yet heedless of their meaning, and insensible of the mighty promise given to us in the name of the blessed Jesus?

came.

SECTION IV.

(Chapter ii. verses 1-13.)

It is not without an especial meaning that it is here said that Jesus was born "in the days of Herod the king." It had been foretold by the aged Jacob, when pronouncing the future destinies of his descendants, that the sceptre should not depart from Judah till Shiloh-i. e. the MessiahNow Herod, though king of Judæa, was an Edomite by birth, and had been imposed by the Roman power on the Jewish people as their sovereign; and therefore the sceptre of their native monarchs had departed from Judah, and they were now a subjugated and tributary people, in the very condition and the very circumstances in which it was declared that Shiloh should come, or Jesus should be born.

The first event recorded by St. Matthew is the visit of the wise men to the infant Saviour. Other circumstances had occurred, which are. recorded by St. Luke, but the present Gospel hastens at once to this visit of the wise men of the east, intimating thus early the flocking in of the Gentiles into the new covenant. They are called wise men, not perhaps so much from any

superior wisdom, but because they had made the abstruser parts of science their study, and had devoted their time and attention to the stars-to the interpretation of dreams and visions-and were in their own countries supposed to be interpreters of the will of God. They were of the same class and rank as those wise men whom Pharaoh sent for to expound his dreams, and they could not; and those whom Nebuchadnezzar employed for the same purpose, and with the same effect. These men, engaged, it may be, in studying the stars, had observed a luminous appearance in the heavens, which struck their attention and excited their inquiries, and which probably recalled to mind the prediction of Balaam, "There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel;" and they instantly set forth on a long and perilous journey to seek the King and the God whom they supposed the star to designate, in order that they might pay him adoration and homage.

They were no doubt learned in all the wisdom of their age and country, wise beyond the generality of those around them, and yet, at the first intimation of what they believed to be a revelation from Heaven, they became as little children, and sought to know the mind of the Lord in this matter. There is no doubt that they were most sincere in their inquiries, for they never hesitated a moment at difficulty or danger: they did not perplex themselves with how they should

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find their way, or what reception they should meet with in such vague and questionable inquiries, but set out at once from their own distant land, with the one simple but earnest inquiry, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" not, Is there one born King of the Jews? for we have seen a star that seems to portend some great potentate and prince, and we have come to make inquiries; but, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.” And were they left to their own unguided efforts? Did the Lord vouchsafe no clue to guide, no light to cheer, no directions to aid them? guided them all the way they should go: "he led them forth by the right way;" and the star they had seen in the east again guided them to the very house where the infant Jesus lay. And did their faith fail them? did they stagger through unbelief when they saw the King they came to worship, and the God whom they sought to adore, lying before them in all the feebleness of infancy, and all the meanness of poverty? No; it is said that as soon as they saw the young child with Mary his mother, " they fell down and worshipped him." If that Saviour,. whom they then worshipped, afterwards declared that the Queen of Sheba should rise up in judgment with the men of that generation, and condemn them, for that she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and,

behold, a greater than Solomon was there, surely these wise men of the east will rise up against us, and condemn us, if they sought, and recognised, and worshipped a Saviour and a God in the lowly, unconscious Babe of Bethlehem, and we despise, and lightly esteem, and set at nought, a risen Saviour and an ascended God.

SECTION V.

(Chapter ii. verse 14 to the end.)

WE have here the vain and futile effort of Herod to destroy the infant Saviour, and the cruel, though ineffectual, means he took to effect his purpose. It was, indeed, decreed in the everlasting counsels of Jehovah that the Son of God should die a bloody death,-that "by the hands of wicked and cruel men He should be crucified and slain;" but the time was not yet come; and till God's hour arrived, vain was the rage of man. In the language of the Psalmist, we might ask, "Why do the heathen so furiously rage together: and why do the people imagine a vain thing?" The kings of the earth may stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and his anointed,—but in vain. As Jesus, many a year afterwards, said of himself in reference to another Herod, "Mine hour is not yet come."

Herod was an old man, and personally could

have nothing to dread from the pretensions of one who was still an infant; nor had he shown that affection for his children as to be much influenced by regard for them. In fact, he had been so cruel towards them, and had put so many of his own sons to death, that the Roman Emperor had sarcastically observed of him, "I had rather be Herod's swine than his son,"-in allusion to the prohibition of swine's flesh in the Jewish law. No doubt Herod's vindictive pride had been touched to the quick when he saw that he had been "mocked by the wise men," and that his intended prey had escaped his clutches. But besides this, Herod, though a Jewish monarch, was an Edomite by birth; and an Edomite never forgot his enmity to the Jewish race. It was Doeg, an Edomite, who, in the time of David, slew all the priests of the house of Eli, at the bidding of Saul; and in the 137th Psalm the Psalmist is introduced as saying, "Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it even to the foundation thereof." And now another Edomite, in the person of Herod, wreaks his bloody enmity against the hated race; and in his mad infatuation thinks to counteract the purposes and falsify the prophecies of God. But in vain;-the timely warning is given to Joseph in a dream, and Egypt is marked out as the place of refuge for the child. How singular this appointment! Egypt had once before been sought as a place of