220 



MISS A. M. HO.DGKIN ON 



The surrounding facts are matters of history, and can be proved 

 on historical evidence, but the inner truth moves on a higher 

 plane, it proves itself to the soul of man. " No man can make 

 historical investigation take the place of faith. . . . Yet it is not 

 without its value to have the truth of the concomitant circum- 

 stances demonstrated. One must remember that Christianity 

 did not originate in a lie, and that we can and ought to demon- 

 strate this, as well as to believe it. . . . The evidence is there if 

 we look for it. "* 



" It is an arresting fact that even in His birth the Founder of 

 that religion is tossed hither and thither at the command of the 

 Emperor. And with what result? Only the triumph of Jesus. 

 His poor Mother must travel far to Bethlehem; and the Child 

 was there born ; but all that the Emperor achieved was to stamp 

 the Child as the Fulfiller of prophecy and the promised Messiah. 

 As in the death of Christ the sarcastic statement of His crime 

 which Imperial pohcy placed over Him, was a placard blazoning 

 Him to the world as the King of the Jews ; so in His birth the 

 Imperial order which drove the unborn Child to Bethlehem quali- 

 fied Him to be the Governor, who should be the Shepherd of 

 Israel, "f 



Thus, in considering the circumstances of the miraculous birth 

 and of the death of our Saviour, we are brought back once more 

 to the Holy Land, to Bethlehem and to Jerusalem. We have 

 already seen that " When the Most High divided to the nations 

 their inheritance. . . . He set the bounds of the people accord- 

 ing to the number of the people of Israel." He set the little 

 nation of Israel in the midst of the ancient world. But His Cross 

 is the great central Fact. It was by no mere chance that Pilate 

 was impelled to write the inscription in Hebrew and Greek and 

 Latin — in Hebrew, the language of religion, in Greek, the lan- 

 guage of learning, in Latin, the language of power. That Cross 

 is still to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness, 

 but unto us who are being saved it is the power of God. Our 

 Lord said, " For L if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." 



As we look forward to the future, our expectation still centres 

 on the Holy Land. For when " the Desire of all Nations " shall 

 come, His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives which is 

 before Jerusalem on the East, and in that Day the Lord shall 

 bp King over all the earth, and of His Kingdom there shall be no 

 end 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Theodore Roberts said : — We are indebted to Miss Hodgkin for 

 gathering together facts which are known to many of us but are 



* p. 236. 

 t p. 308. 



