will shed and diffuse a lasting fragrance over the mind; will give a tone and character to the main employments and pursuits of life; will direct, elevate, and season its allowable and necessary relaxations.

Sermon XII.

THE JOURNEY OF THE

EASTERN MAGI.

MATTHEW II., 1, 2.

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

Saying, Where is he that is born king of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

It is natural to us to imagine that when Omnipotence had conceived the wondrous purpose of stooping to this earth, and of veiling his ineffable glories in mortal flesh, the heaven of heavens would have lowered itself for the purpose of introducing the sovereign Lord of all to this small spot in his infinite domain: that he would have come attended by thousand thousands ministering to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand ushering in the Lord of glory. The Jews expected some such display.

They looked when the coming of the Son of Man should be visibly announced in the heavens, and their Messiah should come down to lead them to conquest and to glory. In this, however, their vain expectation, they were entirely deceived. True it is, that the night preceding the glorious dawn which we this day commemorate, burst forth with a supernatural effulgence, disclosing "a multitude of the heavenly host," who announced by their praises the birth of their incarnate God. But it was not to the Jews that he was thus announced, but to "shepherds abiding in the field, and keeping watch over their flock by night." True it is that a bright star or some other luminous appearance hung in the canopy of heaven to announce the same glorious event. But it was not over the holy city, Jerusalem, that it appeared. It was not to the Jewish scribes and doctors that it gave the long-looked for intelligence; but to "wise men of the east." Neither was it over the Jewish temple that it shone, as the palace of their future monarch; but over a mean abode in an inconsiderable village, it announced to men of other tongues the Saviour of the world.

I have chosen for our present consideration that interesting event recorded in the text-the journey and offering of the eastern magi. On

which I shall bring forward a few remarks, and draw from thence some practical lessons.

The sacred history informs us that "when Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born king of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him."

These wise men were astrologers: persons versed in the science of the stars and other branches of natural philosophy. They knew the true God, though they worshipped him by fire. They were deists. The country they came from, here called "the east," might be either Persia, or with greater probability, Arabia: both distant from Judea, lying to the east and south-east. On the memorable night of our Lord's nativity, their attention is aroused by what is here called a star, but which was none other than a meteor, or some luminous and moving body, by its brightness indicating some new and strange occurrence. In what manner they came to be informed that this star announced the birth of the king of the Jews, we are not told. Such a star had been foretold many ages before,

celebrated prophecy of Balaam, in the

in that

book of

Numbers "I shall see him, but not now: I

shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth." Besides this there prevailed a general notion all over the east, that a great personage was at hand who should obtain dominion, and that Judea was to be the scene of this event.

Whether the wise men were acquainted by these means, (or what is most probable,) by immediate revelation from God, that the star was that of the Messiah of the Jews, we are not told. This much we are informed, that they undertake a long and perilous journey of some weeks, or even months, across barren and sandy deserts, infested by robbers and wild beasts, and exposed to those calamitous privations which the journies of later travellers announce as peculiar to those trackless wastes. What will not human perseverance accomplish when directed to the pursuits of this world? Witness the researches of the naturalist and the antiquary, over those very plains which were traversed by these eastern sages: men who can forego ease, kindred, country, and encounter death in a thousand shapes, to gratify a thirst for knowledge, implanted for wise purposes in the human breast. What will not zeal, though in the cause of a false religion