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becomes a helpless babe; a Son born of a virgin without a father; two natures in a single person; the King of kings and the Lord of lords a despised outcast in the direst poverty! The oldest of all in the order of being — the ancient of days — is just born. What prodigies these! Again, what a contrast of events. Hitherto it was the rule for infants to be born and the aged to die, but to-day the contrary; the aged of days is born and death claims the youthful Stephen and the Holy Innocents. How singular, that in the order of events and in the Church's calendar, the birth of life should be so soon followed by the triumph of death. The fact is pregnant with meaning. It aptly explains away all of the many apparent contradictions and inconsistencies of the Redeemer's personality and career. The pagan idea, that it was necessary, from time to time, for one man to die for the people, though false in its application, was fundamentally true. Humility alone exalteth. Adam's pride is not to be cured but by Christ's humiliation, and no sooner does the Word of God undergo what must have been for Him like voluntary death — no sooner is He become incarnate, than the pure souls of Stephen and the Innocents wing their flight heavenward. The Father takes off His royal robe and places it on the shoulders of the prodigal. Christ lays aside His divinity and His life only to infuse them into us, for His debasement is our exaltation. In the sixth chapter of the fourth Book of Kings, all this is beautifully typified. We see the son of Eliseus the prophet on the river bank hewing