ANDOVER-HARVARD THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY CAMBRIDGE, MASS. A Lady's Letter from Home........ A Beautiful Incident........ Bartholomaus Zugenbalg Christmas in Ancient Times........................... 105 Children's Prayers..... Initials on Fruits.......... 55 Inconsistencies of Christians.. 149 Impressions of Bagdad....... Little Carl's Christmas Eve...... ..... Mary Magdalene................. 316 158 Story of a French Doll......... Speaking to Jesus... Sarah B. Judson and Napoleon Bona- parte.......... Safe Little Effie...... Sunday-school Lessons......25, 36, 57, 90, 121, 150, 164, 185, 209, 245, 277, 304, 340, 369 Serpents in Literature.. The Pronunciation of "U".............. 161 The Little White-haired Mother........... 161 The Voices of the Flowers............. The Sunday-school Department...........22, 54, 88, vine Worship......... 65 Wonderful Women.............. 97 Women of Russia in the Seventeenth Thomas Carlyle............................ Taking Off the Shoes.......................... 123 1861-1881....... VOL. XL. The Guardian. Editorial Notes. the parade and pomp of the great! How beautiful this scene at Bethlehem as contrasted with the frivolity and fashion, the vain and empty show of the children of this world! Thus the great Saviour casts in His human lot His infancy touches the hearts of the among the lowly. This peculiar side of millions. From this time to the end of DIAN has had its little share. In its! His earthly life He walks and works along the quiet paths of those who toil for their bread. His mission was "to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim deliverance to those in bonds and to give sight to the blind." And this He still car ries forward through the ministry of life afresh in our hearts. Often earlier years it was kept alive mainly through the personal exertions of its founder. Several times a little cloud hung over it. But it was only of short duration, and was never permitted to cast its shade on its pages. So far as possible these were kept cheerful and sunny. It is smaller than many of the His church. May the inspiration of so-called popular magazines, and has the new-born child kindle His gracious not as large a circulation as they have. It does not command nor make as much FORGET not that Christmas is the money, but seeks to fulfill its mission with a cheerful, hopeful heart. It has It has children's day. Adapt your gifts, words never suffered from want. nor has it and prayers to their peculiar child nabeen tempted by wealth. With Agur, tures. Forget not the poor children, who no parents, or having them the son of Jakeh, it prays for neither poverty nor riches, but for food conveni- receive no cheering presents. ent. It has always been blessed with kind has our heart been touch d with the friends, who loved it with the warmth sight of poor, ragged children standing before the show windows of some toy shops of a personal affection. It has many such now. They. judge its defects with as we passed along the street on Christcharity, and accept its ministrations mas week. Their scanty clothing, and with grateful pleasure. We thank sallow, gaunt faces contrasted strangely them for their help in the past, and with the gay, attractive articles inside ask them to continue it in the future. the window. With a suppressed, timid tone of voice they admiringly called each other's attention to this and that article in the window. The passing throng took no notice of the little poor creatures. Surely if Christ were passing along, as He passed through the streets of Jerusalem and Capernaum in the days of His flesh, He would go out of His way to take such poor children by the hand and put something nice The GUARDIAN has, during the past year, added over three hundred subscribers to its subscription list. We fondly hope that it will gain more than this number during this year. THAT the everlasting God was born by a human mother, as a helpless, tender child, is the miracle of miracles. Of a meek and lowly virgin, without into it. THE GUARDIAN herewith presents its hearty greetings to all its readers. It is its thirty-second Christmas greeting, for with this number it enters upon its thirty-second volume. The life of a magazine, like human life, passes through good and evil days. Of this the GUAR WHEN we close a year and step out of the old into a new one, we feel like shaking hands with a friend at a last parting. For many days we have walked together. Our life has poured itself into its hours and days beyond recall. And now in parting with the year we part with as much of our life as we put into it. There is always something sad and saddening in looking at a familiar object for the last time. In going out the door of a room in which you have slept but for a night you look back into it with a certain feeling of seriousness. In leaving a grand painting, statue or the top of the Rhigi for the last time, the thought that you shall never look upon it, or its like, again, gives you a melancholy feeling. And looking back over the year past, recalling its pains and pleasures, its acts of penitence. prayer and praise, and thinking that all these in themselves are things of the past, we turn from the old to the new year with mingled feelings of sadness and pleasure. God be praised for His mercies in the past, and for His promised help in the future. FROM the beginning of our Saviour's divine-human life He combines in His person seemingly opposite characters. How divine and yet how human is He; how lofty and yet how lowly. He appears as a child, a poor child of a poor mother, in one of the obscurest and smallest towns of Judah, in an out of the way place of the town, in a stable; a helpless fugitive from the cruel pursuit of a heartless tyrant. All these are features in which the reputed Messiah was a stone of stumbling to the Jews. On the other hand we have the angel heralds, sent first to Mary, then to the Shepherds; the inspired anthems of Zacharias and Mary, the holy rejoicing of Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna; the star of Bethlehem, and the_Wise Men following it from the East. Dr. Schaff says: "Heaven and earth seem to move around the child as a centre. What seeming opposites! A child in the manger, yet the Saviour of the world; a child hated and feared, yet longed for and loved; a child poor and despised, yet honored and adored; a child surrounded with perils, yet wonderfully preserved; a child which sets the stars of heaven, the city of Jerusalem, the shepherds of Judea, and the Wise Men of the East in motion. A child which repels the worst elements of the world and attracts the best." What a wonderful child! "The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace." OUR Christmas merry-makings and pious rejoicings will avail little for us if we do not give the new-born Saviour a place in our hearts. Our hearts must become His manger, His abode for ever, if we would be saved by Him. On Christmas eve, 1540, Luther wrote sweet Christmas hymn for his little son Hans. It suits older folk no less than the children. How beautiful and Christlike the spirit of this hymn contrasted with the burlesque, clownish, Santa Claus parodies at some Christmas festivals-which excite shouts of laughter instead of anthems of prayer and praise around the manger of Bethlehem. Here to this day well suited to be prayed and are the three last stanzas of this hymn, sung on Christmas day by young and old: "Ah, dearest Jesus, Holy Child, My heart for very joy doth leap, Glory to God in highest Heaven, THE late Dr. Charles Hodge of the Presbyterian Church was for a period of more than fifty years an honored teacher in the Theological Seminary of Princeton, N. J. He was a leader of thought in his church, a prince in Israel. A man of meek and gentle spirit he drew to his heart men of kindred minds from all churches. Men like Bishop McIlvaine and Bishop Johns loved him and he them with the tenderness of little children. In his old age they addressed him in their letters as "Dear Charles." And when they in |
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