along the plain road that lies before you. It is to the wandering stars that is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Let each live in the station in which he is placed, he can gain heaven from it. Whatever it may be, he can in it become a disciple, though perhaps not a best-loved disciple, of Christ. Each station is of God; for each God has given His grace in sufficient supply, let each try to fulfil the duties of that station, and to employ the grace given him. Should God design to place him in another, then it will be done in a manner in which there is no mistaking the hand of God, and he need not fear then to follow where God leads the way.

SERMON V.

HOLY INNOCENTS.

ST. MATT. II. 18.

"In Rama there was a voice heard, lamentations, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not."

In the piteous narratives of the tragedies perpetrated by the Turks upon the Bulgarians, I remember one incident that especially struck me. It was in the letter of a newspaper correspondent describing a second visit to Batak some time after the massacre. He came upon a poor woman half starved, crouching in her ruined cabin, with two little bleached skulls on her lap, which she rocked and patted, and moaned over. In the butchery, her husband and all her

children had perished, and all she could recover of her own were the two little heads of her babes, and these she fondled and wept over, in dull despair. She had nothing to live for, no future. Rachel was weeping for her children and would not be comforted, because they were not. I suppose that Bethlehem must have witnessed many such scenes after the tragedy committed there, the memory of which is preserved in this day's festival. Some of you may recollect the famous picture at Venice, by Tintoret, of the Murder of the Innocents, and been spell-bound, as you stood before it, by the vivid representation of the agony of those mothers, and their vain efforts to screen their little ones from the sword. Some interposing their own arms and breasts in hope to receive the blow designed for their darlings, others seeking frantically to avert it by intercession, and yet others hoping to conceal the children that will proclaim their presence by

their cries.

Now evening has settled down on Bethlehem, and the stars have come out in the sky. All night long there rises from the little city cries and moans, Rachel weeping for her children, and will not be comforted. Some mothers sit on

their doorsteps with the little bodies laid across their knees, and gaze down on their white faces, white in the starlight, and kiss the cold cheeks and lips, and if love could give life, would kiss the colour back again. And some are digging graves in their gardens, under favourite bushes or flowers, where their little ones had lain playing in the shade, whilst the mother had sat and watched them, sewing all the time at little garments for their tiny limbs. The garments will never be worn, the little limbs have no more movement in them. And some are leaning against the walls of their houses, with their cheeks wet, and their eyes turned to Jerusalem, to where they know is the temple of their God, seeking comfort whence alone it can be drawn. And some are crouched in mad rage, tearing their hair, their eyes burning as coals, and their lips pouring forth curses and blasphemies. They have lost all faith, all trust in God, He has smitten them so hard a blow that they turn and bite at His hand. The world is dead to them, love they will know no more. Only one thing remains they can call down imprecations on those who had bereaved them of their children.

It strikes me that Mary and her Child would

not have been safe in Bethlehem, had they remained there, even had an angel drawn his wings over the Holy Infant and hid him from the soldiers' eyes. Hereafter Christ, as a man, will pass through the midst of those who would take Him to the brow of a hill and cast Him down, He will pass through their hands, invisible, and the men who hoped to slay Him, will be frustrated in their wicked plan. It might have been so now. No need to have gone into Egypt, the Holy Child might have been protected during the massacre. But when the soldiers had gone, would He and Mary have been safe from the frantic bereaved mothers? Would not these have vented their fury on their heads? Would not they have found that the Child Jesus was the occasion of the massacre of their precious little ones, and fallen on Him and Mary, and torn them to pieces? The flight into Egypt was a flight from the frantic mothers, quite as much as from the Herodian soldiers. You can imagine, even if things had not come to this pass, that it would have been impossible for Mary and her Child to have remained at Bethlehem. The embittered hearts would have poured forth all their gall on her; her ears would have been filled with their