Let us see how the case stands. Let us consider the facts relating to Jesus Christ. Long before his birth, preparation was made for his coming. From the era of Adam's fall, men were taught to expect a Deliverer. He was expected by the patriarchs, post-diluvian as well as ante-diluvian; and as true religion died away, and mankind began to worship wood and stone, the work of men's hands, the expectation was still kept up, by the election, separation, and miraculous preservation of a chosen people, to the father of whose race the promise had been made that in his seed all the nations of the world should esteem themselves blessed. And among that people the expectation, fostered by types and prophecies, became gradually more vivid, until, at the end of four thousand years, the fulness of the time arrived, and he who had been promised to Adam, and hoped for by all succeeding fathers, was born into the world. And yet, vast as this preparation was,— sufficient and more than sufficient to designate a prophet,-before the conception of Jesus Christ the laws of nature were transgressed, and miracles prepared the way before him. An angel announced the approaching birth of one who, in order to be his harbinger, was to be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb, and to turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God; and the mother of this child, in order to mark the miraculous interference of the Deity, was a woman well stricken in years. Nor was this all. The same angel Gabriel appeared to the "Blessed among women," the Virgin Mary, declaring that the Holy Ghost should come upon her, and the power of the Highest overshadow her; and that therefore the holy thing that should be born of her should be called the Son of God. And the same angel appeared yet again to Joseph, unto whom the blessed Virgin was espoused, saying, "Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost and she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." And when his : And birth had actually taken place, not one angel only, but a multitude of the heavenly host, commissioned to announce the event to the shepherds of Judea who were watching their flocks by night, were heard to praise God and to say, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men": while "the glory of the Lord shone round about them." when the young child was taken to the temple to be circumcised, the long-lost spirit of prophecy once more evinced itself in Simeon, that holy man, and in Anna the prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel. And while he yet lay in the cradle, wise men, princes or sages, came from the East to Jerusalem, led thither by a strange star, (some luminous meteor of a starlike form in our atmosphere, which had an irregular place and an irregular motion, and which moved from place to place until it came to the house where the young child was,) and they fell down before the infant and worshipped him, and presented unto him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, that is, they offered to the child of Mary, who had been born in a manger, such gifts as the queen of Sheba had presented to Solomon in his glory. And when a suspicious tyrant issued his bloody edict for the slaughtering of all the children that were in Bethlehem and the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, he was defeated in his purpose, which was the destruction of Jesus, as the angel of the Lord had appeared to Joseph in a dream, commanding him to take the young child and his mother, and to flee into Egypt, until the angel should again bring him word that they might return unto the land of Israel. And yet, after all these miracles, with the exception of his appearance in the temple when he was twelve years old, when "all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers,” he remained for thirty years retired and unknown: this seclusion and retirement of one conscious of such such powers, evincing an almost miraculous degree of humility, certainly a kind of humility of which no other example exists. He acted not, he entered not upon his ministry, until he had received his commission hereby exhibiting an example to mankind, and showing that a consciousness of great capacities and powers is not sufficient to constitute a minister of God, until a commission has been received from on high; either, as in the case of the Lord Jesus, by the express declaration of God; or, as in the case of the Jewish priests, by natural descent; or, as is the case in the Christian Church, by the imposition of hands by those bishops who can prove their succession from the apostles. But no sooner had the time arrived for the commencement of the ministry of the Lord Jesus, than heaven and earth were again in commotion. The voice of John the Baptist,of whom our Lord himself has said that he was "more than a prophet," and that "among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist,”—his voice was heard throughout the land, preparing the way before Jesus. To high and low, to deputations from the chief sects and from the government, to priests and to Levites, to the soldiers and |