Brantwood, 29th Oct., 1877

1. These, the last recorded words of the Mother of Christ, and the only ones recorded during the period of His ministry (the “desiring to see thee” being told Him by a stranger's lips), I will take, with due pardon asked of faithful Protestant readers, for the motto, since they are the sum, of all that I have been permitted to speak, in God's name, now these seven years.

The first sentence of these two, contains the appeal of the workman's wife, to her son, for the help of the poor of all the earth.

The second, the command of the Lord's mother, to the people of all the earth, that they should serve the Lord.

2. This day last year, I was walking with a dear friend, and resting long, laid on the dry leaves, in the sunset, under the vineyard-trellises of the little range of hills which, five miles west of Verona, look down on the Lago di Garda at about the distance from its shore that Cana is from the Lake of Galilee;—(the Madonna had walked to the bridal some four miles and a half). It was a Sunday evening, golden and calm; all the vine leaves quiet; and the soft clouds held at pause in the west, round the mountains that Virgil knew so well, blue above the level reeds of Mincio.