name; thou art Mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour" (Is. xli. 8-14; xliii. 1-3).

THE SEASON OF EPIPHANY.

"This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him."-St. John ii. 11.

HE Epiphany is a season especially set apart for adoring the glory of Christ. The word may be taken to mean the manifestation of His glory, and leads on to the contemplation of Him as a king upon His throne in the midst of His court, with His servants around Him, and his guards in attendance. At Christmas we commemorate His grace; and in Lent His temptation; and on GoodFriday His sufferings and death; and on EasterDay His victory; and on Holy Thursday his return to the Father; and in Advent we look forward to His second coming. And on all of these He does something, or suffers something: but in the Epiphany and the weeks after it, we celebrate Him, not as on His field of battle, or in His solitary retreat, but as an august and glorious King; we view Him as the object of our worship. Then only, during His whole earthly history, did He fulfil the type of Solomon, held (as I may say) a court, and received the homage of His subjects; namely, when he was an infant. His throne was His undefiled mother's arms; His chamber of state was a cottage or a cave; the worshippers were the wise men of the East, and they brought presents, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

All

around and about Him seemed of earth, except to the eye of faith; one note alone had He of Divinity. As great men of this world are often plainly dressed, and look like other men, all but some one costly ornament on their breast or on their brow; so the Son of Mary, in His lowly dwelling, and in an infant's form, was declared to be the Son of God Most High, the Father of Ages, and the Prince of peace, by His star; a wonderful appearance which guided the wise men all the way from the East, even unto Bethlehem.

This being the character of this season of the year, our services throughout it, as far as they are proper to it, are full of the image of a king in his royal court, of a sovereign surrounded by subjects, of a glorious prince upon a throne. There is no thought of war, or of strife, or of suffering, or of triumph, or of vengeance, connected with the Epiphany, but of august majesty, of power, of prosperity, of splendour, of serenity, of benignity. Now, if at any time, it is fit to say, "The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him" (Hab. ii. 20). "The Lord sitteth above the waterflood, and the Lord remaineth a King for ever." "The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge." "O come, let us worship and fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker." "O magnify the Lord our God, and fall down before His footstool, for He is holy." "O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; bring presents, and come into His courts."

I said that at this time of year the portions of our services which are proper to the season, are of a character to remind us of a king on his throne,

receiving the devotions of his subjects. Such is the narrative itself, already referred to, of the coming of the wise men, who sought Him with their gifts from a place afar off, and fell down and worshipped Him. Such, too, is the account of His Baptism, which forms the Second Lesson of the Feast of the Epiphany, when the Holy Ghost descended on Him, and a voice from heaven acknowledged Him to be the Son of God. And if we look at the Gospels read throughout the season, we shall find them all containing some kingly action of Christ, the Mediator between God and man. Thus in the Gospel for the first Sunday, He manifests His glory in the temple at the age of twelve years, sitting among the doctors, and astonishing them with His wisdom. In the Gospel for the second Sunday, He manifests His glory at the wedding-feast, when He turned the water into wine, a miracle not of necessity or urgency, but especially an august and bountiful act—the act of a king, who, out of his abundance, gave a gift to His own, therewith to make merry with their friends. In the third Sunday, the leper worships Christ, who thereupon heals him; the centurion, again, reminds Him of His angels and ministers, and He speaks the word, and His servant is restored forthwith. In the fourth, a storm arises on the lake, while He is peacefully sleeping, without care or sorrow, on a pillow; then He rises and rebukes the winds and the sea, and a calm follows, deep as that of His own soul, and the beholders worship Him. And next He casts out Legion, after the man possessed with it had run and also worshipped Him (Mark v. 6). In the fifth, we

hear of His kingdom on earth, and of the enemy sowing tares amid the good seed. And in the sixth, of His second Epiphany from heaven, "with power and great glory."

Such is the series of manifestations which the Sundays after the Epiphany bring before us. When with the doctors in the temple, He is manifested as a Prophet-in turning the water into wine, as a Priest-in His miracles of healing, as a bounteous Lord, giving out of His abundance-in His rebuking the sea, as a Sovereign, whose word is law-in the parable of the wheat and tares, as a Guardian and Ruler-in his second coming, as a Lawgiver and Judge.

And as in these Gospels we hear of our Saviour's greatness, so in the Epistles and First Lessons we hear of the privileges and the duties of the new people whom He has formed to shew forth His praise. Christians are at once the temple of Christ, and His worshippers and ministers in the temple; they are the bride of the Lamb taken together; and taken one by one, they are the friends of the Bridegroom, and the guests at the marriage-feast. In these various points of view are they presented to us in the services during these weeks. In the Lessons from the Prophet Isaiah, we read of the gifts and privileges, the characteristics, the fortunes of the Church— how widely spreading, even throughout all the Gentiles; how awful and high, how miraculously endowed, how revered, how powerful upon earth, how rich in temporal goods, how holy, how pure in doctrine, how full of the Spirit. And in the Epistles for the successive Sundays, we hear of