Nearly three years before the commencement of our era, [14:1] Jesus Christ was born.  The Holy Child was introduced into the world under circumstances extremely humiliating.  A decree had gone forth from Caesar Augustus that all the Roman Empire should be taxed, and the Jews, as a conquered people, were obliged to submit to an arrangement which proclaimed their national degradation.  The reputed parents of Jesus resided at Nazareth, a town of Galilee; but, as they were “of the house and lineage of David,” they were obliged to repair to Bethlehem, a village about six miles south of Jerusalem, to be entered in their proper place in the imperial registry.  “And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that Mary should be delivered, and she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” [14:2]

This child of poverty and of a despised race, born in the stable of the lodging-house of an insignificant town belonging to a conquered province, did not enter upon life surrounded by associations which betokened a career of earthly prosperity.  But intimations were not wanting that the Son of Mary was regarded with the deepest interest by the inhabitants of heaven.  An angel had appeared to announce the conception of the individual who was to be the herald of his ministry; [15:1] and another angel had been sent to give notice of the incarnation of this Great Deliverer. [15:2] When He was born, the angel of the Lord communicated the tidings to shepherds in the plains of Bethlehem; “and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying—­Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” [15:3] Inanimate nature called attention to the advent of the illustrious babe, for a wonderful star made known to wise men from the east the incarnation of the King of Israel; and when they came to Jerusalem “the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.” [15:4] The history of these eastern sages cannot now be explored, and we know not on what grounds they regarded the star as the sign of the Messiah; but they rightly interpreted the appearance, and the narrative warrants us to infer that they acted under the guidance of divine illumination.  As they were “warned of God in a dream” [15:5] to return to their own country another way, we may presume that they were originally directed by some similar communication to undertake the journey.  It is probable that they did not belong to the stock of Abraham; and if so, their visit to the babe at Bethlehem may be recognised as the harbinger of the union of Jews and Gentiles under the new economy.  The presence of these Orientals in Jerusalem attracted the notice of the watchful and jealous tyrant who then occupied the throne of Judea.  Their story filled him with alarm; and his subjects anticipated