Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. " T7"ELL, Mar gey, there's no fear of a sacred institution now. Last Sunday, preaching in London; the Sunday before helping poor Lacey in his terrible bereavement ; and the Sunday before that, laid up with neuralgia. I think we've earned our homily to-night. And so we are to talk about Christmas, are we ? " " Something about Christmas, please, papa ?" " Oh, I see. That sly emphasis means, I suppose, not exactly the main subject, but some of those side ones which come with it. How is that, Margey ? " No answer, but a long look up at the wall. " What is it ? Oh, again I see ; that lovelypicture of Andrea del Sarto's. Then I conclude I am to speak of the Child Jesus. The tight-clinging squeeze tells me yes." Well: First, then, let us put the Holy Child in his right place. I'm going to take Mar- gey's hint, and talk to you of the ways of representing Him, and the beautiful visions which art has given to our race, with Him as their subject; but, before I do, let us see how we ought to feel towards the Holy Child. Notice, then, dear ones, that the Holy Child has no existence now. You can't pray to the Child Jesus, because there is no such person. It was simply a former state of Him, who now reigns, perfect man, in his Father's glory. He himself is for us what He is now, not what He was once. If you or I pray to Jesus, we can only pray to Him at the right hand of God, exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour. To pray to Him as a child, to pray to Him as on the cross, is to pray to a mere thought, a merefiction. Such states of his are, you see, not objects of adoration for us; but they are most blessed objects of remembrance and of contemplation. Jesus as a child: behold one of the most beautiful objects on which the imagination of man can be fixed and employed. The ...