God and heirs of eternal life; Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves, even as he is pure; that, when he shall appear again with power and great glory, we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, he liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end. Amen. THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEPHERDS. LUKE ii, 8-20. Praise ye him, all his angels: Praise ye him, all his host. Psalm cxlviii, 2. X. THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEP HERDS. LUKE ii, 8-20. Lowly Watchers. Luke ii, 8. ON the night Jesus Christ was born, shep- The herds were abiding in a field, keeping watch over their flock. It was and still is a common Oriental scene. Nightly exposed to the ravages of the jackal, and wolf, and robber, flocks need the watchful protection of shepherds. And meet it was that, when annunciation was to be made of the birth of him who is the Shepherd and Bishop 1 Peter ii, 25. of souls,-leading them forth as his flock, calling John x, 1-16. each of them by name, guarding them against prowlers, laying down his life for them, going after the lost ones, carrying the lambs in his bosom, himself Lamb as well as Shepherd-that annunciation should be made first of all, not to king in palace or high-priest in temple, not to Pharisee in synagogue or rabbi in sanhedrin, but to shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And no wonder; for The Dazzling Luke i, 5-38. Matt. i, 18-25. Daniel vii-ix. the phenomenon was most extraordinary. Who the angel was, we are not told. Quite probably it was the same angel who had already made annunciation to Zacharias in the temple, to Mary at Nazareth, to Joseph in his slumber-even the same Gabriel, Strength of God, who, five centuries before, had made annunciation to the exile by the Ulai. The glory of the Lord which shone round about these shepherds was doubtless that same miraculous effulgence in which Deity had been wont in the earlier ages to enshrine himself, and which the rabbins called the Shechinah. Diversified as well as extraordinary were the appearances of that Shechinah in ancient days. It had gleamed as a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life; it had flickered as a lambent Exodus xix, 16. flame in the brier-bush of Horeb; it had hung as a stupendous canopy over the mountain of the law; it had hovered as a glittering cloud above the cherubim overshadowing the mercy-seat; it Exod. xl, 36-38. had marshaled the hosts of Israel for forty years, towering like a pillar of cloud by day and like a Gen. iii, 24. Exodus iii, 2. Psalm 1xxx, 1. 14. Acts i, 9. 2 Chron. v, 13, pillar of fire by night; it had filled the temple of Solomon, flooding it with a brightness so intense that the priests could not enter to minister; it was to be the radiant cloud which should enfold out of Matt. xxvi, 64. sight the ascending Lord; it will be the great white throne on which that ascended Lord will descend when he returns in the pomp of his second advent. But never had it served a purpose so august and blissful as on this most memorable of nights when, after centuries of eclipse, it suddenly reappeared and shone around the astonished |