You remember, I dare say, what a stir was made in this country and elsewhere, a few years since, by the unexpected appearance of that beautiful comet. How groups were to be seen standing about every evening, both in and out of doors, with telescope or the naked eye, gazing at it, and expressing to one another their wonder and delight. Well, some such feeling as this, mingled with a certain religious awe, must have taken hold of this people of the east on that night. How brilliant! what can it be? what can it mean? how close to us! who will tell us something about it? Exclamations such as these, were heard on all sides, from the lips of rich and poor alike. Now there were men in that kingdom who might naturally be supposed to know something about it, for they had made the science of the stars, in their supposed connection with human action, or astrology, a special branch of study. {146} They were men of education. They were high in civil station too, and filled such offices as magistrate, and governor, and even that of a sort of petty sovereign. They were called Magi. They were in their own country what the Mandarin is in China; what the Brahmin is in India. But how can they know any thing of a star so unusual in its appearance as this? There were two sources through which a certain prophecy connected with the appearance of a star might have reached them. 1. Fifteen hundred years before, a prophet or diviner, whatever his office may have been, whose name was Balaam, had uttered a most remarkable prophecy. It was as follows: "_I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not near. A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall spring up from Israel_." If Balaam was a fellow-countryman of these Magi, as some learned writers have supposed, then they could hardly have been ignorant of this prophecy. {147} 2. One thousand years after that again, the Jews were carried away in captivity to the city of Babylon, and dispersed themselves through that region of country. It is natural to suppose that in this way their traditions and sacred writings became publicly known. In that case, these men of science could hardly have failed to notice the fact of Balaam's prophecy being found in the Jewish book of Numbers. They would moreover find, in the course of that familiar intercourse which was now established between the people of both nations, that the Jews had always considered this prophecy as having reference to the promised Messias, or future Ruler of their people.