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March, 1817, that it pleased God to enable Malan to uprear once more in Geneva, the soiled standard of her ancient faith, and to proclaim openly from Calvin's pulpit that gospel whose blessed echoes had so long ceased to be heard in her national churches.

Even before his intercourse with Haldane he had preached in a country church (on Christmas Day, 1816, and January 19, 1817,) a sermon on "Justification by faith alone." It was not, however, till after that intercourse that he preached it again in the city, on the 5th and 6th of March at the Easter Festival. That sermon was a national event, and became a date in the religious history of Geneva. "The preacher's burning utterances," says Haldane, "fell like a thunderclap on those who heard him," all which is best described in his own words :

"I preached," he writes in a large church which was too small, however, for the congregation which thronged to it. The time was evening, and the solemnity of the twilight gloom added its impression to the appeal which I pressed home to the consciences of the unbelieving and self-righteous among my hearers. I was listened to at first in the most profound silence: a silence resulting, however, from surprise and displeasure. Signs of dissatisfaction were speedily apparent as I went on to demonstrate the falsehood of human righteousness, and to exalt the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ.'

Throughout the sermon there arose murmurs of discontent and movements of ill-concealed impatience. At the close of the sermon a movement as of derision ran through the congregation; and when the preacher left the pulpit, he strode through the crowd like a soldier drummed out by his comrades, or a criminal marching to execution. His own parents, says Haldane's biographer, deserted him. His wife even was extremely distressed. Each look she gave him seemed to reproach him with the destruction of the dreams of the past-the shipwreck of the bright hopes of the future. He returned home in his robes, followed by the scorn of the populace, and borne down by its weight. But as he crossed the threshold of his door, and was about to retire into his study, he caught sight of the dignified figure and benevolent face of Robert Haldane, who exclaimed, as he shook him warmly by the hand, "Thank God, the gospel has again been preached in Geneva;" and added, "You will be a martyr to the truth in this place," meaning "a witness."

But of his after

And so it was. "He was cast out of the synagogue." life, of the peculiarities of his teaching and of his ecclesiastical position, and of the great change which has taken place in Geneva since those days, we have not space to tell. We conclude with a few words touching

HIS LAST DAYS.

It was on the 8th of May 1864, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, that Cæsar Malan passed from the toils of earth to the rest of heaven. On the 8th of November preceding he entered the pulpit for the last time.

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The last two months of his life are described as nothing short of a terrible and prolonged agony." "While he had never regarded his sufferings as being merely temporary in their character," writes his biographer, "the anxiety they occasioned, and the helplessness to which he found himself suddenly, and for the first time, reduced, had combined to make him restless and depressed. Though he never uttered a word of fretfulness or murmuring, still it was evident that it was only by an effort that he could maintain his patience. But from the moment that he was told that he would never 66 quit the bed on which he was gone up," a peace and an absolute calm took possession at once of his whole being; and, when the pain was not too great, his expression, if words were wanting, never ceased to utter the most tender love to all who approached him.”

"In fact, his deathbed seemed to those who witnessed it the most surprising of all his achievements. Said the doctor to me one day on leaving him, "I have just beheld what I have often heard of, but what I never saw before. Now I have seen it, as I see this stick I carry in my hand.' And what have you seen?' I asked. Faith, faith,' he answered; I have seen it with my

not the faith of a theologian, but of a Christian! eyes.'

"On another occasion, shortly after, I spoke to him of the heavenly glory, of entrance into the dwelling of the Lord, of the sight of Jesus, of his beloved Master. Fixing on me a deep, calm look, conveying an expression of semi-surprise, Why, God,' he exclaimed,

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the Saviour-these are realities-realities!

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Heaven, glory, Why employ them to work

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ourselves into an excitement? They are realities,' he repeated. this that passeth away:' showing me his emaciated, and all but paralysed, hands.

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"One day I asked him, after having again prayed with him, if he felt any distress of mind, any doubt, any obscurity in his heart. Raising his eyes, and casting a glance around him, 'No,' he said; I am not alone!' and repeated twice, 'No, there are no clouds over my sky!' When I said again to him that 'even our Saviour, in His agony, had felt the need of the presence of His friends,' and implored him to let me know if a season of trouble visited him, he promised he would: and would seek the ministry of my prayers. He never did so."

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"As the paleness of death swept solemnly over his features (which, through the whole morning, had been singularly bright, and, one might almost say, grown young again), his face flushed up with a sudden gleam of delighted surprise. The servant, who was standing in front of me at the foot of his bed, broke the stillness by exclaiming, Oh how glorioushow glorious! Look, sir, look!' I did not catch his expression at that particular moment, but I heard one of my sisters reply to the appeal, 'Yes, our father's spirit was introduced at that instant into the presence of celestial glory.'"

"Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord."

CHRISTMAS ESSAYS.

I.-WHEN AND HOW THE CELEBRATION BEGAN.

From "Neander's Church History."

THIS feast first makes its appearance, as one generally celebrated in the Roman church, under the Roman bishop Liberius, after the middle of the fourth century. The general participation in the celebration of this feast leads to the inference, that it was not at that time a festival wholly new. It was not till later, however, that it spread from the Roman church to Eastern Asia. From what we have previously observed respecting the celebration of the feast of Epiphany in this part of the church, it would already seem clear, that the Christmas feast could not be one which originated there; but Chrysostom says expressly, in a discourse pronounced at Antioch in celebration of this festival, on the 25th of December of the year 386, that it had first become known there less than ten years before. In a sermon which Chrysostom pronounced on the 20th of December in the same year, on the feast of a martyr, he digresses from the proper subject of his discourse for the purpose of inviting his hearers to participate in the approaching festival of Christmas. The way in which he speaks of it, shows how desirous he was of making the interest more general, which he himself felt in a festival still new to this portion of the church. In the next following discourse, on the 25th of December, he says, indeed, that this feast, although still new in that part of the world, yet soon acquired equal authority with the more ancient high festivals: of this, the crowded assemblies, which the churches could scarcely contain, bore witness. But still, it is evident from his own remarks, that, as usually happens with new church regulations, all were not satisfied with the celebration of this new festival. A controversy arose about it. While some denounced the festival as an innovation, others affirmed in its defence that it had been of old from Thrace to Cadiz. This difference of opinion led him into a detailed argument in support of the festival. Its object would of course be acknowledged by every Christian of the orthodox church at that time, as worthy of commemoration. The grounds of opposition, therefore, could relate only to the arbitrary determination of the time: hence, Chrysostom laboured only to show that the true time was determined.

He appeals, in the first place, to the rapid and general reception of the festival, to its authority increasing every year, as evidence that the time had been rightly assumed; applying here the well-known remark of Gamaliel. But it is plain that in the settling of a date, this argument can decide nothing; although there is certainly good reason for supposing that the natural propriety of such a festival, its entire accordance with the feelings which glowed in every Christian breast, promoted its reception on its own account, and created a general belief that the true time for it had been rightly determined. Next, he appeals to the precise time, preserved

VOL. V.-NEW SERIES.

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in the Roman archives, of the census of the Procurator Quirinus. On this point it is possible he may have been deceived by false reports; or perhaps at Rome itself, certain apochryphal records had been allowed to pass as genuine. In other homilies, also, written towards the close of the fourth century, by Greek fathers, who notice this festival as one which Christians very generally observed, there are, nevertheless, marks of its comparatively recent introduction.

On account of this more recent introduction of the Christmas festival from the West into the East, the Christians in many countries of the East preferred, instead of adopting a festival altogether new, to unite the commemoration of Christ's nativity with the ancient feast of the Epiphany. Thus it was at Jerusalem, and in the Alexandrian church. And it was attempted to justify this simultaneous celebration on the authority of Luke iii. 23, from which passage it was inferred that the baptism of Christ took place on the very day of His nativity. Hence again it was, that, in many of the Greek churches where, from the earliest times, neither of the two feasts had been observed, and where the feast of Christ's nativity was now introduced because it appeared the more important of the two, the name Epiphany or Theophany was transferred to the latter.

But to explain how the Christmas festival came to be observed first in the Roman church, and to pass from this to the other churches; and how the time for its observance came to be transferred to this particular date of the 25th December; certain antagonistic tendencies were referred to, growing out of the peculiar circumstances of the Roman church, of which mention is already made in older writings.

Precisely in this season of the year, a series of heathen festivals occurred, the celebration of which among the Romans was, in many ways, closely interwoven with the whole civil and social life. The Christians, on this very account, were often exposed to be led astray into many of the customs and solemnities peculiar to these festivals. Besides, these festivals had an import which easily admitted of being spiritualised, and with some slight change transformed into a Christian sense. First came the saturnalia, which represented the peaceful times of the golden age, and abolished for a while the distinction of ranks, the distance between servants and free men. This admitted of being easily transferred to Christianity, which, through the reconciliation of man with God, through the restoration of the fellowship between God and man, had introduced the true golden age, representing the equality of all men in the sight of God, and brought the like true liberty as well to the freeman as to the slave. Then came the custom, peculiar to this season, of making presents (the strena), which afterwards passed over to the Christmas festival; next, the festival of infants, with which the saturnalia concluded, the sigillaria, where the children were presented with images; just as Christmas was the true festival of the children. Next came a festival still more analogous to the Christmas, that of the shortest day, the winter solstice; the birth-day of

the new sun about to return once more towards the earth (dies natalis invicti solis). In the case of this last-named feast, a transition to the Christian point of view naturally presented itself, when Christ, the sun of the spiritual world, was compared with that of the material. But the comparison was carried still further; for, as in the material world, it is after the darkness has reached its utmost height, Christ, the spiritual sun, must appear, to make an end of the kingdom of darkness. In fact, many allusions of this kind are to be found in the discourses of the Church fathers on the festival of Christmas.

That Christian festival which could be so easily connected with the feelings and presentiments lying at the ground of the whole series of pagan festivals belonging to this season, was now, therefore, to be opposed to these latter; and hence the celebration of Christmas was transferred to the 25th of December, for the purpose of drawing away the Christian people from all participation in the heathen festivals, and of gradually drawing over the pagans themselves from their heathen customs to the Christian celebration. This view of the matter seems to be particularly favoured in a New Year's discourse by Maximius, bishop of Turin, near the close of the fourth century, where he recognises a special Divine providence in appointing the birth of Christ to take place in the midst of the pagan festivals; so that men might be led to feel ashamed of pagan superstition and pagan excesses.

II. MODERN ASSOCIATIONS AND FEELINGS.

In Christian lands, no day among the ordinary ones of the week obtains more notice than that of Christmas. Whether the day thus set apart, accords with the period in which the Saviour was born is of minor importance, as far as its celebration is concerned. A day has been assigned, and that day is universally observed. Custom, now, with something like the force of a law, leads us to connect with this season that great event which the angels announced over the plains of Bethlehem, when they said to the shepherds, "Unto you this day is born in the city of David, a Saviour."

How much there is in the word Christmas! Its accents fall on the ear with a kind of musical cadence. What endeared associations cluster around it. If it does not suggest bright skies and soft breezes, it does social sunshine and domestic peace. It unites, for a time, scattered friends, and dissolves the enmity which separated the once beloved. It invites us to cherish a kindly spirit, to forget old grievances, to cast a more friendly notice on our poorest neighbours, and to diffuse cheerfulness in the home. Christmas-time does thus exert a favourable influence on us all. We become more social amidst all its social festivities. There is more of the open hand and open heart. Even nature, though in her winter robe, wears a 'more welcome aspect, while we all on our best appearance. We lay aside the churlish. on the lip. Hand join hand in more friendly grasp.

endeavour to put The kind word is Hearts are enlarged

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