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the force of our Christian obligations, or to shun the trouble of complying with them. The humility of a God stooping to the lowly condition of a sinner, ought to fill us with shame for our pride, and ought also to make us eager to expiate, by sufferings and humiliations, the guilt which was the cause of the sufferings of Jesus.

Sufferings and humiliations pave the way to real glory. This great truth was exemplified in Jesus Christ: it holds good also of the zealous imitators of His virtues. In submitting to the painful and humiliating ceremony of circumcision, the Blessed Infant merited the adorable name of Jesus: a name the most glorious, and most expressive of His saving power. He abased Himself by an act of humility the most profound; for which reason, as St. Paul says, God hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a name above all other names, that in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven, on earth, and in hell; and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Lord.

A devotion towards this Sacred Name began with the Church herself. It ought never to be pronounced but with respect. From generation to generation, parents have taught their children to confide in it, and to repeat it with a lively faith and an ardent charity, that thus they may obtain the blessing of salvation, promised by St. Paul to those who shall duly call upon it. For in calling upon Jesus, our Saviour God, we publicly declare, that through Him alone, and not from ourselves, the grace of salvation comes. The name of Jesus was brought from Heaven by an Angel: it was given by God the Father to the Divine Infant even before He was conceived in the Virgin's womb. It, therefore, is our duty not to rob Him of the glory which He has thus received: we should be careful not to hinder Him from being a Saviour to us: with profound humility, then, let us lay open the wounds of our souls before Him, that the merits of His life and death may heal and save us.

The Purification of the Blessed Virgin.—Luke, ii.

At the end of forty days Mary repaired to Jerusalem, that she might there satisfy the twofold precept of her own

purification, and of her Son's presentation in the Temple, according to the Law of Moses. She knew, indeed, that her virginal purity had been rendered more bright by the Divine glory of her Son; she knew from the words of the Law, that the obligation did not concern her; but she also knew, that the public were not then acquainted with her singular privileges; she had seen her Son submit to the law of circumcision, and therefore she would admit of no exemption that should publicly distinguish her from the rest of her sex.

In memory of the fate which had befallen the first-born of Egypt, when the Israelites were delivered from that country, the Law of Moses ordained that every first-born son among the children of Israel should be consecrated to the Lord, and should then be redeemed by the offering of some living creature, which for the rich was a lamb, and for the poorer class a pair of pigeons or two turtle doves. Mary, although descended from the kings of Juda, came to the Temple as an humble handmaid of the Lord, with a pair of doves for her offering, and with Jesus in her arms.

There lived at that time in Jerusalem an aged man of great piety, who was named Simeon, and who being adorned with every religious virtue, was waiting for the consolation of Israel. By a secret inspiration of the Holy Ghost, he came to the Temple at the very hour that Jesus was brought thither by Mary and Joseph, for he had received a promise from the Holy Spirit that he should not depart out of life, before he had seen the Anointed of the Lord. Being illuminated by the interior light of faith that filled his soul, he took the Divine Infant into his arms, and exclaimed in a transport of praise and holy joy: "Now, my God, mayest Thou dismiss Thy servant in peace, since, according to Thy word, mine eyes have seen the Saviour of the world; since Thou hast revealed the Light, which shall shine not only on the Jews, but on all the Gentiles throughout the earth." The Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph listened with admiration to the venerable man, who, after blessing them, went on to prophesy what was in store for the Divine Infant, and what a sword of grief should pierce through His Mother's heart. While Simeon was yet speaking, a pious widow, named

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Anna, entered the Temple, and addressed Mary and Joseph in the same prophetic strain.

When they had thus complied with all that was commanded by the Law, Mary and Joseph, with their heavenly charge, returned to their humble home in Nazareth.

The presentation of the child Jesus by His mother in the Temple, is an instruction of the utmost importance to Christian parents; for as there can be nothing in life more dear to parents than their children, so nothing ought to engage their attention more than to procure for their children real happiness. To attain this end it is their duty frequently to recom

mend their offspring to God, devoutly to pray for them, and to put them in the way of obtaining the Divine blessing. The preservation of their innocence, and their early instruction in Christian piety, is a precious charge, of which God will one day demand an exact account. It is a charge of the utmost consequence, both to parents and to children; a charge which cannot be duly fulfilled without steady application. A certain tenderness of feeling, which unfortunately leads some parents to indulge the pettish inclinations of their children, is a mistaken fondness; it is but another form of selfishness, and a real cruelty to those whom they think they love.

The Adoration of the Wise Men.-Matt. ii.

Scarcely had the birth of Jesus Christ been announced to the Jews by an Angel, when the apparition of a star manifested it also to the Gentiles. The nations, that had sat for ages in the darkness of infidelity, were admonished by a miraculous light, that a King was born for the salvation both of Jews and Gentiles. This new star appeared in the East, but of the many to whom it appeared, we know of none who profited by it except the three Wise Men of the East, as they are called in Holy Scripture. Being eager to find the King, whose birth was so wondrously intimated to them, they spent no time in raising doubts and difficulties, but at once prepared the presents which they would bring as tokens of their faith and piety, and began their journey towards Jerusalem, as the star directed them.

They entered the royal city without disguise; they made no secret of their intention; they went straightway to the palace of Herod, and there, in the hearing of that jealous prince, they announced that they had come to pay the tribute of their adoration to the new-born King of the Jews, and they desired to know where He might be found.* Herod, who knew that he himself had no other title to the crown of

*Considerable diversity of opinion exists as to the time at which the visit of the Wise Men took place. It will suffice here to mention the two views which have been most generally adopted, whether among the holy Fathers, or among modern commentators.

According to the first of these views, the visit is supposed to have taken place during the stay of the Holy Family at Bethlehem, in the interval of forty days that elapsed between the birth of our Lord and His presentation in the Temple. This view is embodied in the popular belief, which, founded, as it would seem, upon a mistaken inference from the arrangement of the festivals in the ecclesiastical calendar, regards the visit of the Wise Men as having occurred on the twelfth day after the Nativity."

The main objection to supposing that the visit occurred at this time is, that in this view, the flight into Egypt must have taken place from Nazareth, to which place St. Luke tells us that the Holy Family returned after the ceremony of the Purification. Now, although St. Matthew's narrative does not distinctly state, it plainly implies, that the flight took place from Bethlehem.

Hence, many of the Fathers, as well as many modern commentators, adopt the view that the visit of the Wise Men occurred at a somewhat later period, on some Occasion when the Holy Family had come up from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to

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Judea than what the Romans had given him, was greatly alarmed at this inquiry which was made after another king. The Jews, who, according to their carnal notions of things, imagined that the long expected Messias was to restore their earthly kingdom to its ancient splendour, were in commotion at the news, and the whole city of Jerusalem seemed in an uproar. Herod called together the Priests and the doctors of the law to inform him of the place where Christ the Messias was to be born.

To endless ages the conduct of the Jewish doctors on that momentous occasion will show how undeserving they were o the mercy which was then offered to them. They told the king that Bethlehem was the place where he might find the Child; they cited for him the very passage where the Prophet foretold that Bethlehem was to be the birthplace of the Messias; but they wickedly suppressed the latter part of the prophecy, which would have informed the king that the possession of a temporal crown could not be the object of the coming of Him, who was from the beginning, and whose coming forth was from the days of eternity. Herod, having thus received from the Jewish doctors the information he desired, sent for the Wise Men; he told them to come privately to him; and having diligently inquired from them the precise time at which the star had appeared, he courteously sent them on their way to Bethlehem, strictly charging them to bring back to him an account of the Child, so that, as he added, in his hypocrisy, he also might go to worship the new-born King.

The Wise Men, upon leaving the city, saw the star once more, and joyfully followed its guidance until they came to

be present in Jerusalem during some of the great festivals of the Law, if, indeed, they had not altogether transferred their residence from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Since in either case we may suppose that a year or two had elapsed from the time of our Lord's birth, it is easy to understand, in this view, why Herod, after he had "learned diligently" of the Wise Men, "the time of the star" which announced to them in the East the birth of the Messias, should have ordered the massacre of all the male children in Bethlehem and its borders "from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the Wise Men" (Matt. ii. 2, 7, 16). Again, this view fully explains St. Matthew's mention (ii. 22) of a special reason why the Holy Family, after their return from Egypt, should go to reside in Nazareth, rather than in Judea: a statement which would have been altogether superfluous if in going to Nazareth they were merely returning to the district from which they had at first set out.