"They found the Child with Mary his mother." St. Matt, ii., 2.
The Feast of the Epiphany, my dear brethren, is as it were a second Christmas. Christmas Day is a feast which all Christians hold in common, whether of Jewish or Gentile blood. If either had more claim than the other, it would seem to belong rather to those who are of Jewish origin; for, "_to you is born this day a Saviour in the City of David_" was the announcement made by the angels to the Jewish shepherds. But this feast of to-day is peculiarly ours. This is the great Gentile-Christian feast. { 144} The motto which we put up over our altar on Christmas eve, and which still hangs there, "_Christus natus est nobis_," "Christ is born for us," is especially appropriate to-day.
There is, however, still another distinct class of persons to whom this day ought to be especially dear. You, my dear brethren, who had not the greater privilege of belonging to the Holy Catholic Church from your infancy, but whom God in his mercy brought into it in after years, this is your feast. You have an interest in these Gentile converts, your ancestors in the faith, whom the Church commemorates to-day, which they have not who never knew any other creed. What I propose this morning, is,
1. To give you a sketch of the history of today's feast; and
2. To show you how these Gentile converts are models of men truly converted to God.
Whilst angels were telling to the shepherds of Judea, as they kept watch over their flocks on Christmas eve, of the glad tidings of the birth of the Redeemer of the world in Bethlehem, a strange apparition aroused the inhabitants of a great city in the far distant east. { 145} They were awakened from their sleep, and the windows, doors, and streets were thronged to look at a bright star, which hung in the sky, just over the city.
You remember, I dare say, what a stir was made in this country and elsewhere, a few years since, by the unexpected appearance of that beautiful comet. How groups were to be seen standing about every evening, both in and out of doors, with telescope or the naked eye, gazing at it, and expressing to one another their wonder and delight. Well, some such feeling as this, mingled with a certain religious awe, must have taken hold of this people of the east on that night. How brilliant! what can it be? what can it mean? how close to us! who will tell us something about it? Exclamations such as these, were heard on all sides, from the lips of rich and poor alike. Now there were men in that kingdom who might naturally be supposed to know something about it, for they had made the science of the stars, in their supposed connection with human action, or astrology, a special branch of study. { 146} They were men of education. They were high in civil station too, and filled such offices as magistrate, and governor, and even that of a sort of petty sovereign. They were called Magi. They were in their own country what the Mandarin is in China; what the Brahmin is in India. But how can they know any thing of a star so unusual in its appearance as this? There were two sources through which a certain prophecy connected with the appearance of a star might have reached them.