328 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAI-. 



crous lies that light and frivolous minds find what 

 gives them amusement in the weakest frailties of man- 

 kind. The wider the incongruity the more ridiculous 

 does the case become in their eyes. Our Lord endured 

 this contradiction of sinners against Himself that He 

 might deliver us from it. He has brought back the 

 unity of man's original nature, reconciled him to God 

 and to himself, recreated the soul in the image of its 

 Maker, and- refashioned its tabernacle into a temple of 

 the Holy Ghost an habitation of God through the 

 Spirit ; and thus the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ 

 becomes the highest type of man, distinguished for the 

 soberness of his mind, the dignity of his manner, and 

 the consistency of his conduct, and the incongruities of 

 a nature that is at variance with itself, and of a life that 

 is the sport of discordant principles disappear, and with 

 them the occasion of unhallowed mirth. 



How little do we think when we see our innocent 

 children engaged in a merry game appropriate to their 

 age which has come down to them from the remotest 

 antiquity, and is widely spread over the world that the 

 Holy Child Jesus was in the most awful circumstances 

 compelled to take part in it. May He whose suffering 

 was greatly aggravated by it who was wounded to the 

 quick by the thorn, that they might have the beauty and 

 fragrance of the blossom purify their merry sports, 

 make them healthful for the soul as well as for the body, 

 and so fill their hearts with His own gentleness and love 

 that they can never seek their pleasure in the pain of 

 the meanest thing that lives ! And let us grown-up 



