HIS BIRTHDAY. 303 



able must be my hopes of salvation upon the ground of 

 personal merit. Merit! Although we may feel that we 

 have been just and kind to our fellow-men, we can have 

 none that can justify us in the sight of God, of a being 

 of sinless, perfection, of boundless power, of strict jus- 

 tice, but, happily for poor sinful human beings, of mercy 

 also, overshadowing all his other perfections. We need 

 not approach Thee simply with fear and trembling, but 

 with deep humility, and humble confidence that Thou art 

 both able and willing to save those who come to Thee 

 with sincere penitence and sorrow for sin, and trusting in 

 thine infinite mercy. The bruised reed Thou wilt not 

 break, and the smoking flax Thou wilt not quench. Thou 

 hast justified our hopes of salvation if we come unto Thee, 

 trusting in the divine Saviour. In God's inscrutable 

 providence, a virgin, forewarned by the visit of the angel 

 sent down by Thee, espoused, indeed, but not yet given 

 to any man, a virgin did conceive by the power of the 

 Holy Ghost, and a child was born, not only sinless in na- 

 tivity, but destined to remain sinless through his wonderful 

 life, the only sinless life that has ever been seen in our 

 world ; and this immortal being, born of woman, be- 

 came our elder brother, subject to all our innocent in- 

 firmities, and innocent still under every temptation. Thou 

 didst permit him to represent, while on earth, thine own 

 infinite purity and power. Although he had not where to 

 lay his head, while he went about doing good, blindness, 

 deafness, lameness, paralysis, and death itself obeyed his 

 voice ; the blind eyes saw ; the deaf ears heard ; the palsied 

 limb became active again ; and the dead were raised to 

 life. This, O heavenly Father, is the divine Saviour in 

 whom we trust. His death on the cross assures our hopes 

 of salvation. Still this death on the cross, this death of 

 bodily agony, and still more of mental agony, this igno- 

 minious death, death on the cross between two thieves, 

 death, not by a moment of transient agony, as in the 



