have the wealth of home blessedness — sweet daughters, noble sons. Cleai’ly, it seemed, such was not to be their happy lot. And then after all hope had been abandoned the wonder appeared. In these later years of their wedded life a son was born. A wonderful revelation preceded that joyful event; but this was for the father, and Elizabeth could only understand it as far as he, with the sign of his dumbness upon him, could make it known to her. It presaged a great future for the unborn child. The birth of John is only less wonderful than the birth of Jesus. That it was distinctly a miracle perhaps we should not say; but who now will have the hardihood to assert exactly what a miracle is? Nothing is more difficult than to define the borderland between the natural and the supernatural. In the Bible the two are not sharply distingiiished; but this is on the very opposite grounds from the arid rationalism that minimised the Divine, with the conviction that everything is of God — what we call the natural as well as what we call the supernatural. Still, it had often been remarked in the history of Israel that children of promise came by a wonderful birth. In particular some of the most favoured of men were the late-born sons of parents who had long been childless. This was first seen in the story of the great founder of the Hebrew race.

Abraham’s faith, that faith which was expressly declared to be reckoned to him for righteousness, was his trust in God’s promise that he and Sarah should have a child in their old age, a promise so amazing that when his wife heard of it she laughed, though whether from unbelief or joy we are not told; Manoah, too, and his wife were likewise favoured in late age by the gift of a son, the mighty Samson, who was destined to be the deliverer of his people; and Hanna, who wept in the temple distressed at the mockery of her childlessness by her cruel rival, was rewarded for her prayers by becoming the mother of Samuel, in whom as a seer the rare vision of God was restored to Israel. In all these cases the lateness of the birth emphasised the fact that the children so marvellously ushered into the world were sent by God to serve some great purpose in His wise counsels. It was to be so with Elizabeth’s son, who, as Zacharias had learnt in his vision at the altar, was the promised forerunner destined to come in the spirit and power of Elijah “to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for Him.”

It is impossible to say how far Elizabeth, brought up in the faith of her fathers, could see into the mystery of this promise. She and her husband were faithful Jews assiduously observing the customs of their people; and better than that, they had that inner righteousness which is pleasing to God — devout, upright people of blameless reputation. The best people usually come from worthy parentage. When we read the lives of good men we nearly always discover that they were the sons of good mothers. A man’s biography, to be complete, must begin at his mother. In those days of wondering expectation, when the wife was drawing near to the verge of motherhood, Elizabeth received a visit from her young kinswoman who lived in a remote country town far north in Galilee. We do not know how nearly they were related, nor how intimate they may have been previous to this occasion. It would seem from St. Luke’s narrative that the new revelations of their mutual destinies, which had suddenly surprised them both, rather than the association of former days, now brought them together. In the awe and wonder of her overwhelming secret, the tremulous young maiden, so unexpectedly called to the highest desting ever dreamed of by a woman, but in a manner most perplexing and trying to faith, seeks the older relative that she may pour out her heart’s confidences. Such confidences would be very sacred; but they touched matters of profound interest to the world at large, and therefore the outer aspect of them has been preserved for us by the evangelist and clad in idyllic grace. We are now concerned with this as it is viewed from the standpoint of Elizabeth. And here it is that her rare grace of humility is displayed all unconsciously to itself, as humility always must be displayed if it is genuine.

Consider the disparity of their positions. Mary, it is true, was of royal lineage; but her family had fallen into humble circumstances. We have heard of descendants of the Plantagenets in England among the poorer classes of society. High as is the common reckoning of pedigree, so long as there arc the means for adequately supporting its dignity, when once it has fallen on evil days the world is quick to forget it. Mary’s royal rank might be admitted in a heraldist’s office; it would not count for much in that most worldly of spheres, *’ Society.” But Elizabeth and her husband, while both of aristocratic lineage, were also practically and visibly of the higher classes, for Zacharias was in office as a priest, with his recognised functions at the temple. Thus the peasant girl was visiting a kinswoman in a very different social position from herself. And they may not have been very nearly related. It is a mistake to use the word “cousin” as was done by King James’s translators; the revisers are more correct in their substitution of the more generic title “ kinswoman.” The fact that the two women were probably of different tribes suggests a collateral relationship, more or less remote, through marriage. Under these circumstances IMary might have been expected to have approached Elizabeth with the painful humility of a “ poor relation,” and Elizabeth might have been tempted to receive her in that graciously patronising style that seems to sit so easily on some ladies of the aristocracy — the more so since the priest’s wife was the elder woman.

Such being the relative positions of the two, let us see how they meet. Elizabeth welcomes her visitor with a cry of joy. Her salutation is a glad benediction. From her own strange consciousness she at once recognises Mary’s far superior privilege. It is Elizabeth, the elder woman, the highborn lady, the wife of a church dignitary, who calls aloud from a full heart to her lowly kinswoman, betrothed to a carpenter, “ Blessed art thou among women! “ Here is rare humility, self-forgetting and ungrudging. Elizabeth does not merely take the second place, she is perfectly enthusiastic over the young peasant girl’s immeasurably higher honour.

There is even a more remarkable fact. When next Elizabeth thinks of herself, it is to wonder at the honour that is put upon her in the fact that Mary has come to visit her. “ And whence is this to??te,” she exclaims, “ that the mother of my Lord should come unto me 1 “Could humility be more beautifully perfect than that? It is a rare sight and beautiful thus to see a lady of high breeding and rank giving honour to a young cottage maiden. But in this most exquisite utterance of the older woman’s humility we have the explanation of the astonishing readiness with which she takes the second place for herself, so far below that of her young kinswoman. Mary is to be the mother of her Lord. Of course if that is admitted there can be no longer any possibility of Elizabeth thinking of maintaining her own higher rank in the presence of Mary. All earthly honours, privileges, dignities, sink into insignificance and shrink out of view as childish baubles before the Divine glory of the long-expected Christ now about to dawn. But the wonder is that Elizabeth grasped that amazing truth; for this shows that she had not been dazzled by her own singular privilege. That unexpected joy of her own had not spoilt her. She had not magnified it till it filled her heaven from horizon to zenith. She was wise enough to keep it in its right place, and to perceive that by its very nature her privilege must be inferior to another’s. But how rare is this perception! The perfection of Elizabeth’s humility is not her willingness to admit a certain superiority in privilege for her young relative; many a good woman would have the grace to do as much if she saw good reason. It lies in her complete acknowledgment of the infinitely higher nature and honour of the Child who was to be given to Mary above her own child. This is where the difficulty for a mother’s humility comes in; and this is where the fine example of Aaron’s noble descendant commands the admiration of all the ages.

It was her faith that led this good woman to take up her attitude of humility; but it was her humility that made her faith possible. The two graces interact, as they always will. Neither is possible without the other. Humility without faith is in danger of losing its character as a Christian virtue, and falling into the condition of mere poverty of spirit or the craven fear that cowers before a bolder self-assertion on the part of another. That is a feeble and contemptible attitude of mind, sometimes confounded with humility, with the consequence that dishonour is done the genuine grace, so that to thoughtless observers this too appears to have an air of feebleness. Faith comes in to the aid of humility by opening up the vision of indubitably higher claims than any we can make the least pretension to, claims before which it would be simply ridiculous to set up our own in rivalry, and to yield to which therefore can be no mark of weakness, but only an acknowledgment of what is right and reasonable. He who believes in Christ with some adequate perception of the claims of his Lord can never dream of making a great demand on his own account. He finds himself deep down in the valley of humiliation when face to face with the Divine glory of the Holy One. This is a lesson in humility that every Christian is called on to leam. But Elizabeth’s lesson was more difficult; for she had to apply it to her unborn son. Yet her joyous acknowledgment that Mary’s child was to be none other than her Lord gave her at. once the unhesitating consciousness that the son who had been promised to her with accompaniments of Divine wonders enough to turn the head of a less devout woman must assume quite a secondary place. On the other hand these graces so interact that faith is only possible where there is room for the free growth of the lowly flower of humility. We are constantly forced to recognise that the supreme hindrance to faith, the fatal barrier to its progress, indeed, even the deadly poison in the atmosphere infected with which it is certain to sicken and die, is pride. They who have Elizabeth’s beautiful disposition are the most fitted to receive not visits only, but the abiding presence not of the mother, but of the Lord, the glorious Christ, Himself. To come down to Elizabeth’s self-effacing lowliness is the way to receive her Lord into our hearts. The faith that shines so conspicuously in her own character Elizabeth recognises in her young kinswoman.

She blesses Mary for believing; for Mary had accepted the amazing promise that had been made to her, and when Elizabeth saw this she gladly acknowledged the grace as a ground of heartfelt congratulation. We meet with so much blindness to unobtrusive goodness, and so much churlish unwillingness to allow its merits even when they are perceived, so much more readiness to take up the role of the adverse critic and play the part of censor discovering the mote in our brother’s eye, that when we come upon such a scene as this, with its cheerful, ungrudging recognition of gifts and graces, it is like finding an Elim with its wells and palm groves in the desert of worldly cynicism. It would be pleasant to linger over the spectacle of these two saintly women of the olden time in the sweet sanctity of their mutual confidences during those three months before Mary returned to her highland home, and Elizabeth was left to brood over the wonders of the future; but little is left with which to enlarge the picture to our imagination. Elizabeth had given her kinswoman a sort of prophetic assurance that her faith should not be disappointed. And Mary had obtained one object of her visit, an evidence of her faith. Each could tell what would confirm the other’s confidence. This is just the way in which faith is best strengthened. A dull spiritual tone is too often the consequence of needless reticence and lack of confidence among truly Christian people. The enthusiasm that so richly endowed the early church with life and gladness was largely maintained by the warm spirit of brotherhood; for this made the communion of saints a real fact, not a mere clause in a creed, the very meaning and application of which has become unintelligible to the majority of people. It was Elizabeth’s noble salutation that roused Mary to the utterance of the Magnificat Perhaps if it had not been for the older woman’s words we should never have had this magnificent outburst of song.

Some think our Revisers might have printed the words of Elizabeth in metrical form as they have those of her kinswoman, for there is a lilt of poetry in them also.

Then we should have read the two utterances as strophe and antistrophe. Again we might be led to ask the more curiously whether we have here the actual words of two women who, in the moment of high exaltation, were both inspired to converse in poetry and address one another in odes, or whether St. Luke may have given us the fruit of a later treatment of the scene in hymns of the eai-ly church. But the point of importance is that his narrative is a lifelike delineation of the whole situation. The mutual inspiration of the two women, their common exaltation of holy emotion, the encouragement of one another’s faith and hope are brought before us in lifelike characters so as to exhibit their very distinct natures.

Thus it is a noteworthy fact that while Elizabeth loses herself in a wondering admiration of the unspeakably greater privilege that has been conferred on the younger woman, Mary has no return of graceful language to offer to her hostess, to whom not the least allusion is made in the Magnificai. In justice to Mary it may be said that throughout this hymn is of a more general character, and is less directly adjusted to the circumstances of the moment than the words of Elizabeth that precede it. Still, if it is at all dramatically fitted to the circumstances in which it appears, undoubtedly it reveals a difference of mental attituda May the explanation be that Mary was still very young? In youth we are all too self-centi”ed. As a rule delicate considerateness for the feelings of others is a choice acquisition that only comes with years, if it coines at all. We must not be hard on the young, and as yet undisciplined, maiden, if in the joy and wonder of the supreme’ privilege that had been given to her she did not quite sufficiently appreciate the beautiful self-suppression of her elder kinswoman, or acknowledge with becoming grace the singularly noble spirit in which her higher claims had been at once conceded; for we may be sure that Elizabeth would have been the last person to have made any complaint on that score. That she would have perceived it we cannot doubt, for she was a woman, and one endowed with finest, rarest perceptions, and her much longer experience had sharpened her faculties and widened her vision. But then if she did not push aside the thought at once as beneath her notice, in a large-minded charity of soul, she would only have smiled quietly to herself, just a little amused at the childish limitation of the mind of the peasant girl, who she would see quite clearly was perfectly unconscious of any deficiency in this matter, and had not the faintest intention of behaving with rudeness or superciliousness. The Magnificat itself is enough to exonerate her from any such accusation, for it springs out of amazed humility and rises to exultation just in proportion as Mary acknowledges herself to be a poor maiden, to whose low estate God has stooped in most wonderful condescension.

Perhaps we might add another consideration. After all, there is something in breeding. When manners take the place of morals and politeness does service for charity the hypocrisy of the situation is insufferable, and then the honest boorishness of a sound heart would be vastly preferable to this thin veneer laid on a nature that is essentially selfish and cynical. Yet in their place the courtly manners that lead one trained in them to be alwavs considerate of the feelings of others are worth acquiring; for they certainly avoid giving that needless pain which thoughtless people are constantly inflicting with dull indiflFerence to the fact. We will not blame Mary; but we will permit ourselves to admire the finer grace of Elizabeth’s manner.

It may be thought that any considerations of manners are beneath notice when we are face to face with the sublime topics that the interview between Mary and Elizabeth introduce to our attention. No thought of courtier or peasant, fine lady or cottage maiden, can affect the tremendous truth that the one was to be the mother of the great forerunner, and the other the mother of the Christ.

These are the great facts of the story; to ignore them in pursuit of trivial hints or quite minor matters would show a miserable lack of the sense of proportion, and drag down the narrative from its exalted position as the gospel history. And yet in their place manners are not to be ignored, for when they are genuine expressions of feeling they are in some degree indicative of character. And since we are now fixing our eyes on one of these women, and that as regards her desting by far the less important of the two, it is something to see how finely the grace of her humility sits upon her in the presence of the young peasant girl.

Yividly as Elizabeth is presented to our view in the one scene when Mary enters her house we soon loss sight of her, and we cannot even conjecture her future. Just once more she appears at the birth of her son. This is a time of great rejoicing among her friends and kinswomen. In most homes the advent of an infant produces some such pleasant commotion, but evidently St. Luke would have us see that there was an exceptionally jubilant celebration of the long-delayed event in the priest’s house.

Elizabeth had been so sadly disappointed in the hopes a married woman cherishes by nature, that the surprising fulfilment of them after they had been quite abandoned was all the more an occasion for warm congratulations. But the story bears witness further to the high regard in which Elizabeth was held. The friends who come to congratulate her on this happy occasion are unfeignedly delighted at the blessing that has come to her. This is no cold, formal visit of state. An opportunity having come for honouring a woman who has won adiiiiration and affection by her true goodness and the unaffected beauty of her character, it is seized with avidity and the very most is made of it.

Elizabeth has a part of no little interest at the ceremony in which a name is given to her child. It was supposed that he would be called after his father. What better name could be found for him than the honoured one born by the priest, a name famous in the annals of history in both priestly and prophetic connections? Surely then this boy should be another Zacharias, and if the wonder of his birth is a presage of a great future, he will do further honour to a name already honourable. “ Not so,” says his mother, “his name shall be John.” He shall be called “ God’s favour.” There is no family reason for choosing such a name. Yet Elizabeth is not to be overborne by the expostulations of her friends. This is not an idle fancy of hers. Evidently her husband has made her know that the new name must be adopted; and his interference now settles the matter. This child of their later years turned out to be no fond home bird. As soon as he could escape from the necessary restraints of youth he sought the wilderness and lived the hard life of the recluse. We have not a word about Elizabeth in these later years. If she were still living she would have a mother’s natural pride in the fame of her son when all the country was roused by the great reformer’s preaching. Did she, now quite an aged woman, find her way down to the Jordan and stand among the excited crowds whom he moved so deeply with his prophetic words? If that were the case, and if she lived on to the final tragedy, and news was brought to her of the banquet in the gloomy castle of Machaerus and its sequel — that ghastly scene which added its crowning horror to the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea — she too like her young kinswoman must have become a Mater Dolorosa. It is not always a happy fate for a woman to find herself the mother of a great man.