tenderness--_motherliness_, so to speak--is in that line, "and
wrapped Him in swaddling clothes"!--the adoring shepherds, the star, the
wise men (all thoughts of their wisdom for the moment gone); the gold, the
frankincense, the myrrh, the rejoicing and yet trembling mother, the
little Child--we see it all. Seeing, we believe; and believing, we
rejoice. The Day Star from on High hath visited _us_. We _know_
in whom we have believed. The great condescension is before us. Strength
has made itself dependent on weakness, cause upon effect, eternity upon
time, God upon man; and He has done it for our sakes.

The Divine condescension never appears so new and so real to us as when we
stand at the side of this lowly cradle. Here are no high-sounding
doctrines, no hard words, no terrible commands, no far-off thunders of a
new Sinai, no rumblings of a coming Judgment. Here we see Jesus, and Jesus
only. Jesus showing Himself in our very own flesh and blood; submitting
Himself to the weakness of our infirmities; voluntarily clothing Himself
with our ignorance, and making God the present tangible possession of the
whole human family, bringing Him "_very nigh to us, in our mouth and in
our heart, if we can but believe_." And, more than this, God joined in
that Babe His great strength to our great nothingness; He bound us to
Himself; He robed us, as it were, with Himself, and He robed Himself in
us. Henceforth the Tabernacle of God is with men. Henceforth every one of
us may be conscious of an inward Presence, of which we may say in holy
joy: "Angels and men before Him fall, and devils fear and fly."

It is this manifestation of Jesus in His people for which the Apostle
prays in the words I have quoted, "My little children, of whom I travail
in birth again until Christ be formed in you." Nothing less will satisfy
him, because he knew that nothing less will prevail against the power of
the world, the flesh, and the Devil, in any human heart. "_Christ formed