of all. Think of that simple young girl in her obscurity having
flashed before her the certainty that her name would be repeated
with blessing till the world's end, and then thus meekly laying her
honours down at God's feet. What a lesson of how to receive all
distinctions and exaltations!

Verses 49 and 50 end this part, and contain three clauses, in which
the personal disappears, and only the thought of God's character as
manifested in His wonderful act remains. It connects indeed with the
preceding by the 'to me' of verse 49; but the main subject is the
new revelation, which is not confined to Mary, of the threefold
divine glory fused into one bright beam, in the Incarnation. Power,
holiness, eternal mercy, are all there, and that in deeper and more
wondrous fashion than Mary knew when she sang. The words are mostly
quotations from the Old Testament, but with new application and
meaning. But even Mary's anticipations fell far short of the reality
of that power in weakness, that holiness mildly blended with
tenderest pity and pardoning love; that mercy which for all
generations was to stretch not only to 'them that fear Him,' but to
rebels, whom it would make friends. She saw but dimly and in part.
We see more plainly all the rays of divine perfection meeting in,
and streaming out to, the whole world, from her Son 'the effulgence
of the Father's glory.'

II. The second part of the song is a lyric anticipation of the
historical consequences of the appearance of the Messiah, cast into
forms ready to the singer's hand, in the strains of Old Testament
prophecy. The characteristics of Hebrew poetry, its parallelism, its
antitheses, its exultant swing, are more conspicuous here than in
the earlier half. The main thought of verses 51 to 53 is that the