I. How the Blessed Virgin was engaged when the Angel Gabriel came in unto her, with his famous words of heavenly salutation on his lips, we know not. We do but know that she was within,and we picture the maiden's astonishment to be so found out in her privacy; and so addressed, amid the modest simplicity, not to say the poverty, of her home. Very singular are the evidences in Scripture of the maidenly reserve and thoughtfulness of Mary, those indications of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. "In her we have the outline of all that is best in woman's nature, habitual modesty, reserve, quietness, thoughtfulness; yet, if need be, love strong in death, and ability to suffer things which sterner natures shrink from. Above all, you have that holiness of heart which brings angels down from heaven to be its companions; yea, with which God Himself is content to come down from heaven to dwell."
II. We should seek to realise the solemn truth that in Mary the act of our first mother was in a manner reversed, and the penalty done away; that in her person we behold a woman bringing joy to the whole human race, as in the person of Eve we behold a woman bringing a perpetual heritage of woe. This is no mere historical fact, much less a mere theological speculation. As a matter of daily experience, we owe to the share which the Blessed Virgin was made to sustain in the economy of man's redemption the place which woman now occupies in the social scale. Whatever graces of man's character are symbolised by such Christian epithets as chivalrous and loyal are all an after-growth, unknown to the old world, but grafted, so to speak, on to our renewed nature in Christ. The language of the old world had no name for such things. And why not? Simply because anciently such things were not! I am not saying that there was no filial piety and conjugal faithfulness and sincere attachment in the old days of classic Greece and Rome. But I am saying that all these relations the relation of the child to the parent, of the husband to his wife have assumed a far deeper, far loftier, far purer character, because they had received a sacred impress, since Christianity came into the world. And what, I ask, what restored the balance, re-adjusted the disturbed condition of the problem, and, in a word, made us what we are? The beginning of the whole matter is found in our text.
J. W. Burgon, Ninety-one Short Sermons,No. 33.