wise men from the East, you find in it the living Christ, and worship Him. That object is the mere shell of which the object-lesson is the sweet kernel. Little comfort does the mother get in her cradle, with its little blankets and baby's clothes, when death has snatched away her darling from her bosom. The mere form or head-knowledge of religion is just what that empty cradle is to the bereaved mother. God grant that in the cradle your mind and heart may embrace the living child. The infant Saviour appeals to children. His poor cradle should teach you not to think of Him as far off and terrifying. Bible-lessons can do you little good, unless they lead you to choose Christ as your own and only Saviour. One of the great preachers of the Middle Ages was Bernardine of Sienna. Thousands were moved by his preaching to forsake their sins. After he had left their city, the Florentines resolved to erect a monument in memory of the revival among them. On the square of Sancta Croce they erected a great cross, on which was inscribed the one word Jesus. The makers of that monument understood the spirit of the New Testament. All the gospel stories are meant to fix our thoughts upon Jesus only, and to dispose each of us to say of Him, "My Lord, and my God." Yet how often and how sadly has the story of Christ's birth been repeated in a mystic way. He should have the chief place in the guest-chamber of the soul, but as at Bethlehem, for Him and His there is "no room in the inn." The only accommodation granted carelessly to Him is in the suburbs of the soul, in "the out-houses" of the head, the memory, or outward observances. Again, Christ is in "the stable," while self and the world are entertained royally, in "the inn." But Jesus shall not be treated by you as an outcast or a pauper. You will own Him as the King of Glory, the Heavenly Guest who shall receive all the hospitality your heart can offer. Surely you will reverently welcome Him as Man and God, as the Messias, and as your own Messias and Saviour. God make this spirit yours for all the days to come. Amen. Н CHAPTER X. THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE. "Behold the fowls of the air."-MATT. vi. 26. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?”—Matt. x. 29. "He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry."-Ps. cxlvii. 9. I SHALL approach my subject, not like the dove circling near and nearer around the dove-cot, but like the eagle going straight to its nest. I am to speak to you about our little feathered teachers, and the great lessons they teach. I. Our little teachers. Birds abound in Palestine. Dr. Merrill says there are at least 350 different species, though very few of them are song-birds: a fact accounted for by the great heat of the country and the absence of forests. The birds Christ mentions are still among the most common in the land. In no other place have I ever seen so many ravens as at Jerusalem.1 Everywhere there your ear is dinned with their hoarse, 1 The word "raven " in the Bible, it is believed, includes not only the jet black birds, but also the cinereal crows-very common in Palestine-which are mostly black, but partly of a dirty white. hollow cry. The Bible more than once (Job xxxviii. 41, and Ps. cxlvii. 9) notices the fact that their young are very noisy in the nest; and the ravens that roost in the Mosque of Omar, and in the trees on Mount Olivet, are as deafening as their ancestors could have been to the ear of Job or David. Some one has said that these croaking ravens mourn the departed glories of the Holy City.1 Since Noah's day, the raven has been counted an unclean bird, and of evil omen. Its presence is taken as a sign of death, and with reason. "Like as the fatal raven, that in his voice Carries the dreadful summons of our death." For it has the keenest possible scent for putrefaction, and even for deadly disease. It knows when a sheep is dying-sits near, and croaks with satisfaction; and as soon as it dares-so our shepherds say-picks out its eyes. It did the same in Job's day (Prov. xxx. 17). It follows weak ewes and lambs, attacks them savagely, and picks out their eyes and tongues. Add to this, that it is an unsocial bird, that it lives in desolate places, where there is apparently little or no sustenance, and that it preys only upon the dead, the dying, and the weak, and you can understand why it is so much hated "This thing of evil, This grim, ungainly, ghastly, Gaunt and ominous bird of yore." 1 In 1891 I did not find so many ravens as I did seven years before. The reason is, that the slaughter-houses of Jerusalem have been removed farther up the valley of the Kedron. The old vikings bore upon their banners the black raven as an emblem of slaughter. Other nations prefer the eagle, a nobler bird of prey, which attacks not the dead, but the living. Unlike the eagle, the dove, or the robin redbreast, the raven has nothing interesting or noble about it. The only exception is, that in the East, the piebald ravens are useful as scavengers. God hears the cry of this unclean bird, though it cries for carrion: you would kill its young in the nest, and think that you did well. The sparrows are extremely common in Palestine, especially at the Sea of Galilee, where Christ used them as His texts, and also among the sand-hills along the plain of Sharon. They are still caught for the market, as larks are in Italy, and sold at the smallest price fetched by any game. The boys catch them by means of snares or bird-lime. Matthew quotes them at two a farthing; Luke at five a halfpenny an odd lean one was flung into the bargain to encourage large purchases. A modern traveller (Van Lennep, vol. i. p. 292) tells us that this custom is still universal in the east. As the raven was the most repulsive, the sparrow was the most worthless of birds, for sparrow is just a spare one: it comes from the word "spare." Carry this fact with you into the sermon, as it adds force to Christ's appeals. The sparrows of Palestine greatly interested me. On the sea-shore to the south of Cæsarea the whole land was vocal with the chirpings of myriads of them. They were bigger, fatter, and fairer than |