visit him?' said the old Psalmist. We say 'What is man that the
Dayspring from on high should come down upon earth, and round His
immortal beams, should, as it were, cast the veil and obscuration of
a human form; and so walk amongst us, the embodied Light and the
Incarnate God?' 'The dayspring from on high hath visited us.'

III. Lastly, note the directing by the light.

'To guide our feet into the way of peace.' This Sun stoops to the
office of the star that moved before the wise men and hovered over
His cradle, and becomes to each individual soul a guide and
director. The picture of my text, I suppose, carries us on to the
morning, when the benighted travellers catch the first gleams of the
rising sun and resume their activity, and there is a cheerful stir
through the encampment and the way is open before them once more,
and they are ready to walk in it. The force of the metaphor,
however, implies more than that, for it speaks to us of the wonder
that this universal Light should become the special guide of each
individual soul, and should not merely hang in the heavens, to cast
the broad radiance of its beams over the whole surface of the earth,
but should move before each man, a light unto _his_ feet and a
lamp to _his_ path, in special manifestation to him of his duty
and his life's pilgrimage.

There is only one way of peace, and that is to follow His beams and
to be directed by His preceding us. Then we shall realise the most
indispensable of all the conditions of peace--Christ brings you and
me the reconciliation which puts us at peace with God, which is the
foundation of all other tranquillity. And He will guide docile feet
into the way of peace in yet another fashion--in that the following