EIGHTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

CHRISTMAS-DAY.

THis is usually consecrated to the remembrance or solemn celebration of our blessed Lord's nativity. Though not disposed to look with favour on the pompous ceremonials with which it is greeted by several branches of the church, even were it clearly proved to be the true anniversary, we yet deem it a profitable and pleasing duty to turn our thoughts this morning to the great event that occurred at Bethlehem, and that was destined to usher in the dawn of our glorious day.

Who, then, was He that was born at Bethlehem, and whose birth was attended with every circumstance of poverty and meanness? The humble mother, the lowly stable, the manger, the poorness and obscurity of the place, the absence of all public rejoicing, declared it to be no earthly prince that was born, the joy of his sceptered father, and the hope of nations; but only an infant who might, in future years, have nowhere to lay his head, and might live and die unknown. But herein lay the humiliation of God's incarnate Son. Yet the bursting of Heaven's gates, at the midnight hour; the glad announcement to the awe-struck shepherds; and the enraptured song of the heavenly host, singing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men;" the miraculous star, and the wise men of the East bringing costly gifts, and offering them in lowly adoration,—proclaimed the advent of that Celestial King who was to rule in Zion, even of the beloved Son of God, in whom He was well pleased. Humble was the guise in which the Messiah appeared, and unheeded by a sinful world the hour of His birth; but a few rays of His glory were permitted thus early to shine forth, and declare to a chosen band the secret of His greatness. The tongue of

man was silent on that most joyful of all occasions; but angel harps were visibly struck to celebrate the new-born Saviour of Mankind.

And what was the life, on earth, of Him who thus came in glory and humiliation? It was that of a deliverer of man. But did He overturn the throne of blaspheming tyranny, and hurl to the dust, with an arm of physical power, the vain pride of mortals? Did He trample down the haughty and the great, and exalt the humble poor? Did He take signal vengeance upon the crafty and bloodstained ministers of idolatry, and vindicate the majesty of Jehovah, by the visible overthrow of their hideous altars and shrines? No; though the greatest of deliverers, He did none of these things. He was the meekest of the sons of men. He went about continually doing good; and, wherever He went, He scattered the heavenly light of truth. Along with the benevolence and the wisdom, He displayed also the power of the Godhead. He proclaimed to all that would come unto Him, the forgiveness of sins; and He healed the most loathsome and fatal bodily diseases, in token of His power to heal the great maladies of the soul. He came to overthrow the kingdom of Satan, and He showed His ability to achieve the mighty deed, by casting out the unclean spirits which executed the purposes of that evil power. It was also His office "to bring life and immortality to light ;" and to prove, by the clearest evidence, that resurrection which He taught, He raised the dead corpse, already mouldering in its decay, and gave back the lost and the lamented to their weeping friends. He poured on the sightless eyeball the light of day, and on the long benighted soul the cheering radiance of mercy and truth. Every word and action showed His love to man, and was fraught with the sublimest meaning.

Such was the life of the Redeemer, as it is recorded by His chosen followers,-a life which, though sketched, as it were, in outline, yet carries upon it the significant stamp of divinity. A celebrated infidel, apparently over

powered, for the moment, by the moral beauty and harmony of the New Testament, in one of his works, declared that the inventor of the Gospel would be a more astonishing character than the hero." A nobler or more striking sentiment could scarcely have proceeded from the lips of a believer in our holy faith. Yes! the character of Jesus was unimaginable by mortal man. That humility, sustained by Divine dignity; that benevolence, so free from ostentation; that prudence, so nobly allied to courage; that compassion for human suffering, so far removed from any tolerance of human sin; that patience and benignity; that holiness and love, which adorned the Saviour's walk on earth,-lay entirely beyond the reach of finite conception. It is the province of imagination, when called into play by some powerful emotion, to form sublime or beautiful ideal pictures, out of the stores furnished by our perception of material things; to preside over the creations of the painter or the poet, who study nature and human life, in order to supply their prevailing mental power with appropriate imagery. Imagination can only arrange into new combinations the ideas drawn from this living world; its range is limited by our experience; the groups and images it creates may be new, but the constituent parts of these are solely derived from what we see and hear. Magnificent and glowing may be the picture it draws of superhuman excellence, the moral hero that it places before the eye of the mind; but the elements of the one and of the other are merely of this earth, and are marked with the imperfection and mortal stain of all things earthly. The fine creations of a Virgil or a Plato, are palpably but the imaginings of beings with limited faculties, and corrupt moral natures, whose experience is only mundane, and whose fancy is fed with the imagery of a fallen world. Who, then, could have conceived the character of the Son of God, manifested on earth, in human form? The materials of such a conception were unknown. They lay in the bosom of the Eternal Father, unseen, unheard of, by mortal eye or

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ear. Beyond the reach of the most seraphic imagination, they never could have been embodied and presented to the filmed vision of man, by any of his race. How could that Divine love, which glowed in the bosom of Jesus of Nazareth, have been imagined by one in whose heart dwelt pride, hatred, and all evil passions? Can it even yet be fathomed by the loftiest intellect? Into whose mind could it have entered to surround an imagined incarnate God, with every circumstance of suffering and humiliation? Who could, in a few simple words, have drawn a picture of the human heart, the fidelity of which all are at once compelled to own? Who could have opened such a spring of consolation as that unlocked by the man Christ Jesus? Who could have discovered such a simple and efficacious remedy for the great disease of our nature, as that contained in the Gospel? Who could have presented such objects to love, such promises to hope, such solemn and elevating mysteries to faith? The Gospel an invention! Jesus Christ a fictitious character! This, O unbeliever, would be a miracle of miracles; a phenomenon wholly incomprehensible; at utter variance with all we know of the human mind; plainly transcending, indeed, its loftiest efforts; an inscrutable enigma in the history of man.

Who can describe the consequences of the Redeemer's life and death? The tongues of angels would falter and fail in the attempt. The world, with all its sin and suffering, was permitted to exist, only that Christ might proclaim and complete its salvation; and it still exists, only that it may become the wide theatre of His glory. The light from Heaven that first shone forth among the mountains of Judea, though it has often been obscured, and even disastrously eclipsed, now shines, and will continue to shine, with a far-spreading radiance. Darkness is flying before it. Idolatry is hiding her monstrous head; and nations, at length disenthralled, and joyously surprised, are stretching forth their arms to hail their rising day. The inspired record of redemption is being

borne by all the winds of heaven to distant shores; and the church, in sublime hope, is waiting the result. The consequences of the Redeemer's life and death!-Their number and grandeur overpower the imagination. Who shall tell the tears that have been wiped away, the hopes that have been inspired, the guilty passions quelled, and the moral energy infused by the glad tidings of salvation? What tranquil happiness-what sanctifying devotionwhat benevolent deeds and aspirations have resulted from the glorious Gospel! And O, how can we contemplate, in thought, the present and the future ransomed millions, that shall, through a rapturous eternity, encompass the throne of the Lamb, without being lost in wonder, love, and adoration!

Such are the thoughts that ought to employ us, not only as oft as this joyful anniversary comes round, but as oft as the morning dawns, or the shades of evening close around us. On our Sabbaths, and other solemn seasons, the birth, life, and death of our Redeemer, may be dwelt upon with peculiar and blessed effect; but yet they belong to all times, and afford, on all occasions, appropriate themes of meditation. O, then, let the rising orb of day be ever linked in our minds with the Sun of Righteousness, and let the sweetest star of eve, ever remind us of the star of Bethlehem! J. D.

EIGHTH WEEK-SATURDAY.

MIGRATIONS OF THE LAND-CRAB.

As I do not intend to resume, in any other part of this work, the subject of migration, I shall now notice one other migratory animal, which deserts its usual haunts for the purpose of finding an appropriate spot for depositing its eggs, and whose instinct, in this respect, is peculiarly remarkable. I allude to the land-crab. It is