With these words of exultation would I greet you on this festival morn. Joy to the world, the Lord is come; the King, Messiah, after weeks of preparation, is making His triumphal entry into the habitation of men. Indeed, the long expected guest, with whom our thoughts, songs, and services in the past season of Advent were occupied, has at length arrived. How shall we receive Him? When He first came, nineteen hundred and ---- years ago, in Bethlehem's town, there was a stir and commotion. Wise men suspended their studies and speculations and followed the sign in the firmament which conducted them to the place where the young Child lay; an angel from heaven was sent as a herald to proclaim the glad tidings of great joy, while the multitude of the heavenly host eagerly descended to congratulate men and made the celestial heights resound with their seraphic acclamation: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." And, taking up that chant: "Our heart from very joy doth leap, our lips no more can silence keep." Dull like the ground he walks upon must be the man who, amongst the holy demonstration that is upon the social world, the cheerful merrymaking that is in earth's homes, the radiations of festivities and greetings of cordiality and good will, will not feel a pulsation of that cheer and brightness in his own heart. How this fact of our Christian faith, our Savior's birth, God's assumption of mutual flesh, the coming of the Most High to tabernacle among men, has been more than any other an occasion of universal rejoicing, the center of earth's noblest and holiest joy in family and in the sanctuary! Is it not fitting that it should be so? Merry Christmas, happy Christmas, blessed Christmas, we bid thee welcome! We rejoice that in the rounds of the calendar it has come again. And how shall we observe it? How receive its spiritual and highest blessedness unto ourselves? By lighting up a few candles on our trees? Decorating our windows and walls with some sprigs of garlands and green? By attending a few services during which we are present in body, but largely absent in spirit? The quiet contemplation, the sinking of our minds into the great mystery of godliness: God manifested in the flesh, the realization as it comes from pious meditation of what it all means to us and to all mankind, and that when the external glamor and motion shall have passed over, it shall have left us benefited and blessed in soul, beloved, is not this, after all, for us Christians, the true significance of this holiday time? And it is in harmony with this, that we would bring to our minds the words of the text. Let us devoutly, with concentrated and holy thoughts, regard God's gift, for thus reads the text: "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift." I. _Which is this gift?_ II. _Note what is said about it._ III. _Our conduct respecting it._