venly host, praising God and saying, “ Glory to God in the highest, and on the earth peace, good will towards men." What worldly grandeur, what earthly pageantry could compare with such a communication as this?

But there were yet other men who were permitted to receive intelligence of the birth of Christ, in an equally wonderful manner. Let us hear the words of the Evangelist: "Now when Jesus was born at Bethlehem of Judæa, in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the East, to Jerusalem, saying, where is he that is born king of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship him 1." Commentators on the history of those times endeavour to shew us from what country it was that these wise men came. It is certain that they were well acquainted with the heavenly bodies, and it was, doubtless, to call out their enquiries, that God was pleased to present to their eyes

: Matt. ii. 1.

a new star. It was also to indicate to those who lived at a great distance, that the personage, then born, was of equal importance to the rest of the world, as he was to the immediate country in which he was produced. And God, further, shewed these wise men, that it was he who had speeded them on their journey, by, again, giving them the sight of the star, as it stood over the habitation where the Saviour was reposed. And it is a proof that these men are not unjustly called wise, that, though this habitation was a stable, yet they did not, on that account, the less receive its inmate for their king. They paid their worship to him; they gave him offerings from their treasures, and praised God for what they had seen. Even then, perhaps, they perceived in him the tokens of his divinity, in his unassuming earthly appearance, accompanied, as it was, by the miraculous communication which they had received.

Testimony to the divinity of the holy child Jesus, was, moreover, given, about the same time, by two other remarkable

persons. In obedience to the law of Moses', to the whole of which our Lord was pleased to submit, it was necessary that his parents, after the days of his mother's purification were accomplished, should present him to the Lord at Jerusalem. On their entrance into the temple, they were met by Simeon, an aged and devout man, to whom it had been revealed by the Holy Spirit, (who, although: he did not, yet, grant his ordinary influences to all the servants of God, was, nevertheless, pleased to bestow extraor dinary favours on particular individuals), that he should not die until he had seen the Lord's Christ. The moment in which he beheld the child, he knew that he was the long expected Messiah. He cared not for the humble appearance of the parents; he heeded not that their offerings to the Lord were of the poorest description; he was satisfied that the Spirit of God bore testimony, not openly, indeed, but silently, to his mind, that "this

1 Exod. xiii. 2.

2 Luke ii. 25.

was his beloved Son;" and, under this conviction and impression, he took him up in his arms, and poured forth his feelings in that divine hymn so expressive, at once, of devotion and of grateful resignation, commencing with the words "Lord, nów lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” And in this blessing was he joined by Anna, one who, like himself, had long waited for the consolation of Israel; and they both together confirmed the parents in the belief of the future greatness of the child. Here, again, we see the simple and unaffected, but true dignity of him, who was ministered to, not by the high and mighty, but by the holy, the pious, and the pure in heart, whose privilege it is, as divested of of all petty and worldly feeling, "to see God 1"

Such were some of the most remarka-1 ble circumstances, which attended the birth of the Lord of life; and who, when

he reads them, will compare with them the trappings of false pageantry, with which the Jews were pleased, in their imaginations, to deck their Messiah? And who does not see real grandeur in these appearances, preferable to any outward adornments?

And let us remember how consonant this our Lord's first appearance was with his after-life, and with the mission which he came to discharge. The prince of peace ought to be produced amid peace and holiness; and the tokens of him ought to be such, as could not be mistaken. And so they were: for had Christ come attended with the pomp of worldly majesty, he might, perhaps, have been confounded with many others, who were born in a like high station. But when a poor and despised man is pointed out, as doing that which should redeem the world, performing miracles, such as had never been wrought, to that extent, before, and speaking as "never man spake'," then, if

1 John vii. 46.