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which has made it so real and significant to the mind of the Church; and it is because it has been found that every tribulation in the experience of Christians furnishes only a deeper commentary on the tragic event itself, that suffering piety has never wearied in studying and loving it, whilst it ever drew from it the best instruction and the sweetest consolation.

The latest rationalism has engaged itself with great earnestness to show, that the whole narrative is a mere mythic and legendary development; and that it has no foundation as a historical fact. They think that, if it were a historical fact, it would be mentioned in profane history, and especially by Josephus, who gives an extended narrative of the doings of Herod. To this it has been replied, that it is alluded to by Macrobius, a "Heathen Grammarian,” who "writing at the beginning of the fifth century, in a collection of the jests and witty sayings of illustrious men, records this among the keen sayings of Augustus: That, when he heard that among the children under two years old, whom Herod, king of the Jews, had commanded to be slain in Syria, his own son had been included, he observed, 'It is better to be Herod's swine than his son."" Some critics, however, do not lay much stress upon this testimony for reasons into which we need not here enter. We need in fact lay no store by it; for why should we not as readily believe St. Matthew's narrative itself, as the testimony of any other single witness?

For its not being mentioned by Josephus we can easily account. He had so many awful things to record of Herod, that this single act of cruelty towards the infants, in comparison with his other crimes, was as a drop to the ocean. Besides, the many other crimes which we know Herod committed, only show how natural this crime would have been to him, which suggests at once its probability. Who was this Herod? The man, says Neander, "whose crimes, committed in violation of every natural feeling, ever urged him on to new deeds of cruelty; whose path to the throne, and whose throne itself, were stained with human blood; whose vengeance against conspirators, not satiated with their own destruction, demanded that of their whole families; whose rage was hot, up to the very hour of his death, against his nearest kindred; whose wife, Mariamne, and three sons, Alexander, Aristobulus, and Antipater, fell victims to his suspicions, the last just before his death. He was that Herod, who, at the close of his blood-stained life of seventy years, goaded by the furies of an evil conscience, racked by a painful and incurable disease, waiting for death, but desiring life, raging against God and man, and maddened by the thought that the Jews, instead of bewailing his death, would rejoice over it as the greatest of blessings, commanded the worthies of the nation to be assembled in the circus, and issued a secret order that, after his death, they should all be slain together, so that their kindred, at least, might have cause to weep for his death." How natural and easy it is to believe, that such a monster would be guilty of just such an act of cruelty as that ascribed to him in the Gospel.

We can see also how easy it would be for the Jewish Historian, Josephus, amid such a world of crimes, to overlook the slaughter of the Innocents. The historical importance of that crime would also much depend upon the number which were actually slain. Their number has, by some, been beyond doubt greatly exaggerated. The Romish Church has taken delight in swelling their number into a vast army of martyrs. Some of their writers, with an allusion to Rev. xiv. 1, have, says Trench, estimated their number at one hundred and forty-four thousand. Fourteen thousand is the estimate of another. Later Protestant commentators, calling to mind the insignificant size of Bethlehem, suppose the number of the age of "two years old and under," in the town "and in all the coasts thereof," could not certainly have reached one hundred; and some, as Gerlach, estimates the number as low as from twelve to fifteen. Whatever the number may have been, "such an act would have been but a drop of water in the great sea of Herod's cruelties and crimes; taken, that is, apart from its true connexion, and not seen as the endeavor to kill the Lord's Christ. And there was every motive in Herod to induce him to keep out of sight this connexion; and not merely this, but to effect the slaughter itself with as little noise as possible. As at first he sent for the wise men "privily," so there is every reason to conclude, that these murders also were accomplished as secretly as the nature of things would allow ; the children were exactly, as we say, made away with. Every reason existed why Herod should have sought to effect their deaths with the exciting of as little attention as possible. No tyrant willingly confesses, that he trembles upon his throne; to which we may add, that Herod in all things sought to flatter the nation's expectation of the Messiah, and would not have ventured thus openly to show and to avow his deadly hatred to David's son. To St. Matthew, the Christian Historian, the death of these little ones, that died for Him who should one day die for them and for all, had the deepest significance, and must needs find place in history. But how easily might it have escaped the notice of Josephus, the Jewish historian; or, even if he had known it, how certainly must he, traitor as he was to the dearest hopes of his nation, to its hopes of a Christ, have missed, or, not missing, have yet refused to acknowledge, the connexion which alone would have given it a right to a place in history."

Who can conceive of the anguish which must have been created in families, and especially in maternal hearts, by the slaughter of these Babes! The sacred writer sees in this sorrow the typical fulfillment, of what was given in Jeremiah xxxi. 15, as a prophecy which had its first and literal fulfillment in the leading captive of the Jews into Babylon. "In touching language had the prophet represented the ancestorial mother of the Benjaminites, Rachel, who lay buried near Bethlehem, as rising from her grave, to weep after her captive children. The crying sounds northward far beyond Jerusalem, and is heard in Rama, where the captives had been assembled. In that case the weeping of Rachel was an ex

pression of the great sorrow of the mothers of the exiled ones. But here that event is fulfilled in its highest tragic meaning. Here the children of Rachel are not led into captivity merely; they are banished from the earth, and this is done by him who calls himself the king of Israel! Rachel is here more immediately the representative of the Bethlehemite mothers in their lamentation and weeping; and the fact that Rachel once more comes forth from her grave to join in their grief indicates that the greatest of all sorrows had now come upon Judea."

As Rachel, so these bereaved mothers, "would not be comforted, because they were not." What a tendency to hopelessness there is in profound grief! And yet how well God knows to bring joy out of sorrow and to do for his children better than their fears. "They are not!" says the sorrowing heart. "They are!" says a faithful God. They are not below, but they are above; they are not in this life, but they are in a higher life; they are not in their mother's arms, but they are in the arms of a heavenly Father. These mothers had not yet learned, what we are all too slow to learn, that in Christ Jesus every end is only a better beginning in disguise-every death is a life-every loss is a gain-every bereavement the opening of our hearts and arms for a better gift. To these mothers the language of St. Paul to Philemon may be applied in a still higher sense, "they therefore departed for a season, that ye should receive them for ever!"

From the beginning the Christian Church has delighted to cherish the memory of these Holy Innocents, commemorating with great tenderness a day in honor of their martyrdom. Very appropriately is the day of the commemoration of their death, which was also the day of their true celestial birth, intimately associated with the Birth of Jesus Christ, and is accordingly celebrated on the third day after Christmas. "This Festival, in memory of the slaughtered infants, is celebrated on the third day after Christmas. Martyrdom was regarded by the ancient Church as a heavenly birth. Hence, the day of St. Stephen, martyr both in will and in fact, of St. John, martyr in will, though not in fact, and of the Holy Innocents, martyrs in fact, though not in will, follow immediately after Christmas."

Various and beautiful reasons are given for bringing these festivals of the three representative kind of martyrs together, and making them form a cluster around a greater Festival than either or all of them-Holy Christmas. The following passage, translated from the Latin of Durandus as quoted by Trench in a note of his "Star of the Wise Men," though evidently what is called an accommodation of Scripture a habit in which the Fathers much indulge-is worthy of a place here for its beauty. "As a king, on entering a city, has been joined, in whatever manner, by a retinue of attendants, so also has the Church desired that proper companions should be joined to the Saviour who has entered the world. But who are these companions? Concerning this matter it is thus spoken in Canticles v. 10: My beloved, that is, the Child Jesus, is white and

The Church,

ruddy, chiefest (or, elect) among ten thousand.' therefore, has beautifully furnished for the born Christ a ruddy companion, St. Stephen, who shed red blood for Christ's sake; a white companion, St. John the Evangelist, whom a virgin-like purity graces; and many thousand infants from among whom the child Jesus was elected or chosen as chiefest when all the rest were slain in the coasts of Bethlehem."

Whence could be gathered a lovelier group around "the one altogether lovely." St. Stephen, the first conscious Christian martyr, of whom it is said that shortly before his glorious coronation in his martyrdom, "his face was as it had been the face of an angel;" St. John, who was always nearest to Christ in body and spirit during His life; and lovely Innocents, who were drawn into the circle of His suffering, and were the innocent and unconscious companions of His earliest dangers and sorrows. As against the dark background of Herod's tyranny in their case, as against the equally dark shadows of the persecution that rose against St. Stephen, and the heavy shadings of even the disciples, failing and fleeing, while St. John stands firm as the faithful among the faithless, these figures, with Christ in the centre, most congenially shade and tone to gether, forming one of the loveliest pictures that human eyes have ever contemplated!

It is in the character of Martyrs that these Holy Innocents have always deeply touched the heart of the Christian Church. There is in the Christian mind something of holiness connected with suffering! No where are beauty and power revealed in a higher form than in quiet, patient, innocent suffering. Hence a soft white light of glory, as if it were the aurora of heaven itself, always to our minds shines from and around the forms of martyrs.

It is true, these Innocents, not being martyrs in will though in fact, have never been regarded as representing the full high perfection of martyrdom; yet it is difficult to say which touches the heart more tenderly, the sight of those who unconsciously are laid upon the altar, or those who consciously lay themselves, or suffer themselves to be laid thereon. The claims of these Innocents to Martyr honors rest, according to Dr. Lange, on the following good grounds. 1. They die for Jesus. 2. They die on account of Jesus. 3. They die innocently. 4. They die as victims of wrath against Jesus. 5. By their death His life is covered and made secure in Egypt. 6. Their death serves to confirm the Messianic hope, for faith. 7. Their death, taken in all its connections, has wrought powerfully in the experience of the Church in confirming the Christian faith, and been the courage of other conscious confessors.

They were not only regarded as martyrs, but it has been beautifully believed that, in consequence of this, the Saviour regards these Innocents with peculiar tenderness and love; and that they have become the heirs of a peculiarly high reward of bliss and glory. This is certainly a thought natural to the spirit of piety, and does not, as far as we can see, conflict with the letter or spirit of Holy Scripture." The Church has been bold to conclude," says Trench,

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"that it was not for nothing, as it regarded themselves, that these infants were thus entangled in the tragic destinies of their Lord. She has confidently assumed that nearness to Him did not bring to them merely their early doom and their baptism of blood; but that, unconscious martyrs though they were, still martyrdom was imputed to them; and all the hard-hearted arguments to the contrary are nothing worth against that true instinctive sense, out of which it has been ever felt that what they thus endured for Christ's sake was repaid them again; that for them also, martyrs indeed, that word did yet come true: Near to the sword, is near also to God.'"

The fathers speak in the most touching language of the martyrdom, and consequent glory of these Innocents. We give as quoted by Trench, but translated from the Latin, some passages. Thus Cyprian: "Not as yet was their age fit for the battle; but it was meet for the crown!" Again, St. Augustine: "O happy little ones! although just born, although never tempted, although they never have known warfare, yet are they already crowned. He only has doubted your possession of the crown in your suffering for Christ, who does not believe that the sufferings of Christ benefit infants."

The author of a sermon, that used to be ascribed to St. Augustine, beautifully says: "O how happy the age that cannot yet address Christ in worship, but is already worthy to die for Christ! To what happiness have they been born, who, on the very thresheld of life have been met by life eternal! At the very dawn of the light of life they meet danger and the end of safety; but forthwith, from this end itself they have received the beginning of eternity. For death they seem indeed unripe, but happily they die unto life. While as yet they have scarely tasted the present, they pass on to the future. Having not yet passed the cradle of their infancy, they already receive the crown. They are indeed torn from the embraces of their mothers, but restored to the bosom of the angels !"

Again, says the same Father: "Rightly are they called the flowers of the martyrs, whom, just as they sprung up in the midst of the cold of infidelity, a certain frost of persecution has wasted, being, as it were, the first buds of the bursting springtime of the Church." And Leo the Great: "As if now He would say, 'Suffer the little ones to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven,' Christ crowns the infants with new glory, and from His own birth and beginning He has consecrated the birth and beginning of the little ones; as if thereby to say, that no one is incapacitated for this divine sacrament, when even this age is suitable for the glory of martyrdom!"

Christian art has illustrated the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents in various ways, and with great zeal, devotion, and tenderWe quote a notice of a few of these works, from Mrs. Jameson's Legendary Art.

ness.

"In the mosaics of the old basilica of St. Paul, the Innocents are

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