poet, while calling for praise from kings of the earth and all people, princes and all judges, young men and children, rise to a loftier flight, exclaiming: "Praise Him in the heights. Praise ye Him, all ye angels: praise ye Him, all His hosts. Praise ye Him, sun and moon: praise Him, all ye stars of light." IV. THE REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION ARE WORTHY OF OUR HIGHEST PRAISE. Let us bend the head, and, in company of the shepherds, enter the stable. Heard above the champing of bits, the stroke of hoofs, the rattling of chains, and the lowing of oxen, the feeble wail of an infant turns our steps to a particular stall: here a woman lies stretched on a bed of straw, and her new-born child, hastily wrapped in some part of her dress, finds a cradle in the manger. A pitiful sight!--such a fortune as occasionally befalls the Arabs of society--such an incident as may occur in the history of one of those vagrant, vagabond, outcast families who, their country's shame, tent in woods and sleep under hedges, when no barn or stable offers a covering to their houseless heads. Yet princes on their way to the crown, brides on their way to the marriage, bannered armies on their way to the battle, and highest angels in their flight from star to star, might stop to say of this sight, as Moses of the burning bush, "Let me turn aside, and see this great sight!" The prophet foretells a time when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and, bound in the same stall, and fed at the same manger, the lion shall eat straw with the ox. Here is a greater wonder! This stable is the house of God, the very gate of heaven: under this dusty roof, inside those narrow walls, He lodges whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain: the tenant of this manger is the Son, who, leaving the bosom of His Father to save us, here pillows His head on straw; of this feeble babe the hands are to hurl Satan from his throne, and wrench asunder the strong bars of death; this one tender life, this single corn-seed is to become the prolific parent of a thousand harvests, and fill the garners of glory with the fruits of salvation. Mean as it looks, yet more splendid than marble palaces,--more sacred than the most venerable and hallowed temples, here the Son of God was born, and with Him were born Faith, Hope, and Charity--our Peace, our Liberty, and our Eternal Life. Had He not been born, we had never been born again; had He not lain in a manger, we had never lain in Abraham's bosom; had He not been wrapped in swaddling-clothes, we had been wrapped in everlasting flames; had His head in infancy not been pillowed on straw, and in death on thorns, ours had never been crowned in glory. But that He was born, better we had never been; life had been a misfortune to which time had brought no change, and death no relief, and the grave no rest. "Glory to God in the highest" that He was born: we had otherwise been lifting