O King of nations, as I look back through the ages and see the Child and His Mother so clearly set forth in promise and prophecy, in type and example, when I think of Thy plans for the redemption of the world, made from all eternity and gradually unfolding as the fulness of time approached, when I think of the nations all desiring Thy coming, when I think of the intense desire of Thy loving Heart, there is one thing that seems to jar and to be out of harmony with the rest, and that is the lamentable want of desire in my own heart! The time is very short now, the Child with His Mother are already on the way to Bethlehem. Oh! Let me multiply my Acts of Desire that my little King when He comes may be indeed _my_ "desired One" too. "I sat down under His shadow, Whom I desired." (Cant. II. 3). POINT II. THE CORNER-STONE THAT MAKETH BOTH ONE. "Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner-stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundations" (Isaias XXVIII. 16), "the stone which the builders rejected" (Ps. CXVII. 22). This is one of the promises confided to the chosen nation. Our Blessed Lord claims it as applying to Himself (St. Matt. XXI. 42, St. Luke XX. 17), and St. Peter and St. Paul both speak of it as if it were well known. (Acts IV. 11, 1 Peter II. 6-8, Rom. IX. 33, Eph. II. 20). He is the Corner-stone Who is coming to make both one (Eph. II. 14), both the Jews to whom belongs the promise (Rom. IX. 4) and the Gentiles who are "co-partners of His promise" (Eph. III. 6). He is coming to preach peace to them that are far off as well as to them that are nigh, coming to make "the strangers and foreigners" feel that they are "fellow-citizens with the saints and the domestics of God," coming to weld all together into one great building of which He Himself is to be the chief Corner-stone, binding together the two walls (Jews and Gentiles), supporting each stone and keeping each in its place, a holy temple in the Lord, "a habitation of God in the spirit." Such is the picture St. Paul draws for us (Eph. II), and such is the picture which the antiphon for to-day brings before our minds. "All one in Christ JESUS." He is the King of all nations, the Desired of all nations, the Corner-stone of the whole building; with Him there is neither Jew nor Gentile (Gal. III. 28). Let me tell Him even now before He comes how I long to share in the great work so dear to His Sacred Heart, let me offer myself to co-operate with Him in His designs for the human race which He loves so well. Let me be ready to labour, to suffer, to pray, to spend and be spent, if only I may thus bring Him a few stones for His Holy Temple. I was "sometime afar off" but now have been "made nigh by the Blood of Christ" (Eph. II. 13). "What shall I render?" (Ps. CXV. 12). POINT III. COME AND SAVE MAN WHOM THOU DIDST FORM OUT OF THE DUST.