Whatever reserve of feeling there may be towards a reading which conveys a disputable view of a fact in Holy Writ, let it be remembered that an artist treating a subject in which such is offered cannot delay to make his choice. The first part of his study in making his design is to form a theory in harmony with the intention of the records illustrated, as read by the fullest light, and to leave an exploded theory with confidence that his rendering will be approved as either correct or unobjectionable. In this case no special pleading is needed, seeing that St. Augustine puts the Massacre of the Innocents in connection with the Passover. Perhaps he regarded it as an antithesis to the slaying of the first-born in Egypt, and understood the quotation by St. Matthew from Hosea, “Out of Egypt have I called my son,” as having a fuller purpose than at first appears. In any case he regarded the festival as not fixing the date of the massacre, and the fact argues that neither the date given in the Western Church for the commemoration, nor in the Greek Church, is understood as the date of the sacrifice of the first Christian Martyrs. The journey has been across the mountains from Bethlehem towards Gaza. The birth-place of Christ is on the further side of the range, about five miles beyond the highest elevation, somewhat to the right of the point where the star is rising above the distant curve of the hill; the nearer mountains are about 1,500 feet in height. These, with intervening valleys, are further on in the highlands overtopped by rolling waves of the limestone rocks until they reach the watershed of the country, which is about 2,400 feet in height. Bethlehem lies beyond this 500 feet lower, on a spur overlooking the eastern country, thus falling gradually to the plain of the Dead Sea. The ass is of the Mecca race――so called from the fact that they are brought from the Arab city of pilgrimage as descendants from one which Mohammed rode. They were necessarily always costly, being much sought for on account of their power of endurance, and their surefootedness. It is quite within licence to assume that St. Joseph may have provided himself with such an animal for his journeys. The route taken has been by bye-paths across the mountains and fields to the plain with beaten tracks from all other cities to Gaza, which, once passed, will put the fugitives in safety. In eluding Herod’s cruel decree, St. Joseph would have made his route as far from the state highway as possible. The distance still to be traversed is about ten miles. The Flight into Egypt is one of the first events in the life of Christ which marked the power of the Prince of this world, whom Jesus Christ had come to combat and to conquer, by innocence and suffering.