cunning flattery. Alas and alas! how different from Christ, who, God as He was, took upon Himself the form of a servant; whose one aim was to shun praise and court persecution; who hid the glories of His birth in the stable of Bethlehem, but exhibited His ignominious death to the whole world on the summit of Calvary. Oh let me, ere the Christmas season ends, kneel a while before the crib and listen to the wordless wisdom that falls from that little preacher in that little pulpit. I may have tears in my eyes but I will have unspeakable consolation in my heart. I will lay before Him my proud heart and stubborn will, and ask Him in mercy to pity and forgive. I will, like holy Simeon, hold Him in my arms an4 as confidently ask the Father: " Now dismiss Thy servant in peace, O Lord, for my eyes have seen Thy salvation."
Brethren, Christ's third birth is His spiritual coming by grace into the souls of men. Often, alas! is He persecuted and recrucified by the modern Herod, — sin. But happily, too, He is born again and again in every soul that is regenerated or converted to God. " And we saw His glory," says St. John; and St. Paul says of Christ's spiritual births — " The grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and justly and godly in this world." Just prior to the Christian era, God had apparently abandoned the world and men ceased to turn to Him in spirit and in truth. They doubted His knowledge of human ills and despaired of His
