our faith even unto death, we may glorify Thy holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

It is not improbable that Mary, in the course of her journey to Egypt with her Divine Son and Joseph, rested at Hebron and Gaza; but the tradition is only worth a smile which points to a hill at each of those places as the particular spot where they refreshed themselves. It might be supposed that they made it in their way to call on Zacharias and Elisabeth, if, having been commanded to "flee into Egypt," they were at liberty to spend time in visiting, and if they would not think that, should they be pursued, there was no place more likely to be searched than the house in which the Virgin and her cousin had conversed concerning their destinies, the residence of the priest known to have been mysteriously dumb for a season. What they had to do was to cross the river Sihor as quickly as possible, and get beyond the authority of Herod. The exact locality of their Egyptian sojourn is unknown. Leontopolis and Memphis put in their claim; but tradition most favours Matarea (Metariyeh), near Heliopolis (the city of the sun), of which the ancient name, as known to the Israelites, was Bethshemesh (the house of the sun). Joseph has been represented as describing the conclusion of the journey thus:

"The forests passed, we Siddim's plains came down,
On the third morn, to Sheba's noted town.
Thence, leaving Palestine, our course we take
Across the sands, by Sirbon's changing lake,
And Casius' mount, so much renowned of late
For mighty Pompey's sepulchre and fate.
Here first we entered Mizraim's fruitful soil,
Which asks no rain, watered alone by Nile.
Near old Bethshemesh we the river crossed,
Which its old gods and older name has lost.

From Heliopolis we travelled on

To the proud walls of modern Babylon.
But here we durst not terminate our cares,
So near the frontiers of the tyrant's snares.
We still pierce deeper, and at last reside
At stately Memphis, Egypt's royal pride.
Here we beheld those piles which wound the sky,
Beneath whose top the rolling clouds pass by,
Huge useless wonders, wens on Nature's face,
The younger brothers of the Babel race,
Which only serve to mark ambition's springs,
The strength of art, and vanity of kings.

Thus Memphis served, with Providence our Guide,
To give that safety Palestine denied ;
Where in obscurity we humbly moved,
Loving our neighbours, and by them beloved." 1

S. Wesley's "Life of Christ."

CHAPTER VIII.

RETURN TO NAZARETH.

"But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young Child and His mother, and go into the land of Israel; for they are dead which sought the young Child's life."-MATT. ii. 19, 20.

"BEHOLD, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt; and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at His presence; and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it." Some have supposed that this prophecy was especially fulfilled in the flight of Jesus to that country, and the effect upon it of His sojourn within its borders. It is said that the oracles confessed themselves blinded for ever by His influence and command, and that all the statues of gods contained in a temple at Hermopolis, when the Infant from Judea was carried in, fell down, like Dagon before the Ark. It is by no means certain, however, that Mary ever saw Hermopolis; and it is still more unlikely that, strict Jewess as she was, she at any time took her Babe, or was permitted by the idolaters to present herself, within the gate of a heathen temple. Prudence would suggest that she should live as consistently and privately as possible, lest her place of retreat should be heard of in Jerusalem, and lest new enemies should be aroused among the inhabitants of Egypt.

All were not idolaters in the old house of bondage whither the second Joseph was now sent to spend a short time in freedom. Not only from its geographical position, and the nature of its government, but equally as a land that had vibrated for ages to Hebrew feet, Egypt was a suitable refuge for the holy family. For centuries there had been emigrations thither from Palestine, and there was perpetual intercourse between the two countries. Nearly three hundred years before, the seventy had written at Alexandria that version of the ancient Scriptures, with passages of which Mary and her husband were familiar, and the language of which they were not unable to speak. Jews were more than tolerated in the country of the Nile; they were allowed in their own way to worship Jehovah there, and had built near Heliopolis a temple in imitation of that in the holy city of their ancestors. If Mary and Joseph did not care to make many visits to that sacred edifice, being ready to say, “In Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship," yet it must have been agreeable to them to encounter not a few descendants of their father Abraham. They found themselves in a measure at home, though so far from home; and if the Infant could have spoken, He might even in Egypt have said, in words used by Him in after years, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

As Mary in Egypt, looking on idol fanes, and surrounded by worshippers of false gods, recollected and pondered all that she and her friends had heard from heaven, her meditations would naturally end in a thoughtful consideration of the expression of the angel in the communication last made to Joseph-"Until I bring thee word;" and the happy reflection would rise that her Son was

not to grow up in the shadow of those temples and among those idolaters. When would the celestial messenger keep his implied promise? The season of spring came round. News arrived that Herod could not live much longer; then that, knowing himself to be dying, he had put to death another son of his, Antipater, the heir-apparent; and finally that, five days afterwards, he had been dismissed by racking miseries to his account. Who was his successor? Would the exiles now be permitted to return with safety? Mary must have waited with some anxiety till her husband should say that the angel, in fulfilment of his intimation, had again spoken. They were in Egypt "until the death of Herod," and may have been there for weeks after. "When Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young Child and His mother, and go into the land of Israel; for they are dead which sought the young Child's life. And he arose, and took the young Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel." could not have spent a year in their retreat, or they would have heard before starting on their homeward journey whom Augustus had elected as the new king of the Jews. Approaching their own land, they were not aware who "did reign in Judea in the room of Herod.”

They

As in his preservation when a babe, so in his fleeing from and returning to the country in which he was born, Moses may be regarded as a type of Christ. "The Lord said unto Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt; for all the men are dead which sought thy life." Ever eager engage the attention and convince the minds of those for whom he wrote, by adverting to the foreshadowings of our Lord's life contained in their Holy Scriptures, the Evangelist, while led to use words similar to those in the record

to