doms and hierarchies to confine it. It will grow and spread till all nations shall enjoy its shade, shall eat, and live. It comes to all the folds where the sheep of the Good Shepherd dwell, like the sunlight of heaven, which no man can confine to his own little plot of ground. It comes, like the rain and dew, to all nations. It climbs over the wall, up the gnarled tree, gracing the knotty oak, along the watercourses, over brooks and streams, ever green, ever peaceful, on whose branches no hungry soul ever looked to find "nothing but leaves."

XVIII.-A FESTIVAL FOR ALL THE FAMILY; OR, THE HOME OF JESSE.

"Oh! why should tears bedim the eye,

Or doubts obscure the mind?

Away let grief and trouble fly,
As clouds before the wind.
The fiercest tempests die away,
The roughest storms subside;
So be our hearts serenely gay,
Whatever ills betide."

NEVER large, but honored above all the cities of Judea, a jewel on the crown of a lofty hill, sits the fragrant city of Bethlehem. It has been the home of the noblest of men. It will be held in all reverence, in all ages, as the spot where he was born among the straw who to-day, as Napoleon said on St. Helena, "has millions that would die for him." When princes are born, all that wealth and authority can do are put in requisition, with care and skill, to relieve the anguish of the mother, and give her comfort in the hour of her great trial. But when the Son of the King of kings came into the world, the royal peasant maiden came the long distance from Nazareth on foot, unattended save by Joseph. No mother's couch or mother's care awaited her in that dark hour. No bed made ready for the royal child. The inn was full, and Mary took her weary way to the stable, and, with the stalled oxen, laid down to become the mother of the Prince of Peace.

Bethlehem is about six miles south of Jerusalem. It stands on the sharp brow of a hill. Its main features are the same as when Jacob set up the pillar over Rachel's grave, and David came in from the sheepfold to carry the loaves to his brethren in the army. Its fertile fields still invite the flock to green pastures. Its valleys are filled with grain as in the day when the maiden of Moab gleaned beside the reapers.

Jesse dwelt in Bethlehem, and he was called "Jesse the Bethlehemite." The women of Bethlehem said to Naomi: "His name shall be famous in Israel." He was a noble old man, and trained his children in the fear of God. In dark and troublous times, when few were faithful, the rural home of Jesse stood fast in the faith. Within its bosom was found one worthy to take the mantle that was torn from the shoulders of the apostate Saul. When Samuel mourned for Saul, because God had rejected him, God said to the weeping prophet: "How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him. Fill thy horn with oil, and I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided me a king among his sons."

To the humble home of Jesse, in Bethlehem, the prophet Samuel came by the command of God. The Elders of the town trembled at his approach, and demanded of him: "Comest thou peaceably?" He replied: "Peaceably. I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord." Jesse and his elder sons were called to the sacrifice. One of these Samuel supposed was to be the Lord's anointed. A lad, the eighth son, too

small and too inconsiderable to be a witness of the visit and partake of the religious service, was in the field. Of all the sons presented, the Lord had chosen none of them. "And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest one; behold he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hither. And he sent and brought him." "He was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren."

Man in his home, with its relations and duties, fill up the Bible. It creates home, regulates it, binds men up with it. Send the Gospel anywhere, and it gathers the solitary into families. Send it among savage cannibals, or among the pirates in the islands of the Pacific, and homes will rise and social life will be created. Men who assail the Bible, in any land or age, strike at its domestic power, and hurl their masses against its social life. Till this is broken, nothing is done. The domestic power of the Gospel stands as an immense rock in the center of a railway. The incoming train must hold up, or be dashed to pieces. Polygamy and caste, in heathen lands, fall before the cross, and attest its onward march.

The Bible is full of allusions to home. The most vivid metaphors are taken from domestic customs. The holy men of God, by whom the Word of the Lord came, and to whom were committed the oracles of God, were men found in their homes, in the center of domestic affections and duties. "Noah, Job, and

Daniel," Abraham, Zacharias, and Joseph, are specimens. Women, to be holy and please God, were not shut up from the joys and sympathies of life, and were not gathered in houses filled with foolish virgins. Amid domestic associations, they reared their households in the love of God. Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Elisabeth, Mary, all so teach us.

Our Lord came not from a race of Bedouins, with no home or family ties. He came from the only nation of families-and that created by the Biblethat then existed on the earth. Amid a refined and civilized people, with whom art and industry flourished, who had schools and altars, social life and general public worship, his childhood was passed. His people had work and pastimes, festivals and amusements, all under the approval and guardianship of home. Our Lord gleaned his choicest and oftrepeated emblems from the sacred theater of home. He bound himself up with social life. He lived with men, ate, worked, and walked with them. When he left his home at Nazareth to go out on his great mission, he found a genial home in Bethany, which he kept till the night in which he was betrayed. To the common people he sent his Gospel, from them chose his Apostles, among them gained his first trophies. He spake to the people, in their own tongue, of the man who had two sons whom he sent to work in the vineyard, and of the marriage feast. He spake to men as he sat at meat. The merchant seeking pearls, the king making war, the merchant going into the city to get gain, the house on the sand, the woman and the leaven hid in the meal, had great