the Jews? They may have read the prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel, or conversed with devout Jews in Persia; for the Jews swarmed through all the East, making proselytes even of kings and queens; but their unwavering faith must have come from above. It was a faith that waited and watched for the promised Messiah.

The Magi were sincere believers in astrology. They saw, or thought they saw, in the configurations of the starry heavens the signs of great events about to take place on the earth. In this belief all the foremost minds of the ancient world, including Julius Cæsar, participated. Even in modern and Christian times, many men of great intelligence and undoubted piety, have looked to the stars for indications of the future. The progress of reason has exploded this science falsely so called; but let us not imagine that all those who anciently had confidence in it were by that fact excluded from the special favor and spiritual illumination of that God who condescends to human weakness and error. In the language of another, "God condescends to the platforms of men in training them for belief in the Redeemer, and meets the aspirations of the truth-seeking soul even in its error. In the case of the Wise Men, a real truth, perhaps, lay at the bottom of the error; the truth, namely, that the greatest of all events, which was to produce the greatest revolution in humanity, is actually connected with the epochs of the material universe, although the links of the chain may be hidden from our view."

The whole culture of the Wise Men led them to seek a sign in the heavens of the advent of the Saviour. Suddenly a new star appears in the sky. They gaze upon it with awe mingled with rapture. Prompted by an inward impulse too strong to be resisted, they at once set out in search of Him who is born King of the Jews. Losing no time by the way, they speed on through the deserts, over

the mountains, across the Jordan, till they come to Jerusalem. They find, no doubt to their surprise, that the great event is utterly unknown in the capital of Judaism. They demand of Herod where they may find and worship the new-born king. The wily and suspicious monarch, himself not without a strong tincture of superstition, convenes the chief priests and scribes, and inquires of them where Christ should be born. There was at that time a conspiracy in Herod's own family, and extreme disaffection among the religious part.of the nation. Herod's question was intended not merely to direct the executioners of his vengeance to the quarter from which danger was to be feared, but to force the authorized interpreters of the law and the prophets to a decisive statement as to the place and circumstances of the Messiah's birth; seeking if any event should occur contrary to their version of the prophecies, either to commit them on the side of the ruling powers, or to quench forever the hope that was now agitating the popular mind. The assembly-possibly the Sanhedrim itself—was at no loss for an answer; prophecy clearly pointed to Bethlehem as the chosen place. Herod, pretending the most lively interest in the matter, urged the Wise Men to prosecute their search, and if successful to bring him word, that he also might hasten to the cradle of his great successor.

The unsuspecting strangers joyfully journeyed to Bethlehem. They seem to have reached there in the night, for, lifting up their eyes for guidance, they again saw the star standing directly over the house where the Divine Infant lay. Was their faith staggered when they saw the object of their long search, not in a palace but in a lowly cottage—not surrounded with adoring multitudes but in the seclusion of a peasant's household-not reposing on cushions of silk and down under a golden canopy, but lying in a manger! No: they manifested neither surprise

nor doubt. "They saw the young Child, and Mary, His Mother, and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh." Those who say that the gold was an acknowledgment of His royalty, the frankincense of His priesthood, and the myrrh prophetic of the embalming of His body for burial, probably see more in the gifts than the Wise Men intended: but the fancy, if it be quite a fancy, is harmless and beautiful. After homage done to the Divine Child the sleep of those reverend men was holy; God himself visited them in their dreams, and warned them not to return to Herod. So they returned to their own country another way.

When the Wise Men left Jerusalem, Herod doubtless thought he had outwitted the heavens, thwarted divine predestination and taken a bond of fate. He had ascertained what time the star appeared; he had thence calculated the age of his infant rival; and he hoped, on the return of the strangers, to learn the very name and abode of one who might cause him or his dynasty serious trouble if not destruction. He waited impatiently for the tidings they were to bring; but when it became apparent that they had read his cruel purpose and eluded it by a secret departure, his rage knew no bounds. He would not thus be circumvented; he was king, and he resolved to accomplish his purpose, if not in one way then in another. The Child must, as he judged, have been born about the time the star appeared in the east, and must now be more than one, and less than two years old; in order, therefore, to make sure work, he sent his soldiers to Bethlehem with strict orders to put to death all the male children in the town and its suburbs under two years of age. How this cruel order was executed we are not told. We may conjecture that the parents were summoned to bring their children to a given place, as if to be numbered, or for some

similar purpose, and that then the massacre was perpetrated. The butchers of the tyrant made thorough work. There was mourning and lamentation in Bethlehem that day; many a fond heart was broken. Though the number slaughtered in that small rural village could not have been large, the atrocity of the deed made the ears of all who heard of it tingle.

The soldiers return and report to the hoary tyrant that his decree is executed to the letter. He flatters himself that the Holy Child is put out of the way; but what madness for a man, however powerful, to think of frustrating the decrees of the Almighty! The Child was safe, and Herod had in vain supped full of horrors. He was not long after seized with a loathsome and mortal disease. The description of that disease by Josephus is too horrible and disgusting to be quoted in these pages. Suffice it to say, that his sufferings of mind and body were so intolerable, that he was only saved from ending a life of monstrous crime by self-murder through the ceaseless vigilance of his attendants.

While the danger was impending over the Divine Child at Bethlehem, Joseph, warned by an angel in a dream, fled by night toward Egypt. The incidents of the journey, and of the sojourn in the land of the Pharaohs, are not recorded. Tradition marks the route of the holy pilgrims as lying through Hebron, Beersheba and the desert, and the place of their temporary abode as at or near Heliopolis, which was almost a Jewish city. All this, however, is legend, not history. Their stay in Egypt could not have been long,-probably not more than three or four months: the death of Herod terminated their exile. When Joseph knew from a supernatural intimation that the tyrant was no more, he returned with the mother and child to the land of Israel. It was his purpose to settle at Bethlehem, which seemed the proper residence

for David's Son and Heir; but hearing that Archelaus, a vicious and cruel prince, was reigning in Judea in the place of his father, Herod, he continued his journey to Galilee and took up his abode in Nazareth.

This portion of our history exhibits the infant Saviour in relations which proved prophetic to the Jews on the one hand, and the Gentiles on the other. How significant is it that the first intelligence of Christ's birth was communicated to the civil and ecclesiastical rulers of the chosen people by travel-stained Gentile strangers! We can see why the arrival of those venerable men from a distant land, and their great question: "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" must have caused an immense sensation at Jerusalem; but it strikes one at first thought as unaccountable that they instituted no investigation; that they did not send messengers to the neighboring village of Bethlehem to verify the startling report which had come to them in so strange a way. A moment's reflection serves to clear up the mystery.

The priests and scribes would look on Gentile religionists with distrust and contempt. "Surely," they would say, "the tidings of the Messiah's birth would not be brought to Jerusalem and the temple by uncircumcised heathens. These men are lunatics or knaves." Or if they were inwardly inclined to attach some credence to their declarations, they were deterred from taking any measures in the premises, by fear of their jealous, bloodthirsty king. They knew so well his capricious and cruel temper that they felt themselves standing every moment on a volcano. They well knew that any interest which they might betray concerning the reported birth of their Messiah, would be regarded by him as a symptom of disaffection, perhaps as proof of conspiracy and treason. They therefore did nothing. When afterwards all the infants of Bethlehem were slain, they naturally thought