Thirdly--as the sovereign sacrificer entered the temple but once a year, on the day of expiation, which was the 10th of the Jewish month _rifri_, partly answering to the month of September, the ancients supposed that it was the 27th; and that _afterwards_, on the 23d or 24th, Zacharias having returned home after the feast, Elizabeth, his wife, conceived John the Baptist; when the feast of the conception of that saint was fixed for those days. As women ordinarily go with child for two hundred and seventy or two hundred and seventy-four days, it followed that the nativity of John was fixed for the 24th of June. Such was the origin of St. John's day, and of Christmas day, which was regulated by it. Fourthly--it was supposed that there were six entire months between the conception of John the Baptist and that of Jesus; although the angel simply tells Mary that Elizabeth was then in the sixth month of her pregnancy; consequently the conception of Jesus was fixed for the 25th of March; and from these various suppositions it was concluded that Jesus must have been born on the 25th of December, precisely nine months after his conception. There are many wonderful things in these arrangements. It is not one of the least worthy of admiration, that the four cardinal points of the year--the equinoxes and the solstices, as they were then fixed--were marked by the conceptions and births of John the Baptist and Jesus. But it is yet more marvellous and worthy of remark, that the solstice when Jesus was born is that at which the days begin to increase; while that on which John the Baptist came into the world was the period at which they begin to shorten. The holy forerunner had intimated this in a very mystical manner, when speaking of Jesus, in these words: "He must grow, and I must become less."