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of 'the son of thunder,' which to Hebrew ears conveyed the idea of the offspring of the Voice of Jehovah; and his sublime fearlessness, ever soaring upward, and plunging deeper and deeper in light, and ever seeking the highest, led his followers to compare him to the eagle, gazing undazzled at the sun: but his noblest appellation was this, the disciple whom Jesus loved; and in that blessed expression a benediction is pronounced, a holy sanction bestowed on personal and distinctive friendship, like that which is given to family affection by the Redeemer's filial tenderness, and to sorrow by the Redeemer's tears.

'Dieu nous a aimés; c'est toute la doctrine de l'evangile, aimons Dieu; c'en est toute la morale."1 Such was the teaching of the blessed Apostle St. John; his life and doctrine harmonize like the light and the alabaster vase which contains it. He ever walked in the bright beams of the Sun of righteousness: and his light so shined before men that they took knowledge of him that he had been with Jesus.

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THE INNOCENTS' DAY.

O Almighty God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify Thee by their deaths; Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by Thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith even unto death, we may glorify Thy holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

IT is fit that Infancy should have a day of especial notice connected with the birth and infancy of the world's Redeemer; and the unconscious martyrs of Bethlehem have their place in the Christian year next to him who stands as the noblest type of manly purity. They were passive martyrs, yet we cannot doubt that among the little ones whose angels always behold the face of the Father in Heaven, these babes who unconsciously yielded their sweet lives that the infant Saviour's might be spared, will have a memorial before God; we may be sure the fact is not forgotten.

The passiveness of infancy seems to be the characteristic into which all who enter the Kingdom must return: 'Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven;' the spirit

of a little child implies a submissive reception of what God gives, and an emptiness of that self assertion whose root is pride. The infant is emphatically a recipient; this is what is shewn in infant baptism, where there is not even the hand of faith to grasp the gift bestowed; and it was shewn in the crown of martyrdom which these simple creatures received unconsciously, while St. John waited for it in vain, though rejoicing that he was counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ's sake; the crown to which St. Peter attained after a life of conflict; and for which the noble Paul was 'ready to be offered.' They stand conspicuously then, as the great safeguard of the Church, against the worship of either faith or obedience as a meritorious act, for they believed nothing and they did nothing, and God blessed them; they show that He bestows His gifts where and on whom He will; and that it is ours simply to accept; that faith is really an empty hand; the instrument or medium truly through which every gift is received by the conscious soul, but of which His abounding grace is perfectly independent. But having become as a little child in the reception of what God does, and of what God says, and of what God gives, the Christian enters on a conflict of which infancy is happily unconscious; he must pray that all that is in him contrary to God may be crucified; ‘what is Thine in me acknowledge; what is mine take away;' 'mortify and kill all vices in us;'

and so strengthen us who have fallen far from
Thee, that by the innocency of our lives and
constancy of our faith even unto death, we in the
battle of life and the sore combat of the conflicting
will, may glorify Thy Name, even as babes and
sucklings have glorified Thee in life and in death
by their passive acquiescence and submission!
'The harp of heaven

Had lacked its least, but not its meanest string,
Had children not been taught to play upon it:'

and a dying infant touches some chords which its life could not have sounded. A creature with the germ of immortality, brought into the world by suffering, longed for and beloved, just to breathe and to die, surely speaks in unmistakeable language of a life beyond death. Again, human death is the wages of sin; and in the penalty endured by the guiltless babe, we read the awful lesson that 'by the transgression of one many were made sinners;' that in Adam all die, his whole race included in himself. And the certainty that this creature who has done neither good nor evil is an heir of death, and also an heir of resurrection life, speaks of a righteousness not belonging to that race, but wrought for it by another; that 'as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.'

'What purer, brighter sight on earth than when
The sun looks down upon a drop of dew,

Hid in some nook from all but angel's ken,

And with his radiance bathes it through and through:

Then into realms, too clear for our dim view,
Exhales and draws it with absorbing love.
And what if Heaven therein give token true
Of grace that new-born dying infants prove,
Just touched with Jesu's love, then lost in joys above.'

THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST.

Almighty God, who madest Thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man; Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts and all our members being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed Will; through the same Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE fact of the Circumcision, though it does not explain, throws a holy light over the mystery of infant suffering. We cannot guess whether in any measure, or in what way the pains of infancy can yield those peaceable fruits of righteousness which reconcile us to the chastening of those who are visibly exercised thereby; we know not whether the babe, even in his unconsciousness, may be made a partaker of His sufferings, that 'as it suffers it may also reign with Him;' or whether through suffering, the grace of patience may be stamped upon his passive soul; there is an unsearchable mystery in pain; we cannot understand it in any case, and least of all in this;

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