strong man of the age, and who is not yet known. Sadly, sadly, will they be disappointed, unless the leader is himself divinely led, and the heart of the Christ-child lives in him, and thus in the hearts of this generation, the Messiah is born anew. Every true purpose, all genuine faith speeds the day of his new coming, and hastens the downfall of Herod and his host. * * * * * Friends, Readers, let your hearts apply the lesson of this day, and let your hearts be cheered and solemnized by its associations. Think of your homes and the loved ones there. Think too of the loved ones departed, and deem them not lost, but gone before! Love your children, and love them the more by looking on them in the gospel light, by loving them as in God and Christ! Think too of our own early days. How vividly they at times come back, so that we almost forget maturity and its cares, and are children once more. Let them come back now, and with them all their tender associations--with them thoughts of early home; brothers, sisters, father, and more than all of her, who stood to us in Mary's place, and blessed us with a Christian Mother's love! But can the association rest there? No! Upward to Him, so holy in childhood, so glorious in maturity--to Him, Friend and Saviour, Messiah, from whom our best blessings flow, let our gratitude rise, and to God, through Him, let our devotion be exalted! We have no hymn to the Virgin Mother, no Ora pro Nobis for the beatified Madonna. Simple faith is better than romantic tradition. To us heaven is fairer for possessing that Mother and that Child. _Christmas Day._ New Things. NEW THINGS. Measured by any human standard, how daring was the vision of the Christian seer! From Patmos, his watchtower of rock in the Aegean Sea, midway between the hemispheres of ancient civilization, he surveyed the ruling powers of the world, declared their doom, and the rise of a new kingdom, even the City of God. The predominant forces of the existing age took visible shape before his inspired imagination. Jewish bigotry, Pagan idolatry, Roman despotism, led on by the master spirit of evil, stood before him, as so many fearful monsters. Equally vivid were the forms of divine agency by which they were to be subdued. From Him who sat upon the throne revealed in heaven, came the decree, "Behold, I make all things new." Our pen need not lose its cheerfulness in writing of this opening year, with such imagery in view.