it, not in our protests against them. But those who have accepted another condition-who have believed that God called them to it, and sanctifies it-should understand how the birth hallows every birth, with what dignity the Mother invests all maternity; how her joy is the warrant and example of all joy; how it links the infant that blesses any one household to humanity.

Secondly. Since this century is the one in which this word humanity is most spoken of, in which humanity is becoming an object of worship, let us who sing this song consider whether we have ever accepted it in its full sense-whether, if we did, it might not deliver us from the perils of this idolatry, and might not enable us to realise the truth which the idolatry conceals. Is not Mary's song a witness against the disposition of humanity to exalt itself, or to exalt any one of the creatures who share it, into the throne of heaven? Is not her song a witness for the redemption and glory of humanity in the person of its Lord? Has not the Church herself fallen into the error which is now reaching its climax in those who renounce the Church? Has she ever fully proclaimed the principle which might subvert that error? Has she ever confessed, as the Israelite did, that God glorifies Himself by raising to a divine life the humanity which, without Him, must sink into utter death.

Lastly. If this song may help us to look on the lowest creatures we see on earth with a reverence which we have never paid them yet, if it should make every child an object of awe to us, may it not teach us also how to think of those whom we remember to-day as having passed away from the earth? They have shared in the adoration which has been bestowed on

the Mother of their Lord. Did they not share with her-do they not share with her-that sense of a low estate which God regarded? Are they not a communion, because they give all glory to their Divine Head, and take none to themselves? Shall we not claim our places in their communion just in proportion as we magnify Him-as His Spirit enables our spirit to rejoice in God their Saviour and ours?1

1 Preached on All Saints' Day.

LECTURE III.

BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF THE KING.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.--ST. LUKE ii. 13, 14.

I.—(1) THE Birth of Jesus is the first subject which comes before us in this chapter. That He was born at Nazareth, not, as St. Luke says, at Bethlehem, is the opinion of most who suppose the Evangelists to be the biographers of a great and favourite Teacher, an eminent Galilean Reformer. It is difficult to understand how they could arrive at any other conclusion. If Jesus was not a King, in any real sense of the word, the notion that He was born in the city of David must have been a fancy of those who supposed Him to possess that honour. There is no need of argument to prove that the two beliefs stand or fall together. The attempt to sustain the credit of the place when that which gives it all its fitness is gone must be a futile one. Therefore, I conceive that modern critics may reckon upon an easy triumph over those who hold the language and adopt the mode of thinking which prevails among us. If we separate the Saviour from the King, or use that last title in some metaphorical sense-even though we suppose it may acquire a real

sense in some future age-we must not be surprised if other men draw the natural inference from such premises; if, the substance of the evangelical message having disappeared, they say that its accidents cannot remain. I apprehend it is better on all accounts that Nazareth should receive the honour heretofore bestowed on Bethlehem, unless we confess the reason for which it was bestowed. We shall sink into a poor rabbinical habit of mind if we ground our opinion that Jesus was the Christ upon the concurrence of his birthplace with some supposed prediction. St. John has taught us, in his seventh chapter, to what that slavish feeling about the letter of a prophecy leads, when its purpose has been overlooked. The officers who were sent by the chief priests to take Jesus, came back without Him, saying, 'Never man spake like this man.' The Pharisees could not listen to such poor evidence; 'Out of Galilee ariseth no prophet,' was an all satisfactory reason why they should not listen to Him who was called a Galilean. Jesus Himself never appealed to His birth at Bethlehem as any proof of His mission. Those who would not receive Him for what He did and for what He was, could not have received Him if the proofs of His descent from David had been ever so overwhelming.

A mere legend, doubtless, this account of the journey to Bethlehem, and the birth at Bethlehem, must be, if Jesus were not the Person whom the preachers of the Gospel proclaimed Him to be, if He were not the King whose appearing fulfilled the expectation of previous ages and explained their history. And yet, even readers who have wholly cast off the notion that He was this, must, I think, discover something curiously simple, curiously unlike the style of ordinary legends, in such a record as this:

'And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger: because there was no room for them in the inn.'

There is no grand reason, you see, given why Mary and Joseph should go to Judæa. The angel who is said to have announced the coming birth does not appear again to tell them that they must travel, since otherwise the Son of David will not be connected with His ancestral dwelling-place. They go because every one else is going. A decree of the Cæsar obliges the man to register himself in the village, whatever it is, to which he belongs. It may be an awkward contrivance as a modern writer says it is-to make the conception of royalty fit with the facts. Assuredly the critic, or any ingenious man in this day, could have invented a much better tale. And if forgers of that day had, as he supposes, an unlimited command of supernatural incidents, these poor peasants might have been transported by any kind of celestial machinery to the spot in which they were required to be. Nor can we doubt that a Frenchman now, or an Oriental then, would have introduced such an event