He came like the dawn in its soft and silent approach. Then, also, in another manner. Not suddenly, nor all at once. The sun's rising is a gradual and progressive thing. First, there is but a faint gray twilight, softening the darkness and heralding what is to come, then a few dim purple streaks spread upon the far eastern horizon, followed shortly by the golden tips of the great luminary lifting the gates of the morning. So with our divine Dayspring. From all eternity it was determined that this Dayspring should come. Adam, going weeping from a paradise lost, and after him Seth and Enoch and Noah and Shem and Abraham beheld from afar the early dawn, the dim and vague streaks. The types and holy sacrifices offered in the temple after that, the psalms and prophecies given by God's inspired servants, gave still nearer and clearer views of what was to come. Zacharias exults as he sees the tips, as it were, beginning to appear. And we, with the whole Christian world, are hastening these days in spirit to see the sun rising over the hills of Judea in Bethlehem's town. How in its promises and preparations--its gradual development--was the coming of Christ like the day-spring, the rising dawn. Nor can we afford to overlook one other feature in the manner of Christ's visit as the Dayspring. The sun comes every morning, shining for all and singling out none. There is a universality of kindness about it. The poorest man and the richest, all classes and all things, have the same access to its undivided radiance. How much is this like Christ's coming! "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." "Behold," was the angelic proclamation on Christmas night, "I bring you glad tidings of great joy which shall be to _all_ people." The Christmas story enters into the world with the broad universal look of daylight. It is as wide and open to all as is this earth. It singles out none, it excludes none, it wishes to bless a whole guilty world with the same impartiality as the sun. The Christmas message is unlimited in its invitation: "Come hither, ye faithful, O come, one and all." Silently, gradually, universally, hath and doth the Dayspring from on high visit us. And why--that is the concluding feature of our contemplation, why has it visited us? What is its object in doing so?