speaks of 'us' and 'our,' we cannot doubt that Zacharias both saw
more deeply into the salvation which Christ would bring than to
limit it to breaking an earthly yoke, and deemed more worthily and
widely of its sweep, than to confine it within narrower bounds than
the whole extent of the dreary darkness which it came to banish from
all the world.




THE DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH


'The day-spring from on high hath visited us, 79. To
give light to them that sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of
peace.'--LUKE i. 78, 79.

As the dawn is ushered in by the notes of birds, so the rising of
the Sun of Righteousness was heralded by song, Mary and Zacharias
brought their praises and welcome to the unborn Christ, the angels
hovered with heavenly music over His cradle, and Simeon took the
child in his arms and blessed it. The human members of this choir
may be regarded as the last of the psalmists and prophets, and the
first of Christian singers. The song of Zacharias, from which my
text is taken, is steeped in Old Testament allusions, and redolent
of the ancient spirit, but it transcends that. Its early part is
purely national, and hails the coming of the Messiah chiefly as the
deliverer of Israel from foreign oppressors, though even in it their
deliverance is regarded mostly as the means to an end, and the end