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And long may it be so! may no change of opinion or habit ever affect the good old custom of keeping Christmas gladly! May this day stand always as it does now in our calendar, as our great holiday. A day sacred from all common work. A day to be much observed unto the Lord in our generations! For to-day there is good news for us all, even what you have heard alreadyUnto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Yes, these are the tidings of Christmas-a Saviour is born into the world. But how born?

Let us go to the spot and see. Let us go in spirit to Bethlehem and see that great thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known to us.

And what is it that we see there? A little child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. But though a child, helpless and dependent as any other newly-born infant, He is not a common child. There are many signs of His being some great one-there are people on their knees before Him-His very mother regards Him with awe. Lo in the distance-" upon the Eastern road" —a train of servants bringing gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.—All this marks Him out as already in His cradle unlike any mere child of man. And so, indeed, He was -for this is He so long expected, so ardently looked for -the desire of nations. This is He to whom belong the great names of prophecy, Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. This is— to sum up all His titles in one-this is Emmanuel, which being interpreted, means God with us!

That is the sight which the shepherds looked upon so

many centuries ago in the manger at Bethlehem. That is the sight which this day, as it comes round, calls up to our minds: we gaze this day upon the Son of God become man-upon the Holy Child Jesus.

And next consider what the sight teaches us, what it declares of God and of His dealings with us men. It declares, as could be declared in no other way so well, the love of God towards us.

God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word

How do all these passages of Scripture witness to us that the love of God was the moving cause of Christ's coming!

God saw the world perishing, and so He sent His Son to the rescue. God saw evil triumphing over good, the works of the devil everywhere getting the mastery, and so He sent one stronger than the devil, to lead him captive, and to break his yoke from off our necks. God saw that men did not understand Him, that they had false notions about Him, that He was feared rather than loved, and so He sent His well-beloved to undeceive us, to shew us what He really is like. For Christ, as we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is the express image of His Father's person. In Him God gives us to see, so far as it

is possible, what He is in Himself-not a God, as we had pictured Him, dark and terrible, bent only on our punishment, quick to destroy all who disobey Him-no, but a God full of compassion and mercy, long-suffering, unwilling for any to perish. A God that cares for all men, and does not readily lose a single soul, but Himself seeks out the wanderer, and Himself prepares the way for his return.

Is it not, then, as I have said? Does not the birth of Jesus Christ witness to us that God loves us? What more affecting proof could He have given us of His love, seeing He hath not withheld His Son, His only Son from us!

But again-and here is another cause for thankfulness—Christ, who was born as on this day in the city of David, to be our Saviour, tarried awhile with us in the world. He grew up from infancy to childhood, and from childhood to man's estate, as any other child might grow. He was not exempted from any sorrow, trial, or temptation which falls to the lot of man. The world to Him was a rough world, as it is to many of us. In it He had to undergo persecution, disappointment, ill

usage.

And why? For us men and for our advantage,-that He might be for us a merciful and faithful High Priest ; that, not ignorant Himself of any of the many evils which flesh is heir to, tried and proved in the same fire which tries and proves us, acquainted by experience with all our griefs, He might know how to succour us; might be for us a sure refuge, our best example when beset by

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temptation, our sympathizing Friend, our most powerful Advocate with the Father.

Surely, when we remember this, how entirely the Lord Jesus Christ was a partaker of flesh and blood, and of all which such a participation involves-sin only except-we read the angel's words with increased joy-it is indeed glad tidings which they tell us, Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord!

But if the good tidings of such a Saviour be for all, if it becomes all sorts and conditions of men to whom the good news of Christmas comes, to be glad and rejoice before God, there is one class of men who, perhaps above every other, ought to be in joy to-day, and that class is the poor.

Jesus Christ, my brethren, was one of you-poor in worldly goods as the very poorest. As a boy He must have worked with His own hands for His bread. When He grew up and began His public ministry, He had neither house, nor home, nor money, nor rich friends. He must often have known what it was to hunger and want a meal. He had not, He tells us Himself, any certain place where to lay His head.

Born in poverty, nursed in poverty, brought up in the ways of poverty, familiar with its trials, sufferings, and privations, the Lord must ever find the easiest access to the hearts of the poor.

Yes, and as He was of choice thus poor, so did He, of choice, we must think, adapt His doctrines to the poor. When He spake, He spake so plain that the common people heard Him gladly. The book which contains His

recorded words is a book which, while it has depths that are yet unsounded, while it occupies the study of the wisest and most learned of our kind, is yet much of it within the easy comprehension of the least lettered reader. In it, from end to end, the poor have the Gospel preached to them.

Am I, then, wrong in saying that the poor have most cause of all to be glad at Christmas? Is not the Saviour who was born this day in the city of David, in a very especial manner their Saviour?

O, my friends, that you would think of this, and the lessons that are thus brought near to you.

Learn contentment, learn patience, learn to take cheerfully the hardships of poverty, by looking unto Jesus.

In whatever trouble you may be, in whatever affliction, in weariness, in painfulness, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in worse evils than any of these, when neglected or oppressed of your fellow men, be sure you are not left alone to suffer-you have in Jesus Christ a great Fellow-Sufferer-and not only a FellowSufferer, but One who is able to make all these things work together for your good, if you only trust to Him to do it. If you endure, if in your patience ye possess your souls, all will come right,-your light affliction, which is but for a moment, will work for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Once more. I would not seem, in what I have said, to limit or restrict the rejoicing which belongs to this happy day, to one class only.

The good tidings, as I have already observed, are for us all; for those who are in wealth and worldly pros

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