Redeemer from Judea, and whose death now allows his return. It was that Herod, who, at the close of a blood-stained life of seventy years, goaded by the furies of an evil conscience, racked by a painful and incurable disease, waiting for death but desiring life, raging against God and man, and maddened by the thought that the Jews, instead of bewailing his death, would rejoice over it as the greatest of blessings, commanded the worthies of the nation to be assembled in a circus, and issued a secret order, that, after his death, they should all be slain together, so that their kindred, at least, might have cause to weep for his death. It was this monster who sought to destroy the infant Christ, and it is the like of him that perpetually persecute the innocent, feeble and unfortunate of earth. But he who is about to return from Egypt will grow up to be a mightier than Moses to conduct the people from bondage and deliver the tyrant's prey. His first impressions are those of cruel wrongs, his earliest days are troubled by despotic rage, his youthful limbs are chafed with incessant toil, and he grows up keenly to observe on the one hand benignant old age buffetted by scorn and doubt, while on the other the "bright consummate flower" of her sex bends before the storm she cannot resist, diligently labors to foster the excellence she has produced, and at the source of human hope and fear tempers for our redemption the swelling attributes of one mighty to save. "Thus" says Neander, "in the very beginning of the life of HIM who was to save the world, we see a foreshadowing of what it was afterwards to be. The believing souls, to whom the lofty import of that life was shown by Divine signs, saw in it the fulfilment of their longings; the power of the world, ever subservient to evil, raged against it; but amid all dangers, the hand of God guided and brought it forth victorious."

From this general statement of the circumstances attendant on the early days of Christ on earth, let us proceed to remark that the suffering and toil into which he was plunged at so tender an age were adapted to develop his powers and fit him for the perfect accomplishment of the redemption he came to execute. The painful experience of his earliest struggles had the triple advantage of unfolding his energies, his sympathies, and his aspirations.

In the first place, as is the case with all redeemers, his best energies were developed by the worst trials. Christ assumed our nature, bore our sorrows, fought our battles, won our tri

umphs. He came to this tearful and stormful earth to live out in actual experience from the first pang to the last, the spiritual sorrows and physical deprivations of all Adam's race. Monarch supreme in heaven, and regal on earth even by right of birth, he chose to appear in the most humble condition. For our sakes he became poor, and entered upon the conquest of the world without noticing either its honors or its emoluments. In the eye of the wealthy and powerful he was regarded only as "the carpenter's son. The morning of his career dawned in the lowest vale of life, where he shared the sufferings of the most destitute, the wretched abode of cattle even, for there was no room for him and his associates at the inn. Such was the pomp in which the Deliverer of mankind appeared. The first acts of his divinity here below were struggles against want, and his destitution increased in proportion as his functions arose. The foxes had holes and the fowls of the air had nests; but the Son of Man had no reposing place for his head. Poor and toil-worn to the end, he earned all with his own hands, or received from charity the bread he ate, the garments he wore, and the winding-sheet in which he was entombed. Whoever has struggled with difficulties almost to strangling at the very outset of his heroical career,-whoever has toiled all day to win a scanty sustenance, and in mental desolateness and gloom deeper than night has shrieked in agony to the God of heaven,—whoever has cloaked his outward wants and inward aspirations beneath the humble mechanic's garb, and gone forth, firm, silent and resolute, learning the "priceless wisdom from endurance drawn" among his fellow-men,-whoever has mourned for "all the oppressions which are done under the sun," and been "mad for the sight of his eyes that he did see," whoever has felt all the "wanderer in his soul," and striven through the tender years of youth with sweating brow, blistered hands and bleeding heart to win the weapons of moral warfare and cleave a way to self-emancipation and the disenthralment of all mankind,let him come and hug to his bosom that brother of the poor and young champion of the weak; let him receive cheering words of fellow-feeling, and strength that shall never fail, from that Boy of Nazareth, the working Son of God. And in his intercourse with such an example of overcoming courage and patient efforts for the common weal let him never despond, but remember "He that is born, is listed; life is war; Eternal war with woe."

Early to task the energies of a predestined hero through severe toil is gradually to make him acquainted with his latent might, and causes him to taste the the glory of his own puttings. forth and triumphs. It is thus that personal power is quickened and kept in motion. All that is divine on earth must be developed and find expansive scope through resolute exertion. Of what use are wings to a young eagle so long as he sits in his eyrie, looking out idly upon the vast expanse around him? Because the first flappings of those pinions are of necessity feeble, they are not therefore to be kept perpetually unemployed. Mere instinct teaches the parent bird better than this. He early induces his young to try his strength, and if he refuses for lack of confidence, he pitches him out, and a few weeks of trials constantly increased, constitute the glory and the joy of the young monarch of the air. Had he been moored in the dove's downy nest, his first flight would have sent him down dazzled before the rising day; but with strong plumes growing from within himself, and strenghthened by struggles to surmount or penetrate opposing blasts, he wins and adorns the birthright of his race, darting to the zenith unblenched, snd bathing himself in the splendors of the noontide sun. The very condition of one in this world of sin and sorrow, the obscurity in which we perish, or from which we are compelled to emerge-vicissitudes of every degree, and wants of every kind-every objective difficulty, and every subjective trial-all that can by any possibility be made to invigorate the body or arouse the mind-may be regarded as the compost out of which true heroism draws. sap, acquires fibre, and imbibes the sustenance which aids the rising champion to disclose the hidden beauty of his spirit, the symmetry of his form, and the flexile majesty of his invincible strength. Says Cowper, truly,

No soil like poverty for growth divine,

As leanest land supplies the richest wine."

All our higher faculties gain infinitely more of purity and power by breathing in content the keen and wholesome air of penury, than by all the enervating fumes which wealth can furnish through luxury and lust. The history of true greatness exhibits not a single model who did not from the first accustom himself to drink only from the well of homely life. Adversity, in exercising her power, loses her most offensive features and develops in her victims their best strength. Said William Wallace to king Edward I., "Thou hast raised me among men. VOL. 1-2.

Without thy banners and cross-bows in array against me, I had sunk in utter forgetfulness. Thanks to thee for placing me, eternally, where no strength of mine could otherwise have borne me! Thanks to thee for bathing my spirit in deep thoughts, in refreshing calm, in sacred stillness! This, O king, is the bath for knighthood: after this it may feast, and hear bold and sweet voices, and mount to its repose. The best energies of the greatest men are never fully unfolded within and without except by the ordeal of severe struggles and malignant sufferings. Almost every champion who has won eminent influence among his fellows, might adopt the motto of Rousseau: "I was born weak; ill treatment has made me strong." They who "wander in the torrid climes of fame," the sons of beneficent genius who are born to elevate the existence of the human race, must in the beginning shed many bitter sweat-drops, and give vent in solitude to many tear-steeped sighs. It is thus that the god-like is ever compelled to do penance for superabundant powers, and pay, with exhausting interest, the debt which he owes to suffering humanity. No great redeeming spirit appears on earth to be ministered unto, but to minister; it is his highest prerogative and best reward to serve, to elevate, to bless. All wisdom that pertains to salvation is bought with labor and pain, and he who pants for the holiest truth and the highest power, will be indulged just so far as he climbs the rugged heights of tribulation with delight.

Lord Bacon compared virtue, or true manliness, to precious odors, "most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue." Here is a high truth,-but Jesus came, in the circumstances of his birth, in the toils and deprivations of his youth, to teach us a higher and a better. He would have us no longer leave, unperceived, or if known, despised, the numerous examples of heroical poverty, which lie all around, and which should challenge the fostering sympathy of all mankind. Shrouded in obscurity and enduring neglect, still are they the choicest denizens of the earth, coming here to devote their lives to benevolence, sacrificing themselves to duty and the defence of justice in view of inevitable persecution, perhaps of prisons or the rack. Oh, what moral grandeur in such examples is exemplified, and what divine lessons do they teach. We almost hear each consecrated votary at the shrine of Eternal Righteousness exclaim from the depths of his soul, "Poverty

may humble my lot, but it shall not debase me; temptation may shake my nature, but not the rock on which thy temple is based; misfortune may wither all the hopes that blossomed in the dewy morning of my life, but I will offer dead leaves when the flowers are no more. Though all the loved objects of earth perish,all that I have coveted fade away, I may groan under my burden, but I will never be recreant to duty, never disloyal to thee, oh my God!" Such resignation, suffering supported with so much constancy, was indeed noble, as seen, for instance, in the immolation of Socrates, but how much more sublime in the youthful struggles of Jesus Christ. What is there so exalted or divine, "as a great and brave spirit working out its end through every earthly obstacle and evil: watching through the utter darkness, and steadily defying the phantoms which crowd around it; wrestling with the mighty allurements, and rejecting the fearful voice of that WANT which is the deadliest and surest of human tempters; nursing through all calamity the love of the species, and the warmer and closer affections of private ties; sacrificing no duty, resisting all sin; and amid every horror and every humiliation, feeding the still and bright light of that genius which, like the lamp of the fabulist, though it may waste itself for years amidst the depths of solitude, and the silence of the tomb, shall live and burn immortal and undimmed, when all around it is rottenness and decay!" But if it thrills every generous fibre of our nature to observe a fellow-creature thus toiling to be free and beneficent, what shall we think of that wonderful Being who deigned to assume humanity's woes and struggle up from childhood through the most abject trials, that from the throne of heaven, and the throes of earth he might win the energies of Almightiness to redeem Mankind! It is indeed strange to see a Savior incarnate in a manger, and from the first developments of youth tied with base entanglements which through all subsequent life are destined to grow closer and closer till death sets the enthralled divinity free. But the sight is glorious and instructive as it is strange. It tells us that effort is the condition of growth; that he who came to be a matured and perfect Redeemer had first to perform the appropriate toils of a youthful God.

In the second place, the sympathies of the young Messiah were as effectually developed by the stern necessity of toil, as were the other elements of redeeming strength. Man's destiny is best achieved, and his most valuable fruits produced, through