T he birth of an heir to the throne is usually accompanied by circumstances befitting so great an event. No place is deemed worthy of it but a royal palace; and there, at the approach of the expected hour, high nobles and the great officers of state assemble, while the whole country, big with hope, waits to welcome a successor to its long line of kings. Cannons announce the event; seaward, landward, guns flash and roar from floating batteries and rocky battlements; bonfires blaze on hill-tops; s

I say the highest; for though His absolute glory, like His eternal being and infinite perfections, admits of no degrees, and is affected by no circumstances whatever, it is otherwise with His declarative glory, as old theologians called it. This, which I speak of, and which angels sung of, consists in the manifestation of His attributes. Whatever it be, though only the drop of water, which appears a world of wonders to the eyes of a man of science, any work is glorious which reflects the divine

N o man hath seen God at any time; so saith the Scriptures. He who is confined to no bounds of space cannot in the nature of things have any visible form. God has however occasionally made revelations of Himself; and such are described in language which seems opposed alike to the declarations of Scripture and the deductions of reason. It is said, for instance, of Moses and Aaron, when they ascended Mount Sinai, that “they saw the God of Israel;” and Isaiah tells how he “saw the Lord sitting upon

T hey take a lively interest in the affairs of our world, as the Scriptures show, and as Jacob saw in his vision; for what else means that ladder where they appeared to his dreaming eye ascending and descending between earth and heaven? To the care of John our dying Lord committed his mother; but God, when He sent His Son into the world, committed Him to their care,—“He hath given his angels charge over thee, that thou dash not thy foot against a stone.” The care which their Head enjoyed is exte

W ith a small band of fishermen at His side, and no place on earth where to lay His head, Jesus pointed to the sun, riding high in heaven or rising over the hill-tops to bathe the scene in golden splendour, and said, “I am the Light of the world.” A bold saying; yet the day is coming, however distant it appears, when the tidings of salvation carried to the ends of the earth, and Jesus worshipped of all nations, shall justify the speech; and the wishes shall be gratified, and the prayers answered

L et us bend the head, and, in company of the shepherds, enter the stable. Heard above the champing of bits, the stroke of hoofs, the rattling of chains, and the lowing of oxen, the feeble wail of an infant turns our steps to a particular stall: here a woman lies stretched on a bed of straw, and her new-born child, hastily wrapped in some part of her dress, finds a cradle in the manger. A pitiful sight!—such a fortune as occasionally befalls the Arabs of society—such an incident as may occur in

S ome years ago the question which agitated the heart of Europe was, Peace or War? The interests of commerce, the lives of thousands, the fate of kingdoms, trembled in the balance. Navies rode at anchor, and opposing armies, like two black thunder-clouds, waited for statesmen to issue from the council-chamber, bearing the sword or the olive-branch. Esteeming the arbitrament of battle one which necessity only could justify, Britain longed for peace; but, with ships ready to slip their cables, and

T he highest view of the profession of arms is, that the soldier, deterring evil-doers and maintaining order at home, on the one hand, and prepared, on the other, to resist hostile invasion, is in reality, notwithstanding his deadly weapons and warlike garb, an officer or instrument of peace. A day is coming—alas! with the roar of cannon booming across the ocean, how far distant it seems!—when Christianity shall exert a paramount influence throughout all the world: then, tyrants having ceased to

M any in humble, as well as in more coveted circumstances, are discontented with their position. They repine at their lot, and murmur against the Providence which has assigned it. This is not only wicked but absurd, since true happiness lies much less in changing our condition than in making the best of it, whatever it be. Besides, God says, “I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir;” and the estimate which He forms of us turns in no respect whate

M others cumbered with a load of domestic cares, merchants worried with business, statesmen charged with their country’s affairs, and thousands who have a daily fight to keep the wolf from the door, fancy that, if they enjoyed the leisure some have, and could bestow more time on divine things, they would be more religious than they are, and, rising to higher, calmer elevations of thought and temper, would maintain a nearer communion with God. It may reconcile such to their duties to observe how

M ingled with its rattling shingle, the sea-beach bears hazel-nuts and fir-tops—things which once belonged to the blue hills that rise far inland on the horizon. Dropped into the brooks of bosky glens, they have been swept into the river, to arrive, after many windings and long wanderings, at the ocean; to be afterwards washed ashore with shells and wreck and sea-weed. The Gulf Stream, whose waters by a beautiful arrangement of Providence bring the heat of southern latitudes to temper the wintry

T here are things which God cannot do—which it were not to honour but dishonour Him to believe He could. He can neither tempt, nor be tempted, to sin. The sinner He may love, but not his sin; that is impossible; as the prophet expresses it, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.” Indeed, I would as soon believe that God could condemn a holy spirit to the pains of hell, as admit a guilty one, unjustified and unsanctified, to the joys of heaven. In that terrib

A hab and Jezebel, two of the worst characters in sacred story, had a son; and with such blood as theirs in his veins, no wonder that Joram, on succeeding to the throne of one parent, exhibited the vices of both. His mother does not seem to have had a drop of human-kindness in her breast. Yet he was not altogether dead to humanity, as appears by an incident which occurred during the siege that reduced his capital to the direst extremities. The ghastly aspect of a famished woman who throws hersel

H aving reconciled us to God by the blood of His cross, Christ is “our Peace,” as the apostle says. He is called so, first, because He restores us to a state of friendship with God; and, secondly, because a sense of that fills the whole soul with a peace which passeth understanding. So, speaking of the righteousness which Christ wrought out for us, the prophet says, “The work of righteousness is peace”—His righteousness being the root, and our peace the fruit—that the spring, and this the stream

H ow many pages of history are written with the point of the sword—not with ink, but tears and blood? It is chiefly taken up with the recital of wars. What age has not been the era, what country the scene of bloody strifes? What soil does not hold the dust of thousands that have fallen by brothers’ hands? Our glebes have been fattened with the bodies of the slain? On those fields where, with the lark carolling overhead, the peasant drives his ploughshare, other steel than the sickle has glanced,

T hough the last to be dropped into its place, the keystone is of all the stones of an arch the first in importance; the others span no flood, carry no weight, are of no value, without it. It gives unity to the separate parts, and locking all together, makes them one. Of such consequence to the other parts of the Angels’ Song is its last clause. It was not simply Glory to God, nor peace on earth, but good will toward men, which made the angels messengers of mercy, and the news they brought tidin

I t is expressed to men—to all men; so that if we are finally lost, the blame as well as the bane is ours. God has no ill will to us, or to any. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; nor is He willing that any should perish, but that all should come to Him, and live. His good will embraces the world. “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of man, that thou visitest him

T he person is God—He who spake by holy men of old, speaking here by the lips of angels. Where there is a will, there is a way, is a brave and admirable proverb. Yet, though comparatively true in most cases, to some it is altogether inapplicable. Look, for example, at the women who, when the men had turned cowards, boldly follow our Lord to Calvary, bewailing and lamenting Him! What tears they shed, what a wail they raise, when the door opens, and, surrounded by armed guards, Jesus comes forth f