40.

erald slopes, in the field of Boaz, had occurred that sacred courtship which makes the story of Ruth one of the most exquisite idyls of literature. Here had been born the man after God's own heart, alike shepherd, musician, poet, soldier, king, covenanted ancestor of the Christ. Here Chim- 2 Sam. xix, 31ham, son of Barzillai the Gileadite, who had shown kindness to David in his flight from Absalom, had received from the grateful king on his restoration a possession, building a caravansary, or khan, known as the House of Chimham. And here was born the Divine Man, God-with-us. Difficult it is to say whether Calvary or Bethlehem is the holiest spot on earth!

At this venerable hamlet arrived a weary The Manger. couple. It is the Galilean artisan and his bride, mysteriously pregnant with the Holy Ghost. All the way from Nazareth have they come to obey Cæsar's decree to be enrolled. They are tired and footsore. They climb the ridge of Bethlehem, and apply for lodgings at the caravansary, it may be the very inn which Barzillai's son had built, and which was known as the House of Chimham. But others are there before them, and the inn is full, and they are obliged to turn away. Hard by is a cave, one of the numerous limestone caverns of Palestine, perhaps used by the proprietor of the inn as a stable. The pangs of maternity seize the virgin of Nazareth, and a section of a cave is hastily appropriated.* And here, amid the beasts

*There seems but little reason for rejecting the tradition, as old as the time of Justin Martyr, who was born at Shechem, and lived less than a century after our Lord-a tradition confirmed by

2 Cor. viii, 9.

Aurelius Clemens Prudentius Fourth

Century.

of the stall, the blessed maiden presents to sin-
cursed humanity its Saviour, even the Divine
Man, Jehovah's holy Christ, wrapping him in
swaddling-clothes, and laying him in a manger,
because there is no room for them in the inn.
Meet birthplace was it for him who, though he
was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we
through his poverty might become rich.

Oh, that birth forever blessed,
When the virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving,
Bare the Saviour of our race;
And the Babe, the world's Redeemer,
First revealed his sacred face,
Evermore and evermore!

This is he whom seers in old time
Chanted of with one accord;
Whom the voices of the prophets
Promised in their faithful word;
Now he shines the long-expected;
Let creation praise its Lord:
Evermore and evermore!

O ye heights of heaven, adore him!
Angel-hosts his praises sing!

All dominions bow before him

And extol our God and King:

Jerome, who spent thirty years of his life in a cavern hard by, where he made his translation of the Scriptures known as the Vulgate-that Jesus Christ was born in a cave, and that the present Church of the Nativity, founded by the mother of Constantine, really domes the site of the holy manger. Few are the persons who can enter the Grotto of the Nativity, and, gazing on the silver star encircled by sixteen ever-burning lamps, read without a thrill of awe the legend: Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus

natus est.

Let no tongue on earth be silent,
Every voice in concert ring,
Evermore and evermore!

Thee let old men, thee let young men,
Thee let boys in chorus sing;
Matrons, virgins, little maidens,
With glad voices answering;
Let their guileless songs re-echo,
And the heart its praises bring,
Evermore and evermore!

Christ! to thee, with God the Father,
And, O Holy Ghost, to thee!
Hymn, and chant, and high thanksgiving,
And unwearied praises be,

Honor, glory, and dominion,
And eternal victory,

Evermore and evermore.

Amen.

Such is the story of the nativity. Let me conclude with three reflections.

of Infancy.

And, first, the birth at Bethlehem consecrated Glorification and glorified all infancy. As Athena was fabled to have sprung full-grown and panoplied from the cloven brow of Zeus, so the Christ and Son of God might have descended into humanity an unborn, adult Adam; for the distance between babe and man is infinitely less than the distance between man and God. But, no; he descended into humanity through the avenue of birth and babyhood, coming, like any other infant, under the law of growth, and so consecrating all life from cradle to grave, hallowing birth as well as death. The birth at Bethlehem made babyhood a sacred thing. And so the very infancy of Jesus is a gospel. It makes every cradle—oh,

Christianity

rather than Inned.

that parents would discern and believe it!-a holy fane.

Again: The treatment of the holy family at still Stabled Bethlehem's inn was a prophecy of the world's treatment of Jesus Christ ever since. The Divine Child, instead of being comfortably housed, was left to be rudely mangered, not because repulse was meant, but simply because the inn was already full. It is, I repeat, a picture of the world's treatment of Jesus Christ ever since. It does not repulse him; it simply has no room for him; every apartment of the soul is already engaged. There are the pre-occupations, for example, of worldly cares, wealth, poverty, selfishness, pleasure, sensuality, fashion, avarice, ambition, self-complacency, ritualism, ecclesiasticism, "orthodoxy," family love. No rudeness is meant; but every chamber of the soul is already taken and occupied. The inn is large, and there is room for every person except one, and that is the Babe of Bethlehem, Deity incarnate. Even the Church-the church nominaloftentimes offers but a manger. The world seizes the inn; Christianity must put up with a stable.

The

Coming

But it shall not always be so. The Son of Hospitality. God will descend to earth again. But when he does descend again, it will not be as the Divine Babe, but as the Divine Man, sitting on the clouds of heaven, escorted by ten thousand times ten thousand chariots and all the shining ones of God. Then every knee will bow, of things in heaven. and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Phil. ii, 10, 11.

Psalm xxiv.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates:

And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors:

And the King of glory shall come in.

Who is this King of glory?

Jehovah of hosts,

He is the King of glory.

Ay, the Word made flesh, the Babe of Bethlehem, the Divine Man, Immanuel, He is the King of glory.

Almighty God, who hast given us thy only begotten Collect. Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.