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There is a fine propriety in celebrating once a year the nativity. Our ignorance of the date is no valid objection. We do not hesitate to date our letters and documents Anno Domini 1887, although in doing so we commit an error of at least four years, and perhaps six. The all-important thing here is not the time of the nativity, but the fact of the nativity. And, if one day in every week the Church of Immanuel celebrates the resurrection of her Lord, is it unbecoming that she should one day in every year celebrate that nativity without which there had never been either resurrection or redemption, or even the Church herself? And now let us attend to the story of the birth of Immanuel. More than seven centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, the prophet Micah gave utterance to the following remarkable prophecy:

Thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah,

Which art little to be among the thousands of Judah,

Out of thee shall One come forth unto me

Who is to be ruler in Israel;

Whose goings forth are from of old,

From everlasting.

That same Almighty God who, through the restlessness of a Persian monarch, had rescued from annihilation the national stock from which His Anointed was to spring, prepared a birthplace for His Anointed through the edict of a Roman emperor. For, when the fulness of the time had come, and the Christ was to be born, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that all the world should be enrolled. And thus a minute prophecy, a thousand times imperilled in the course of seven centuries, was at last minutely accomplished. Oh, who does not feel that a God is here? Who can resist the conviction that this God has had from the beginning His purposes, and actually controls every movement of every human will? Yet there is no reason for supposing that Augustus Caesar, in issuing his decree for a universal census, was conscious that in so doing he was preparing the way for the accomplishment of an ancient prediction. A Roman, he cared nothing for the Hebrews. A pagan, he knew nothing of Messianic prophecies. His issuing a decree of enrolment was nothing unnatural or extraordinary; it was one of the commonest acts of a political ruler, and he himself was one of the most methodical of men. Yet who can doubt that Caesar Augustus, in issuing this decree, was accomplishing a predetermined purpose of the Ancient of Days? Nevertheless, nothing is clearer than this: Caesar Augustus, in publishing this edict, and Joseph and Mary, in visiting Bethlehem in accordance with its requirements, acted as perfectly free, voluntary beings. Now, I have not alluded to this matter for the purpose of attempting to solve a frequently propounded problem — namely, the reconciliation of Divine sovereignty and human freedom. Considered practically in its matter-of-fact aspect, this subject presents no difficulty. It is only when we pry into that domain of infinite problems which God has not opened to us that we become bewildered and lost. Duty, not metaphysics, is our rule for life. Let me conclude with three reflections.

I. THE BIRTH AT BETHLEHEM CONSECRATED AND GLORIFIED ALL INFANCY. AS Athena was fabled to have sprung full-grown and panoplied from the cloven brow of Zeus, so the Christ and Son of God might have descended into humanity an unborn, adult Adam; for the distance between babe and man is infinitely less than the distance between man and God. But, no; He descended into humanity through the avenue of birth and babyhood, coming, like any other infant, under the law of growth, and so consecrating all life from cradle to grave, hallowing birth as well as death. The birth at Bethlehem made babyhood a sacred thing. And so the very infancy of Jesus is a gospel.

II. THE TREATMENT OF THE HOLY FAMILY AT BETHLEHEM'S INN WAS A PROPHECY OF THE WORLD'S TREATMENT OF JESUS CHRIST EVER SINCE. It is, I repeat, a picture of the world's treatment of Jesus Christ ever since. It does not repulse Him; it simply has no room for Him. The world seizes the inn; Christianity must put up with a stable.

(G. D Boardman.)

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KJV: And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.

WEB: Now it happened in those days, that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.