their long and perilous journey across vast deserts and mountains,
and broad rivers, the star going before them, and arrived at length at
Jerusalem, with a great and splendid train of attendants. Being come
there, they asked at once, "Where is he who is born king of the Jews?"
On hearing this question, King Herod was troubled, and all the city
with him; and he inquired of the chief priests where Christ should
be born. And they said to him, "in Bethlehem of Judea." Then Herod
privately called the wise men, and desired they would go to Bethlehem,
and search for the young child (he was careful not to call him
_King_), saying, "When ye have found him, bring me word, that I may
come and worship him also." So the Magi departed, and the star which
they had seen in the east went before them, until it stood over the
place where the young child was--he who was born King of kings. They
had travelled many a long and weary mile; "and what had they come for
to see?" Instead of a sumptuous palace, a mean and lowly dwelling; in
place of a monarch surrounded by his guards and ministers and all the
terrors of his state, an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid
upon his mother's knee, between the ox and the ass. They had come,
perhaps, from some far-distant savage land, or from some nation
calling itself civilized, where innocence had never been accounted
sacred, where society had as yet taken no heed of the defenceless
woman, no care for the helpless child; where the one was enslaved,
and the other perverted: and here, under the form of womanhood
and childhood, they were called upon to worship the promise of
that brighter future, when peace should inherit the earth, and
righteousness prevail over deceit, and gentleness with wisdom reign
for ever and ever! How must they have been amazed! How must they have
wondered in their souls at such a revelation!--yet such was the faith
of these wise men and excellent kings, that they at once prostrated
themselves, confessing in the glorious Innocent who smiled upon them
from his mother's knee, a greater than themselves--the image of a
truer divinity than they had ever yet acknowledged. And having bowed
themselves down--first, as was most fit, offering _themselves_,--they
made offering of their treasure, as it had been written in ancient
times, "The kings of Tarshish and the isles shall bring presents,
and the kings of Sheba shall offer gifts." And what were these gifts?
Gold, frankincense, and myrrh; by which symbolical oblation they
protested a threefold faith;--by gold, that he was king; by incense,
that he was God; by myrrh, that he was man, and doomed to death. In
return for their gifts, the Saviour bestowed upon them others of more
matchless price. For their gold he gave them charity and spiritual
riches; for their incense, perfect faith; and for their myrrh, perfect
truth and meekness: and the Virgin, his mother, also bestowed on them
a precious gift and memorial, namely, one of those linen bands in
which she had wrapped the Saviour, for which they thanked her with
great humility, and laid it up amongst their treasures. When they had
performed their devotions and made their offerings, being warned in a
dream to avoid Herod, they turned back again to their own dominions;
and the star which had formerly guided them to the west, now went
before them towards the east, and led them safely home. When they were
arrived there, they laid down their earthly state; and in emulation of
the poverty and humility in which they had found the Lord of all power
and might, they distributed their goods and possessions to the poor,
and went about in mean attire, preaching to their people the new king
of heaven and earth, the CHILD-KING, the Prince of Peace. We are not
told what was the success of their mission; neither is it anywhere
recorded, that from that time forth, every child, as it sat on
its mother's knee, was, even for the sake of that Prince of Peace,
regarded as sacred--as the heir of a divine nature--as one whose tiny