In early summers, Over the mountain, On human faces, And all around mo, Moving to melody, Floated The Gleam,
down to the end, when
1 II. G. Wood, George Fox, 115.
Therefore :
ST. MATTHEW n. i, 2 27
I can no longer,
But die rejoicing,
For thro' the Magic
Of Him the Mighty,
Who taught me in childhood,
There on the border
Of boundless Ocean,
And all but in Heaven,
Hovers The Gleam.
0 young Mariner, Down to the haven, Call your companions, Launch your vessel, And crowd your canvas, And, ere it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it — Follow The Gleam.1
III.
Finding a Child.
The star led the wise men to the cradle at Bethlehem, and " stood over the place where the young child was." The pilgrims entered and were satisfied.
1. They sought a king, and found a child. There is something very remarkable in the fact that they came from the distant East, and after all their sojourning and seeking found only a Child. Yet it was worth all their toil and trouble to learn the hard but precious lesson that true greatness consists in childlikencss. The world all the ages through had been growing away from the Child ; its notions of greatness lay quite at the opposite pole. The Evil Spirit in his interview with our first parents succeeded in confus- ing the mind of the world relative to this point, and in putting the case altogether on a false issue. " Ye shall be as gods," said he, "knowing good and evil." He put likeness to God to lie in 1 H. S. Holland, Vital Values, 24.
28 THE MAGI
knowledge; and the whole drift of the Divine education of the l\ race has been to counteract that notion, and to teach us that it consists neither in knowledge nor in power, but in childlikeness. As we review the history of the world, we see it dividing itself into three stages. In the first, Power is magnified, Force is deified. The great man is the strong man. In that era Nimrod is the hero after the world's heart ; strength receives the homage of men. In the second stage Power is pushed back a step or two, and Intellect comes to the front. The great man is the intel- lectual man. In that era Homer is the favoured idol before whom the people delight to bow ; genius receives the homage of men. But Christianity has inaugurated a new period ; it points the world not to Nimrod or to Homer, but to a Child — not to Power or to Genius, but to Goodness. The great man of the future will be the good man.
T| I remember a time, when, if any one mentioned the names of Napoleon Buonaparte or the Duke of Wellington, my heart responded in admiration, and I wished to become a soldier. I remember a time after that when, if you mentioned the names of Shakespeare or Milton, my heart responded in admiration, and I wished to be a poet. Yes; I have had my heroes, and I have worshipped them devoutly. But, were I to tell you my e\'i erience to-day, it is this — I have lost a great deal of my respect for power ; I have lost a great deal of my admiration for genius ; the supreme desire of my heart to-day is that I may be a good man, a childlike man, one whose life and character will mirror the Divinity. The great man of the future will be the good man. " Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." !
^| The Russian peasantry have a curious tradition. It is that an old woman, the Baboushka, was at work in her house when the wise men from the East passed on their way to find the Christ Child. " Come with us," they said, " we have seen His star in the East, and go to worship Him." " I will come, but not now," she answered ; " I have my house to set in order ; when that is done, I will follow, and find Him." But when her work was done, the three kings had passed on their way across the desert, and the star shone no more in the darkened heavens. She never saw the Christ Child, but she is living, and searching for Him still. For His sake, she takes care of all His children. It is she who in Russian homes is believed to fill the stockings and dress the tree on Christmas morn. The children are awakened with the cry, 1 J. C. Jones, Studies in the Gosjiel according to St. Matthew, 46.
ST. MATTHEW n. i, 2 29
" Behold the Baboushka," and spring up, hoping to see her before she vanishes out of the window. She fancies, the tradition goes, that in each poor little one whom she warms and feeds, she may find the Christ Child whom she neglected ages ago ; but she is doomed to eternal disappointment.
2. They fell down and worshipped Him. No journey, although conducted with faith in the~guide7will be successful unless it be sanctified by this bowing down of soul and body. And such wor- ship as this was natural to the Gentile mind. It had been abused by it doubtless for idolatrous purposes, but the very bowing down to stocks and stones, being a corruption of true worship, indicates what the universal tradition was before it was so diverted. And this is implied in the second commandment, " Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them." For as every commandment commands the contrary of what it forbids, so we understand that the commandment is not fulfilled by merely not bowing down to idols, unless we also bow down and worship God. And hence Gentile Christianity began with this idea of worship.