In Bethlehem the Holy Family, as is still the custom, had lain down soon after dusk, and doubtless the intimation by dream was given while the protection of night still offered the longest opportunity of escape. It was a voice ringing out its warning after the dreamer had started up in the darkness, “Arise, and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt.” The Rabbinical writers speak of the time anterior to the day of the expected Messiah as destitute of marvels and miracles, these having ceased since the death of Simon the Just――a period of nearly two hundred years――and about this date an age of spiritual activity is witnessed to by them. Wonders in the heavens and on the earth occur, although not of the stupendous kind that had been expected, and which later the Doctors demanded of Christ. Dreams of Divine inspiration are mentioned out of the Gospels as frequently affecting the fate of men. St. Joseph had a spirit of profound obedience to heavenly authority. The Founder of Islamism declared that among all the ancient prophets none was greater than Jonah. To me it seems that among the saints in the group which fostered the Christian Church during its first perils, none was greater than Joseph, and this for an opposite reason. He had the very soul of submission and faith, bearing all evil report and contumely without resentment when once he had been assured that the Heavenly Father’s purpose needed this. It seems to us no confession of weakness in this claim for the first of the Fathers of Christianity to state here that St. Joseph was last of all the band of guardians of the infant Church, recognised in its established days as a saint. It is a further proof of his humility, and of that true trust in right doing which leaves all after-issues to God, when his command sanctifies a course. “Pray that your flight be not on the Sabbath, nor in the winter,” may have been said with some family memory of the troubles suffered on the escape from Herod’s cunning. In April short storms of severity occur; the writer has seen on the eighth day of this month snow three inches deep which had fallen during the night. The picture gives snow on the heights, and to be consistent the beginning of their journey would have been under a cloud-covered sky. Dark and forbidding would have been the scene as the travellers emerged from the town (walled, in part at least, since remains of such are still traceable near the tomb of the mother of Benoni) the wind blustering through the exposed valleys and scouring over the heights, the anger of heaven and earth alike dictating stealth and silencing all converse.