OBSERVANCE IN THE WESTERN CHURCH. 99 Leo, who wrote eight sermons on the Epiphany, insists upon no other reason than that of the manifestation of Christ's birth to the wise men by means of a star." * In the service for the day in our own Church, the Collect and the Gospel point to the star; the Second Lesson at Morning Prayer to the manifestation of the Trinity at our Lord's Baptism; and the Second Lesson at Evening Prayer to the miracle at Cana. "The First Lesson," as Wheatly says, " contains prophecies of the increase of the Church by the abundant access of the Gentiles, of which the Epistle contains the completion, giving an account of the mystery of the Gospel's being revealed to them. The Collect and Gospel are the same as those which were used in the ancient offices; but the Epistle was inserted at the first compiling of our Liturgy, instead of part of the sixtieth of Isaiah, which is now read for the First Lesson in the morning." It was only by degrees that the Latin Church accorded to the Epiphany the full honours which that season received from the Eastern communion, one of the earliest instances of its disposition to do this being that afforded by the fact that at Milan, according to the Ambrosian rite, "the morning service of the day was celebrated at night, very many lights being burned after the Greek manner." + But, after all, it remained that the Latin Church directed its Epiphany ceremonials chiefly to the commemoration of the visit and adoration of the Magi; which were symbolized not less in popular customs than in religious rites and splendours. During the Middle Ages a kind of dramatic representation of the oblations of the wise men at Bethlehem was incorporated into the services of the Church; and the custom of offering, * Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church. on the day of the Epiphany, gold, frankincense and myrrh, on the altar of the Chapel Royal, in St. James's, by the Sovereign in person or by proxy, is still preserved in England. "What a witness have we for the hold of the Epiphany on the popular affections and imagination in the vast body of legendary lore which has clustered round it; in the innumerable medieval mysteries which turn on the flight into Egypt, the massacre of the Innocents, or the coming of the Three Kings, and in all else of poetry and painting which has found its suggestion here!"* There has been a general tendency to associate with the primary events commemorated by the Epiphany a consideration of those secondary ones which may be looked upon as occurring in continuation of the manifestation of the person and divinity of Christ. The tendency was to make the Epiphany to include every exhibition of infinite power to embrace, that is, the whole series of miracles which illustrated the three years' public ministry of our Lord. The goal has never quite been reached; but the movement, we say, has been in this direction. Now, for poetical purposes, to widen is to weaken. Diffusion and concentration are contradictories. The graphic unity so precious to the Muse is in danger of vanishing entirely when it is distributed over a region which cannot be reproduced in, so to say, the cabinet picture of a lyric. It will be well if, in seeking for poetical illustrations of the season, we abstain from widening the area of commemoration beyond the limits which the usage of our own Church has indicated in her offices. And even within these limits we incline to fix our attention more especially upon the wise men, severally in their individual and their representative capacity; and upon the star which was the instrument of their illumination and attraction to the manger in Bethlehem. * Trench's Star of the Wise Men. NATURE OF THE STAR. 101 It is natural that the mention of a star as the guide of the wise men to the cradle of the Saviour, occurring without any expression to define the nature of that star, should have engaged the investigations of science and the activity of Biblical criticism, no less than the fancy of the poet and the genius and cunning of the painter. It is no purpose of ours to open the gates of controversy; it is nearly enough if we offer, without comment, and for the purpose of showing how the reason may disport itself when it becomes conversant about such matters, the process by which St. Chrysostom arrives at the conclusion that it was not so much a literal and veritable star as an angel that assumed the form of one. This star," he says, in his Homily on Matt. ii. 1, 2, common sort, or rather, not a star at all, as it seems at least to me, but some invisible power transformed into this appearance." This he infers from the course of the star being from north to south, and so far contrary to that of the other heavenly bodies, whose motion is from east to west; to the circumstances of its shining at mid-day, of its appearing and vanishing again, and of its being able to indicate-contrary again to the idea of a true star's remoteness-so small a spot as the stable at Bethlehem. 66 was not of the The popular mind would find more to interest it in an extravagant gloss upon the historical narrative, which was probably made from a fragment of one of the recensions of the Hebrew Gospel (Ignat., " Epist. ad Ephes.," sec. 19) :— "The star sparkled brilliantly beyond all other stars; it was a strange and wonderful sight. The other stars, with the sun and moon, formed a choir around it, but its blaze outshone them all."* There is here an assumption of literalness-of literalness glorified and made more marvel * "The Star overpowered by its aspect all the stars that were in the heavens, as it inclined to the depth, to teach that its Lord had come down to the depth, and ascended again to the height of its nature, to show that its Lord was God in its nature."-Discourse on the Star; by Mar Eusebius, of Cæsarea (about A.D. 400). dusang misasia exposite of St. Chrysistom. Kemier ist es de eness of the star; mt u de vi vuis song in is theory, may be TOUCA & lies if sertion of the Saviour being Tai irgi ne ustmaray of astrogical pursuits, 1 EV VTS If us who ate and interest. - A few PIL SAME THE of the Partian kingdom), * murs if numar events in that of the As my ATMAT & DELI COMmstelation or star VII er at V & JR of the birth of the great Jing Tia meri 1 the East. It is not DESI SITUS TEM anal miracle was wrought 1 is the curse on events, under divine CHANY WAS maar 1. leal 7 CIPD as the general mura suture of the heather, hangt under natural forms, Na 7 Pathe knowledge of the Saviour. *a la colet soning, mì in their study found 187x i ofens us find that God has used THE CPTS if mar 3 lead him or a knowledge of the great ZEST I Try Ee had let Himself to SINISIL IN MN, that must we break in pieces the chain At Humair Fenð I vich the Tur and the false, the good and the evi, ay st squally inked, that the latter after ses he the pom of transition to the former. Basri wese is in the history of the spread of estant, wheer sinestition often paves the way for buch Got ennärsemmäs to the platforms of men in Pruning them he belief in the Redeemer, and meets the sserstars of the ruchsseeking soul even in its error! In the esse if the wise men a real truth, perhaps, lay at the bottom of the ear: the truth, namely, that the Cost of al vents, which was to produce the greatest powalazar in humanity, is actually connected with epochs ver the mages, unversa, athough the links of the chain may be hidden from our view."* In something like a *Neander's Life of Christ. DIVINE GUIDANCE OF THE HEATHEN. 103 pursuance and development of the same idea, we may here quote the thought with which Dr. Trench concludes the last of the Hulsean Lectures, delivered by him in 1846: That star in the natural heavens which guided those Eastern sages from their distant home was but the symbol of many a star which twinkled in the world's mystical night, but which yet, being faithfully followed, availed to lead humble and devout hearts from afar off regions of superstition and error, till they stood beside the cradle of the Babe of Bethlehem, and saw all their weary wanderings repaid in a moment, and all their desires finding a perfect fulfilment in Him.”* Bishop Heber has spiritualized the circumstance from which Neander and Trench have drawn a moral. The general principle by which we are guided in the selection. of flowers for our anthology is that of gathering our specimens from exotic or less available sources. But in the case of Heber's hymn on the "Epiphany" we find a different principle almost compelling us to its insertion here. It is so well known-to say nothing of its graphic beauty and pertinence that its omission would be felt as a violation of completeness : Brightest and best of the sons of the morning! Star of the East, the horizon adorning, Guide where our Infant Redeemer is laid! Cold on His cradle the dew-drops are shining, Angels adore Him in slumber reclining, Maker, and Monarch, and Saviour of all. Say, shall we yield Him, in costly devotion, * Christ the Desire of all Nations; or, the Unconscious Prophecies of Heathendom. |