lest they should be found uninvited and unwelcome guests. These are they whom God delighteth to honour. These are they who "sow in tears, but shall 66 reap in joy" into whose hearts the Holy Spirit shall be shed abroad to be their joy and comfort on earth; who, when this short life is ended, shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, and inherit the beatitude promised by their Saviour. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”* * "Ave Maria! thou whose name, Yet may we reach thy shrine; With love and joy like thine. Bless'd is the womb that bare him-bless'd The bosom where his lips were press'd, But rather bless'd are they Who hear his word and keep it well, The living homes where Christ shall dwell, And never pass away." The Christian Year. "His Christian year is a most acceptable gift to all Christians and to the Christian priest an invaluable one. We may be proud of possessing, in these days, one who to such delicacy of poetical thought, adds such a warm spirit of devotion."-Sermons on Christian Ministry, by the Rev. Hugh James Rose. Notes, p. 176. 24 SERMON II. EPIPHANY. ISAIAH xlix. 6. "And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." THE Catholic church has just been engaged in commemorating that first manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles which took place when the wise men of the east, directed by a star, came to Bethlehem to pay their homage to their new-born Saviour. This was intended by Providence to intimate, that the new and more perfect dispensation of Jesus was not, like that of Moses, to be confined to one people, but was to embrace the whole habitable world: that Christ was to be king not of the Jews only, but that all nations and kindreds and people and tongues were to acknowledge his dominion, and range themselves under his banner. The progress of Christianity, and the ultimate conversion of the whole world from the vanities and superstitions of heathenism to the profession and practice of the truth as it is in Jesus, is a subject which cannot but be of deep and permanent interest to every reflecting and Christian mind. And it is a thought which may perhaps often occur to the mind, and distress the soul of the sincere believer, that the present state of the world but little accords with those glorious C promises of the latter day glory contained in the writings of the prophets. And he laments that this circumstance, this partial spread of Christianity, should in the hands of the infidel be used as an argument against the truth of that religion, on which he has built all his hopes of present peace and future glory. It may not therefore be unsuitable to inquire what are the representations of scripture on this subject, and how they are to be reconciled with the present state of the Christian church. It is to this glorious manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles that I wish this morning very briefly to direct your atten tion. And I shall endeavour to show I. That the religion of Jesus Christ is adapted to be the religion of the whole world; and that it has also the promise of universal dominion. II. That the present state and prospects of the Christian church are not at variance with the promises of God. |