hearts. The simple pathos of that story, simply told, has charmed the world for nineteen hundred years, and more than aught besides, has served to batter down the barriers of unbelief. Perhaps we could not better spend the time to-day than by recalling once again the tenderly pathetic — the oft-told — tale of Christ's nativity.
Brethren, there is no more salutary exercise than just to kneel a while beside the crib, with its attendant figures, and suffer the tongue to utter whatever thoughts arise. In that tiny Babe we see with the eye of faith the divine and the human blended into one — reunited, as it were, and yet united as they had never been before. The thought carries us back to the opening chapter of this wondrous history, back to the lamentable fall of our first parents through pride and disobedience, and the consequent alienation of God and humanity. In the dark storm of God's wrath that then burst upon the world, there was just one rift in the cloud, one slender ray of light and hope, viz.: God's words to the serpent: " I will put enmities between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, and she shall crush thy head." Here in the cave before us is the woman; there in the manger, her seed — her Son. Pride and disobedience wrought our ruin; humility and obedience repaired it; for here is she who humbly answered: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord," and there is He of whom it is written in the head of the Book: " Behold, I come."
Brethren, St. Paul to the Romans (chap, v.) says: " By one man sin entered into the world and by sin,
