Micah the prophet witnessed of Him who was to be born in Bethlehem, that "His goings forth have been of old, from everlasting." Zechariah, in a passage, part of which our Lord Himself quoted, exclaims: "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against 'the Man that is My Fellow,' saith the Lord of hosts smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." This is He who, "being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a Servant,—" yea, even that of a feeble Infant, lying in a manger, in an obscure corner of the world which He Himself had created. Such a mystery as this the understanding of man cannot grasp; but faith meekly receives it, and reason bids us acknowledge, that He whose sacrifice was to be of "infinite" merit must needs Himself be infinite; that no created being could possibly have made satisfaction for the sins of a whole world, the redemption of which is a work as marvellous as was its first creation. But nowhere do the marvels of that creation strike us with more overpowering force than when we muse on them beside the manger of Bethlehem. Let us consider Him who deigned to become a mortal Babe in the single attribute of power, as displayed in launching into space this globe in which we live, on which He stooped for a while to dwell, and which, as compared with the heavenly bodies around it, is but as a grain of dust in the universe created by Him by whom "all things were made." Though the giving motion to our world was but a comparatively "small" exercise of such power, how overwhelmingly great it appears when set before us in the scientific page! Let us make an extract from "The Christian Philosopher": *