At length the supreme day of her life had dawned, and with an unusual expectancy she goes early to her accustomed vigil. As the humble Joseph and Mary draw near, unheralded of men and with no sign of lineage or worth beyond the rank and file of common people, the clear vision of the aged prophetess discovers the King, and with a joy that blossomed into song, she unites with the devout Simeon, who like herself, was also “waiting for the consolation of Israel,” the praises that redemption had at last come to Jerusalem. There was providential coincidence in her coming in just at “that instant,” when Simeon was prophesying and when the babe was in the Temple, for a divine propriety, so to speak, seemed to require that the new-born Saviour should first receive the homage of the elect of Israel. [Illustration: ANNA, THE PROPHETESS.] With this temple scene, the aged Anna comes into and goes out of history, but in its light certain great facts are made luminous forever, namely, that Jesus the Christ comes into our common humanity along no royal road, but through the great common gateway of common people. Jesus touches life at its majority points, meeting our needs and our weakened nature with a brotherhood that loves us and lifts us up. Christ’s first welcome into the world was not through Herod, nor the famous Council of the Seventy, nor through the wise Scribes, or great Pharisees, but through the trembling arms of an aged man and woman. To pause upon the romantic fitness of this temple scene were easy, when the heart of the old and the new, the beginning and the end of life throb together, but rather we turn to the mission of Christ to old age as embodied in this incident of Simeon and Anna. Age is to a well-spent life what the fruit is to the vine, the garnered and best part of it. That ripeness of experience, of mind, of judgment, which comes alone from long and patient drudging on until the mile-posts are many, that calm which comes at the sunset--these are the crowns that come to the soul as it stands on the delectable mountains with the Celestial City in full view. Youth is clear-visioned and hopeful, early life is busied with palpable ambitions, and later on is occupied with the harvesting of ventures and the fruitage of success. But age has nothing but a memory and a hunger, therefore it was a fitness and a providence that Simeon and Anna should reach out their trembling hands in initial welcome to the Son of God.