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host! The Angels sing carols in the sky: they look into the Work of Redemption with curiosity, awe, and wonder": they are brought into closest brotherhood with that race which CHRIST came to save they are for ever ascending and descending upon the Son of Man"!

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Let these, or the like of these, be our Christmas thoughts. They will not be found enemies to our Christian joy,-to that social happiness which belongs to the present season. Well may we rejoice on the Birth-Day of CHRIST,' for it is the birth-day of all our hopes likewise: but let our rejoicing be the rejoicing of Christian men; our festivity, let it be that of the sons of GOD,' and heirs of future glory. Between thoughtless gluttony, and boisterous mirth, and frivolous amusements, on the one hand,-gloom, and severity, and moroseness, on the other,there is surely a mighty difference. Both alike dishonour the season, although in vastly different ways. How often must it be repeated that Religion alters none of the relations of life, though it sanctifies them all? Our duties and our joys, our private pursuits and our social pleasures, will yet continue; but they will be ennobled and hallowed by being mixed up with the thought of • St. Luke xv. 10. P St. John i. 51.

1 St. Pet. i. 12.

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Him who ought to be the End of each of Him who is the Author of our life, the well-spring of our happiness of Him who came as at this time, in the meekness and helplessness of infancy, to be our SAVIOUR; but who, in the Last Day, will come in His awful Majesty to be our Judge.

The Sunday after Christmas-Day.

NO ROOM FOR CHRIST.

ST. LUKE ii. 7.

There was no room for them in the Inn.

IT is a striking and instructive fact that the collect for Christmas-day is simply repeated on this, the sunday after Christmas-day. The reason is plain.. Our LORD's Incarnation is so great a doctrine,-CHRIST'S Coming in the flesh is so important an event,—that the Church would have us fix our hearts upon it day by day for a week and more; in order that so she may assure herself that the only foundation which can be laid, has been duly laid; that the corner-stone of Man's Salvation occupies its due place in that building which every following sunday helps to build up, and make glorious.

The words of the text in like manner are meant to carry our thoughts back to the birth of CHRIST. They remind us in the most striking manner of the 'great humility' in which, as at this time, He deigned to visit us.' Let us recal, in a few words, what happened; in order that

we may fill our minds with the thoughts which the collect for the sunday after Christmas brings back.

It was so contrived by the providence of GOD, that when the time came for CHRIST's Birth, there went forth a decree from Cæsar Augustus that all the world should be taxed; and in consequence of this order, Joseph, the husband of the Blessed Virgin, (who was the companion of his journey,) came up from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judæa, (for to Bethlehem they belonged,) to be taxed or enrolled there.

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Now it seems when this holy pair reached Bethlehem, there were so many other persons pressing into the City of David' for the same purpose with themselves, that the Inn was full. We cannot but picture these humble persons asking the favour of a lodging; and we feel in our degree both amazed and shocked to remember how the Virgin Mother, in her hour of greatest need, was informed that she might not obtain what she sought. There was no room' for them. Some one must have come forth, and told them so. Whereupon, we see them withdrawing to that humbler spot where the ox and the ass found a shelter, and were provided with There the Virgin brought into the world

food.

her first-born and her only Child,-wrapped Him in swaddling-clothes, and laid Him in a manger.' . . . Such is the history of the Birth of CHRIST. It was in this manner that the Eternal SON,the WORD, who was in the beginning with God,' and who was GOD,'-was born into the World.

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Every part of this wonderful history supplies a great lesson: but above all, we seem to need a solemn warning against the danger which the people of Bethlehem incurred ;—namely, of being so bent on the things of this life,—its business or its pleasures,-as to exclude CHRIST Himself from our society, when He comes among us and claims to be admitted. The SAVIOUR of the World was born in a manger because there was no room for Him in the Inn; and we shall do well to consider in how many ways we seem prone to be guilty of shewing by our actions that neither can we find room for Him. Thus, who does not know what it is to be so very busy as to fancy that he cannot find time for daily prayer? or again, how often have we suffered whole days to go by,-weeks, it may be,—without ever finding time to study a portion of God's Word? Surely, this is to banish our LORD from among us, on the plea that we cannot make room for Him! We may not confess that this

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