The following story is taken from page 222 of Sir E. A. Wallis Budge's One Hundred and Ten Miracles of Our Lady Mary: Translated From Ethiopic Manuscripts (London: Humphrey Milford, Publisher to the Oxford University Press, 1933). According to Sir Budge's Introduction, this comes from the oldest of the British Museum's portion of Britain's National Library of Ethiopic Manuscripts and was written in the fifteenth century A.D. (pg. xxvii).

[222]

THERE was a certain pagan of the children of ISHMAEL who found in his house a picture of our Lady MARY, and he knew not whence it came, and it was ornamented and was the most beautiful of all his goods. And the pagan loved that picture exceedingly, and he cleaned it, and rubbed it, and used to stand before it and salute it. And he used to ponder in his mind and say, "Can it possibly be true that God, the Creator of the universe, was pleased to abase Himself and come down from His glorious state and put on human flesh? I cannot believe that a virgin could conceive and bear a child without the seed of man, and that her virginity could remain undestroyed. If it were true I would certainly become a CHRISTIAN and worship CHRIST and believe in MARY." Thus he meditated many days. And one day, as he was standing before her, suddenly he saw on the picture two streams of liquid running down like oil and mêrôn from the breasts of the picture. And when he saw this miracle he fell down upon the earth before the picture of our Lady MARY, and he said, "I believe in the Christian Faith. If mêrôn and oil can flow from wood, God can assuredly do what is greater than this in the flesh of man." And he and all the people of his house were baptized because of the miracle of our Lady MARY, and through his love for her he went forth from destruction and came to salvation.

With this story compare Nos. LXV and LXVIII of this Collection.