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sorrowful and divine glory. Even over ordinary infancy often hovers, like a mist, an air of mysterious sacredness, and shadows of strange, unworldly meaning often seem to float far away down in the clear depths of an infant's eye, as if there passed over the spirit the

"dim remembrances, whose hues seem taken From some bright former state, our own no more.' What marvel, then, that the cradle of this "only one" of earth seemed sanctified, even to the passing stranger, by a singular charm, and that something that hushed the voice and stilled the breath often seemed to linger around that holy child Jesus.*]

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By the serene, deep eye of the mother, fixed on him at intervals, it is plain that she is musing on the future, and on the meaning of this strange vicissitude in his career. Little can she yet fathom the mighty meanings darkly hidden under those prophetic words, "Out of Egypt have I called my Son."

Yet feeble in her comprehension of him as the mystic representative and head of a spiritual Israel, as well as their Redeemer, she sees there a destined conqueror, and national deliverer and king, and somewhat more, but undefined. We see in him, as it were, the frail prison* This passage is from the pen of Mrs. H. E. B. Stowe.

house of a sovereign spirit, veiled voluntarily in earth, emptied of previous fullness of attribute, and in all points made like and equal with his brethren, that he may share with them all the low vicissitudes and temptations from which otherwise he must be unavoidably exempt.

These or similar scenes, though we but fancy them, must have been once real. And who would not call up the scene as it most probably occurred, and, imagination being chastened by inspired records, live it over again? Who would not watch the first indications of that dawning reason those oblivious reminiscences of forgotten but recovered powers-the first showings forth of the mysterious agent within those walls? Nay, what would we not give for an hour's discourse with one of those forgotten ones, who saw the thousand minute details of that veiled infancy, as month after month rolls by, and he begins to emerge from the shade of life's twilight into the first purple dawn of childhood? And yet it is but vain to wish. They lived and died, and their dust-where is it? The mighty city where they dwelt, and all its ponderous piles, is now no more -its name almost forgotten; but that infant's history eternity can never bury in oblivion.

Methinks I behold that gathered household,

in the cool of evening, in the twilight mansion. Joseph has just returned from the market-place, and brings upon his pallid cheek the omen of some fearful tale. Anxiously they turn their eyes upon him, while he thus reveals the news just brought by a company of merchants from Jerusalem:

"When the magi, being warned of God in a dream that they should not return unto Herod, had departed to their own country another way, then Herod, seeing he was mocked by them, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the magi."

Exclamations of horror break from every lip. "Lo! what must have been our fate!" exclaims the mother, gazing down upon her child.

"How long, O Lord," ejaculates another, "wilt thou give thine heritage unto reproach?"

"O city of David!" cries a third, "what scenes for such sacred walls! One would think the shades of the mighty would have risen from beneath in indignation!"

"Yea, and of the patriarchs !" echoes another. "There sleep the ashes of the beloved Rachel," answers Benaiah.

"And then was fulfilled," adds Mary, "the word of Jeremy the prophet: 'In Rama was a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."" "Thou hast well spoken, my daughter," replies the priest. "And what saith he yet again? 'Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy, and there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.' Soon shall the cruel oppressor cease, the exiles be gathered, our sleepers in the dust awake, and the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away forever."

"Even so it is even at the door," answers Joseph. "The days of Herod are numbered. He hath discovered the conspiracy of his own son Antipater against his life, and has him chained, awaiting Cæsar's permission to put him to death; meanwhile his own torments grow daily more horrible, and he himself so loathsome that none can abide his presence. Foul ulcers gnaw all the lower parts of his body, and

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convulsions rack his whole frame. All the chief

men of the nation hath he shut up in the Hippodrome at Jericho, and it is said that when he dies he means to have them put to death, that there may be mourning at his death. Thus the hour of deliverance makes haste."

"The Lord be praised!" responds Benaiah. "For what saith the same Scripture? 'Hear the word of the Lord, O ye Gentiles, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock.""

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"And yet," responds Joseph, "I have doubted, from this same prophecy, whether they be altogether in error who say that Jerusalem must first be broken down. How else, O venerable Benaiah, can the city be built, as Jeremy saith, from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner, and thence onward upon the hill Gareb,' where now is no wall? I remember, when I was but a stripling, following a certain wild and visionary man, who came up to the feast, as he trod over the line marked out by the prophet, accompanied by a few of the common people. He went forth upon the hill Gareb; thence he turned to Goath, and trod the naked earth as the prophet describes, encompassing the whole valley of dead bodies, and all

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