THE OLD YEAR. BY AGNES R. HOWELI.. A FEW more hours, and then I must obey Since my life dawned, o'er England's well loved shore I charge you then, when this my life has flown, Entwined together joy and sorrow met, Farewell! my requiem thus I proudly sing; No future years will see my mem'ry die. CHILDREN OF THE BIBLE. BY THE REV. R. J. GRIFFITHS, M.A., LL.D. 1. THE CHILD JESUS. "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols."-1 JOHN v. 20, 21. a It was the close of a winter day. A young man and a girl were stumbling painfully along rough and rocky road in a very wild and desolate country. The young couple were going to Bethlehem, their native city. They had travelled a long way to get there. And now night was drawing on. The poor girl was weak and ailing, but still she struggled bravely on, and both of them no doubt strained their eyes very eagerly to catch a glimpse, if they could, in the gathering night, of the place they longed so much to see. At length the barren, stony country gave place to a hill covered with vineyards and barley-fields, the very hill which Naomi saw when she came back from the land of Moab. Up the steep incline the poor young people toiled; and when they reached the top, they were actually in the city of Bethlehem. It was a long town, of little more than one street, built on the summit of two hills, with a lower ridge between them. Here they hoped to find rest in the inn, after the pains of their journey. How pleasant it must have been for Mary to feel that the tiresome walk all the way from Nazareth was now over, and how gladly both of them must have bent their steps to the inn! Now this place was not at all like what we call an inn; it was only a piece of ground, enclosed by a strong wall, with perhaps an armed man at the gate to keep robbers away. Inside there was nothing but an archway running round the yard to keep off the rain, and here travellers were obliged to make themselves as comfortable as they could. But when Joseph and Mary got to the door, they were told that the place was quite full, and that no more could be admitted. What were they to do? They might have walked from one end of the long street to the other without finding anybody willing to take them in. Bethlehem was very full, and very busy that night. The census was being taken, as we would say now-a-days. In other words, Government officials were counting the people to see how many there were in the whole country. Now the Romans took the census just as we do. They counted everybody in the place where he lived. But the Jews had a plan of their own. They liked to keep up old family relationships. You can see that from the great number of family trees, or genealogies, in the Bible. Whenever, then, the Jews took the census, everybody had to go to the city where his family came from at first, there to be counted with his relations. Most of the land about Bethlehem once belonged to Jesse, the father of David, and it was he who first of all made the little village famous. Jesse had been dead, as you know, for many hundreds of years, and his family was by this time a very large one, so that every house in Bethlehem must have been quite full that night. To make matters worse, Joseph and Mary were very, very poor. They could not pay much for any kind of a lodging, and so they turned to the hillside, near the inn. There they found a great many caves-caves which are still to be seen. They have all been worn out of the soft limestone by falling water; and in one of these grottoes the people who stayed at the inn used to put their beasts for the night. It had a manger, cut with a pick out of the soft stone, and it must have been very dark and very cold in there. Here, in this cave, far away from her home, and far away from her friends, the Virgin Mother gave birth to JESUS CHRIST. The little Jewish baby, who slept so sweetly in that rude stone manger, was poorer and more friendless than anybody you ever heard of. If any traveller, resting at the inn that night, had wondered what the little new-born infant would be when He grew up to be a man, he would be quite sure that He could be nothing better than a poor labouring man in some far-off village in Galilee. And yet you know it was not so You and I pray to Him, and love Him, and read His words in a way that we never read anybody else's words. And people will go on doing this for hundreds and hundreds of years after we are dead and buried. Why? Because that little Baby was the great, and rich, and good God come down into the world to tell us wonderful things that we could never have found out without Him, and without which we could never live as He wants us to live. He was so sorry for us, because we were so poor, so ignorant, and so sinful; because we knew so little about the glorious God that loves us all, loved us until He left His own beautiful home in heaven to be born in that cave on the hillside of Bethlehem. And everything about His birth was meant to show us how anxious He was not to frighten us, but to win us by His love, and to touch our hearts by showing His pity for us. That is why He was not born in a palace as the son of some earthly king. If He had been, we might have been afraid of Him, afraid to take to Him the load of every-day sins and every-day faults, and afraid to tell Him just what is in our minds. Kings do not often care much for very poor and very humble people, and it was these who wanted help the most. They had troubles of all kinds then just as we have now, and these people had nobody to be good to them, nobody to say kind words of comfort to them, nobody to help them to be better and purer boys and girls, and men and women, until Christ came down as a poor little baby. In everything His life was just like that of the humblest among us, except that He never did anything wicked. He was rocked to sleep in His mother's arms just as little children are rocked to sleep now. When He grew older we are told He was "obedient" to her in everything. He did not think Himself wiser and better than she was, although she was only a poor ignorant peasant woman. No, but He loved to wait upon her, and to work for her, and to sit at her feet, perhaps talking to her as she sat spinning at the cottage door in the long summer evenings. He must have been very happy then, as all children are happy who really love their parents, and try to be good to them. And then Christ was always so full too of gentle winning ways, which made Mary love Him as no mother before or since has ever loved a son. It is just in these little ways, these things which seem so small and trifling at the time,-the errand quickly done, the loving word lovingly spoken, that most of the best sunshine in our lives lies. It is these little things that we must look to if we want to make ourselves and others happy. If you look at some great picture painted by some famous artist, you can see how carefully every leaf and line has been drawn; you can find out very easily what immense trouble it was to put down on the canvas the hundreds of little bits of colour that make up the perfect work of beauty. And so it is with our life. Make it a rule never to wait for big things. They may never come. They very seldom do come; and when It was our death that He spared not Him they do we shall never know what to do with them unless we have made good use of small opportunities. That was the way in which Jesus Christ did so much good during His short life on earth. The poor sick people in wretchedly dirty villages, and in out of the way places, who had been suffering for years from dreadful diseases which nobody tried to cure, because nobody thought that these people were worth troubling about, never came to the Saviour without being healed by Him. He was so glad to do it. None of them was too mean for Him to care about. It was their very meanness and ugliness that attracted Him. It was the poor neglected souls like the Woman of Samaria whom He liked to teach, just because it was they who wanted teaching the most. And so it was all through His life. He never went out of a house but that it seemed as if the sunshine had gone out with Him. And in the end, when He came to die, He died as He had lived-for us— for you and for me, and for all of us. He died-it was our debt that He paid. self even from the Cross that our sins might be taken away. The picture of the true life, the holy life, the grand life which God Himself set us when He was here upon earth, was that of a life given up-every moment of it, from the manger of Bethlehem to the olives of Gethsemane and the cross of Calvary-for the good of others. Do you remember how He once said that the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, but that the Son of Man had nowhere to lay down His head? was caring for others nobody cared for Him, or at least very, very few, and they only the very poorest people. In all the great world we only know of one place which He could call His home, the little house at Bethany. Nobody ever had so few friends to love Him and to help Him as this most sweet and pitiful Man of Sorrows. But still He could even die for His enemies, and it was just because they were His enemies that He was obliged to die for them if ever they were to be saved. It mattered nothing that they were cruel to Him, He only knew that they were in danger, and that He alone could save them. He only remembered that they wanted His help very much, and He gave it gladly and freely. It was always for others-nothing for Himself. While He That is the true life-the beautiful life which the child Christ, the baby Jesus came to teach us. And thus we know that He is the true God. Thus we know that if we do as He did, so far |