On October 19, 1856....
Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O., preached a sermon, of which the folowing notes remain:

Purity of Mary
1. INTROD.—If there is one thing more than another which marks Christianity, it is the honour given to virginity. We, who have ever heard the doctrine, cannot fancy how it must come upon the heathen at the beginning by the contrast.

2. And indeed the Holy Fathers appeal to it from the first as a great miracle. When we consider the state of the heathen, etc. So wonderful that numbers of persons should be found who were willing to debar themselves even of the marriage state, living in chastity.

3. Moses, Aaron, the Priests, the Prophets.

4. Nay, the Jews—hardness of the heart, divorce, polygamy.

5. Nay, celibacy was not held in honour even from a religious reason. They each wished to be mother of the Messias.

6. Hence the force of the prophecy, 'A virgin shall conceive.' And when the time came, St. John the Baptist went before Him a virgin. He Himself, the Messias, pre-eminently such; and His Virgin Mother, and His favourite disciple, the other John, St. Paul, and all of them, either gave up their wives or had none.

7. Hence we see the force of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. A new thing was coming upon the earth. It was fitting that it should begin with a new beginning, as Adam's at the first—of grace before sin.

8. A new thing, though Joshua, Elias, Eliseus.

9. The heathen philosophers, stern, proud, etc., whereas, St. Gregory insists, humility must be with chastity, and our Lady a special instance of humility.

10. But further, the celibacy of false religions has been negative—the absence of love.

11. This indeed is what is imputed to us—blighted affections. The peculiarity of Christian celibacy is that it is from love to God—'and followed Thee.' St. Jerome in Breviary.

12. The more we love God, the more we are drawn off from earth.

13. The Blessed Virgin's Purity arose from the excess of her love.