"With

out? And should not that question, whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him," silence all our vain imaginations? Would that we might learn the lesson of unhesitating obedience to every word of God, and of stedfast dependence upon Him, which is taught us by the example of Joseph and Mary!

Doubtless He who led Hagar to the well of water in the wilderness, and fed Israel with manna, and brought them to the wells, and to the palm-trees of Elim, would guide the pilgrims to the green spots in the desert, where they might eat and drink, and find a pleasant shadow from the noontide heat, and sing in holy thankfulness such words as these:

"The Lord is my Shepherd: I shall not want:
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters."

Among the pictures in the National Gallery, there is one by an Italian painter, of the name of Mola, representing such a scene as this, and called "The Repose by the Way." The figure of a man with some sheep, dimly seen in the distance, recalls to mind the psalm just quoted, while in the foreground, the Virgin, with her eyes fixed upon the Holy Child in her arms, is seen resting under the shadow of a large tree by the water-side; the bundle for her journey, and an earthen bottle for water, are at her feet, and Joseph's staff is resting against the mossy bank, while he himself, leaning upon the bank behind Mary, seems to be conversing with her. The ass, on which she is supposed to have journeyed,

has been turned loose to graze; and the quiet, as of the approaching eventide, seems to rest upon the landscape. Over the head of Mary is a bright cloud, out of which three angel faces look down upon the Holy Infant in her lap; but the presence of these heavenly visitants seems unperceived by either Joseph or Mary; just as the Christian parent now, and we ourselves, see not those holy angels who, for Christ's sake, watch around our path. I have described the picture thus minutely, for the sake of those of you who may not have seen it; and because it seems so like one of the scenes we may picture to ourselves when dwelling upon this part of the story of the Holy Child. Yet it was a weary and perilous journey across the sandy waste, and we have no reason to suppose that there was no suffering and privation connected with it. Even the Bedouins, the children of the soil, hail with delight the few stunted shrubs which are found now and then in this weary land; and they will eagerly seek, by burying their faces in the sand beneath their scanty shadow, to escape for a little while the burning glare of the mid-day sun.

The time of this flight into Egypt was, as we have every reason to suppose, almost immediately after the presentation in the temple, and before the Feast of the Passover, near which time Herod died; so that we may link the remembrance of it, as well as of the forty days' temptation of our Lord in the wilderness, with the Lenten fast; and while we learn to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, we may think of Him thus early

inured to suffering, an outcast in His tender infancy, yet hoping in God while He hung upon His mother's breast, and in the silent mightiness of His faith stilling the enemy and the avenger; for in the Babe of Bethlehem were those words first fulfilled, which so fitly form a part of the service in some churches on the festival of the

Holy Innocents: "Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength, because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." Exposed in His helpless innocence to all the rage of Satan, who doubtless stirred up Herod to seek His life, the Babe hoped in God, and the enemy was stilled. Perhaps he thought to have secured his end in the slaughter of the little ones in Bethlehem, and knew not of the way of escape which God had provided; for closely, most closely, was the shadow of the Almighty drawn around the Virgin and her Child; and even as she hid within her heart the secret of the Lord, so was she hidden with that Blessed Babe in the secret of His presence. And the holy innocents, hanging in their trustful simplicity on their mothers' breasts, did not they too, hope in One whom as yet they knew not, (as we speak of knowledge,) but whose love was brought near to their apprehension in a mother's love towards her sucking child? And was not their reward the palm-branch of martyrdom, the token of victory, of glorious victory over the enemy and the avenger? How much is told out to us in all this of the holiness, the mightiness, the blessedness of child-like hope; of the glory

which it brings to God, and the way in which it puts to silence the adversary! This perfect trust in utter helplessness is the fullest expression of the worship which as creatures we owe to God. Do you know that whatever we put our trust in is verily our God? Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; some in graven images, and some in uncertain riches; some in themselves, and some in others; but it is written, that "their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another God;" while "whoso trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about." Then do we praise God perfectly—then is His strength made perfect in our weakness, when in conscious helplessness we do only, and wholly, and joyfully hope in God. Then is the enemy stilled; for he hath to do not with us, but with Him who saith, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further." To this point he can and may pursue the children of God, but beyond it he cannot pass a hair's breadth. And shall not we rejoice to know, that while the strong man may not glory in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches, nor yet the wise man in his wisdom,—the weak, the poor, the simple ones, the little children, may glory in Him, who hath perfected praise, and ordained strength out of the mouth of such?

Herod felt the return of the wise men into their own country another way to be a mockery of his hopes, and in the fury of his disappointment, and his mad determination that the Child should not escape, he gave that cruel order, which, according to an ancient writer, earned for him the title of the Slayer of Children. We need not, however,

suppose, from the words of Scripture, that this slaughter included all the children, whom, according to our way of speaking, we should understand by the expression, "from two years old and under." The commandment of Herod was, we are expressly told, "according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men ;" that is, the children slain were of the same age as he supposed our Lord to have been, calculating as nearly as he might from the time when the star was first seen in the East. By the Jewish mode of reckoning, a child born in December, or any time previous to the commencement of the new year, might be rightly described after March (the month in which their ecclesiastical year begins,) as from two years old and under, that is, having entered upon another year, when, in fact, he was not yet one year old. It is in this way that our Lord is said to have been three days in the grave, though He was only a very small part of Friday, the whole of Saturday, and a part of Sunday, the Jews beginning the days from the evening; as it is written, "the evening and the morning were the first day."

Ramah was a small place between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, near to Rachel's tomb, who is spoken of as weeping for her children; for in Scripture the departed saints are ever spoken of not (as we are too apt to think of them,) as dead and separated from all communion in our joy and sorrow, but as living unto God, and one with us still, praying in faith, and waiting in hope until the last enemy, which is death, shall be destroyed: