In all this it is easy to see that Irenæus ascribes to the human life of Christ a perpetual, sacramental and saving power in all its stages and acts. The virtue which, from His holy humanity, touches human life, in all its circumstances and stages, is not the virtue merely of truth or of example, but the virtue of His holy and sanctifying life. His infancy, childhood, boyhood, youth, and manhood, were grace and life, which may be perennially claimed by these classes and ages of human life; so that they may plead not merely the merits of His sufferings and death in their behalf, but also the merits of His holy nativity, infancy, childhood, boyhood, youth and manhood. It is at once plain that this is the very thought of the catechism.

In His conception and birth lie the very foundation of the renewal of our humanity. He that cannot, without a strange feeling, call the infant in the manger, with Coleridge, "the babe divine," or, with Jeremy Taylor, the divine and eternal Word abbreviated," substantially denies both the incarnation and the atonement. The Christmas joy is as truly the joy of salvation, as the Easter joy. The presentation of the holy child Jesus in the temple, His holy circumcision, His manifestation to the devout wise men, as the representatives of the Gentile world, His flight into Egypt, His subjection to his parents during the silent years of His holy childhood, these were all a true part of His "learning obedience," and His "being made perfect," that He might become "the author of eternal salvation."

In His death He became, it is true, the sacrifice for sin, and in His resurrection and ascension He raised all that are in Him from the thraldom of death; but neither of these things could He have done, had He not become, by His holy conception and nativity, the new Head of the race.

We do not honor, but rather reduce, the high character of the redeeming work of Christ, by confining it unduly to one act, and one period or point in His glorious mission. We mistake its deepest nature when we regard it as something merely done by Him, and not, first of all, in Him. We take the very foundations from beneath the atonement when we ignore the sublime truth of our text, and see not in His own spiritual and moral struggles, in all the acts and sorrows of His life, the meritorious atoning process of His own learning obedience and being make perfect, and so His becoming the Author of salvation.

He who so contracts, so externalizes the atonement and merits of Christ, is like one who gazes, with vague and general eye, at the distant mountains; he sees their general outlines a cold and motionless, one-colored totality; but he sees not, nor is moved by the endless variety of life and beauty that are hid in its bosom-the laughing cascades, the various and variegated plants and flowers, the weird play of light and shade among the branches of the trees, the inimitable, many-toned songs of a thousand birds and insects. Nothing of all this belongs, for him, to the mountain which It is grand, he says; but he who knows it as he knows it, and also knows it otherwise, says: It is grand, but it also beautiful-it is a world of interest in its particularities and details-it is not to be glanced at merely from a distance, it is to be approached, it is to be roamed through, it is the study of a life-time. It embosoms single objects of beauty which arouse admiration and touch the heart with feeling more than the whole general view from a distance is able to do.

he sees.

There is a way of looking even at the cross, and its scene of agony, which takes it in only in its generality. It is the manner of those who, after they had divided his garments by casting lots, and thus made what use they could of His death, "sitting down, watched Him there." This way of beholding even the cross and passion, sees it most prominently only in the light of its use. It waits for the last groan only to exclaim: "I am redeemed!" The whole scene is to it the atonement, not in the particulars of the fearful process of agony, but only in its result, as it ends in death. It is attracted to the cross by the weak selfishness of obtaining the merits of those sufferings. We say it not severely, but this is the same spirit-only not in so rude a form-which possessed those who were interested in the crucifixion, because it opened the way for a distribution of His sacred garments!

But there is another way of looking at the cross and passion of our Lord. It is after the manner of John, and the Virgin Mother and her sisters, and of Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. They hardly see the scene as a whole, nor think of its end and results; but in the silent, sympathizing agony of sacred love, note it in all its dreadful particulars! To them every feature of agony that passes over the face of the divine sufferer, is a transparent inlet to His burdened heart! They see every nail! their eyes follow the sweep of the hammer which gives the dreadful blow; and the sound of every stroke is as the sword which the aged Simeon prophesied should pierce the virgin mother's heart! They see every purple drop that oozes from the wounds made by the nail, scourge, or thorny crown. Their quick eyes of sympathizing love perceive every movement of His tormentors, as they presage new torture, new insult, new hatred and scorn. They wait not to see how he shall drink the final full cup; their hearts measure and pre-taste every drop of it before it quite reaches His burning lips.

When the dreadful scene is over, we hear no shouts of "The atonement is made-His merits have redeemed us;" but we hear the silent inquiry of love: "Where have ye laid Him?" and see the officious hands of love gather spices for His embalming.

The same blessed particularity must be carried back over all the days of our Saviour's flesh, if we would have a full view of His atonement, and enjoy the full practical benefits of His merits and life.

The truly grateful heart, that has shared in the life-long benefactions and kindnesses of a friend, even though the death of that friend may have been specially marked by the bestowment of a princely legacy, will not be disposed to confine its grateful feelings even to that last generous act-it will not be satisfied to cast all that friend's benefactions into one general sum, saying only to himself: "He has been my best friend." No, no; his heart will love to particularize. His memory will fondly call up every fragment of good, and every detail of kindness, and ponder it with grateful enthusiasm. He will not dwell on the sum, but on the variety which makes up the sum. Over the small as over the great-over all preceding gifts, as over the last large-hearted legacy, will his heart hang and melt in grateful love.

In like manner will the pious heart spread itself over all the time Christ lived on earth. For is it not, after all, a narrow, if not a selfish spirit, which hurries lightly over the "days of His flesh," including thirty years

of sorrowing life, and makes unholy haste to find what it calls the atonement-which is little affected in presence of the mystery which called forth the Magnificat, and Benedictas, and Nunc demittis-which is little moved when it beholds the Divine babe in the stall, while the human world represented in the inn, like the natural world in that "night of winter world," turns its cold side and its dark side towards the mangerwhich has no sense for the sacramental and sacrificial mysteries which are enshrouded for the infant world, in the slaughter of the infant martyrs of Bethlehem, unconsciously drawn into the current of the great offering of Him who was at once their fellow-babe and their Saviour-God-which sees nothing back of the bare event of the banishment of the Holy Child into Egypt-which, in short, passes lightly over all the privations and persecutions, the neglect and scorn, the strong crying and tears, which crowd all along the path of our Saviour's suffering and sorrowing life, watching and waiting only for that last dreadful-"Eli, eli, lama sabachthani!" then to exclaim: "It is the atonement, and I am redeemed!"

How different from this is that teaching of the Heidelberg catechism already quoted, which finds, even in His holy conception and birth, a real mediatorial virtue and merit inherent in His innocence and perfect holiness, which covers, in the sight of God, the sins in which we were conceived and born; and which declares those sufferings, which bear the wrath of God against the sins of all mankind, to be those which He endured all the time He lived on earth, and especially at the end of His life; which thus makes His life, as well as His death, a true part of the atonement, and, with the text, declares the perfection, obedience, and sinless innocence of the Lamb slain to be the true ground of both the atonement and eternal salvation.

How different, in fine, from the spirit of those glorious old Litanies with which martyrs, confessors and saints of all ages have fallen down before the tremendous mystery of our Lord's life-long passion, devoutly ascribing atoning merit to every act of His life, from the depths of the womb to the heights of the heavens, saying:

"By the mystery of Thy holy incarnation;

By Thy holy nativity and circumcision;
By Thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation;
By Thine Agony and Bloody Sweat;

By Thy Cross and Passion;

By Thy precious Death and Burial;

By Thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension;

And by the coming of the Holy Ghost.

In all time of our tribulation;

In all time of our wealth;

In the hour of death and in the day of judgment,
Good Lord, deliver us.'

We make no extended application of the truths we have developed in this discourse. We shall only remark that when these views of the great atoning work of Christ shall again fully possess the consciousness of the Church, they will bring back to us much that is now lost. They will restore to their former honor all the blessed festival commemoration days of the church year, which are based on the acts and facts of Christ's life. They will give us again the happy Christmas, the solemn Good Friday, the

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joyous Easter, the serene Ascension Day, and the festive Whitsuntide of our childhood. They will fill our Hymn-Books again with those blessed "Jesus Lieder "-Jesus Hymns-in which the Hymn-Books of our fore fathers so much abound. They will give us those glorious old Litanies, Te Deums, and Angelic Hymns, which sound down to us through the ages. They will elevate our ideas of the holy sacraments, and make their administration and participation both more solemn and more frequent. They will infuse into all our acts of worship a sense of reality and power which will bring Christ nearer to us. They will make us preach no less of what Christ said, but far more of what He did and what He is. It will change the pulpit from-what it now is too frequently regarded to be-a mere rostrum for moral suasion by the inherent force of truth, into a sublime Tabor summit, where Christ is exhibited in that glory unto which He perfected himself, and is set forth as being himself in His divine-human life and glorification-the principle and source of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him. The Lord himself hasten the day-and let all that believe, say, Amen!

HOLY CHRISTMAS.

FROM THE GERMAN.

BY THE EDITOR.

even much

Allured by the title in a German Catalogue, we lately imported a little book at a big price, written by Karl Scheffer, pastor at St. Moritz, in Halberstadt. The beautiful little book had to be paid for in gold, but we have not regretted the investment, for it is more precious than " fine gold" that we gave for it. The author, in his Preface, "asks for it a place on Christmas tables, and under the Christmas tree in Christian families." We shall certainly hang our gold-edged copy on our Christmas Tree; and that the readers of the GUARDIAN may also have something of it to hang on theirs, we shall diligently translate, so as to give them as much of it as possible in the numbers which still precede Christmas. If our subscribers see fit to assign the Christmas number of the GUARDIAN a place on their Christmas Tree, we have nothing to object; and we know we express the sentiments of the Publishers-who have lost heavily in the fire at Chambersburg-when we suggest that they call the attention of all their uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends generally to it, and hint to them that the way is open for them to subscribe for the New Year. We are not ashamed to ask a kind word for our GUARDIAN which was so cruelly burnt out of house and home! We paid nearly double as much for the little book we propose to translate as the Publishers ask for the GAURDIAN for a whole year. Excuse this incidental hint, and read on as follows: EDITOR GUARDIAN.

There is a WORD which from the fall of the first snow-flakes to midwinter travels from mouth to mouth-a word, which calls forth, as if by enchantment, the hope and joy of hearts, the exercise of busy hands, activity in markets and shops of trade, and every where quietly sets in motion significant, secret plans and surprise movements in family circles.

There is a DAY which constitutes the high point, and the turning point of the whole winter season-a day which brings to all our manifold forms of social life its happiest hours. Even the voyagers on the high seas, even the newly converted Christians connected with missionary stations among the most distant nations of earth, do not forget the day, nor fail to observe its peculiar commemoration.

CHRISTMAS" is this significant word. "CHRISTMAS" is the name of this blessed day. God and the world, angels and men, heaven and earth, love and praise, giving and receiving-all become one on this day. Here all the currents of the most various spheres of life flow together as into their sea of rest. What were our dark, silent winter, with its long, cold nights, without a Christmas? What would form subject and expression for the silent and the audible joy of reciprocal love; for the bliss and buoyancy of child-like minds and childhood's hearts? What a consecration does the good Christian give to the household, to dear cozy family life! What sacredness does it give to those dearest and most beautiful memories which we have brought with us out of the years of childhood!

Our father's house, our parents, our brothers, our sisters-all these are most precious and unforgotten to us, when from distant places, and from long-past years, they present themselves before our hearts illumined by the outward and inward festal brightness of Christmas eve. Such images of light, which renew themselves year after year-do they not belong to the silently treasured holy things of our entire life?

CHRISTMAS-the birth-festival of Jesus Christ!

What were the history of humanity without this fact? An enigma without interpretation, a race without a goal, a mountain without summit. The development and guidance of the nations, our starting point for the computation of time, our Church and Bible, our religious faith, its objec tive contacts, and its subjective power-what were all these without this central point of all the ages. Should Christmas be taken from us, it would be as if the sun should be removed from the world and out of the circle of the social Christian life of the nations. Clothed with ever new charms, and refreshed with perpetual youth, this glad festival and its commemora tion makes its annual return. The heavenly glory, which, perceived or unperceived, spreads its softening sacredness over this day and night, is peculiar in its kind, peculiar in its source, peculiar in its nature, rendering this season peculiar among all the seasons of the year. The more childlike the mind is which goes out in hope toward the birth of the Holy child, the more pure and unclouded will the joy of Christmas be.

Rich and many-sided are the mythical fancies among the various ancient nations, which, in silent and significant way, form the back-ground for that historical event which is represented by the 25th of December, and which the Western Church has celebrated since the fourth century. Many and varied are the peculiar manners and customs which gather around and distinguish Christmas from the other grand festivals of the year.

The Jewish people in their isolated and narrowly circumscribed posi