nd because it is probable that most of us will be poor in the
future!"

Many a poor man has looked up into the silent heavens and wondered
sometimes whether God understood or cared about his wretched lot. Of
course God always knew and cared, we cannot gainsay that, but in order
to make men know that He knew and to make them believe that He cared,
He let them see that He did not disdain to be a poor man and humble;
that He sought His followers and supporters in the great majority. _My
God was a Carpenter_! That is why He came to the stable; that is why He
came to the manger. And that is why the poor come to Him.

And there came to that same cradle, a little while after, the Wise Men.
They were professional wise men; they belonged to the learned, the
cultured, the thoughtful class; but they were wise men as well in the
sense in which we use wisdom to-day. That is, they looked beyond earthly
conditions and saw Divinity where the casual glance does not see it. How
many a seamed, rugged face, how many a burden-bent back, how many a
faltering footstep, how many a knotted, calloused hand is perhaps more
nearly in the image of God than the fairer face, the straighter figure,
the softer palm!

The shepherds were not only poor, but they laboured in their poverty;
they were working men and they worshipped Him, the Working Man. The wise
men were not only wise, but they were rich. They brought the treasures
of the earth from the ends thereof and laid them before the Babe and the
mother. How fragrant the perfume of the frankincense and the myrrh, and
how rich the lustre of the gold and silver in the mean surroundings of
the hovel. They took no thought of their costly apparel, they had no
fear of contamination from their surroundings, no question of relative
degree entered their heads. As simply and as truly as the shepherds they
worshipped the Christ. The rich and the poor met together there, and the
Lord was the maker of them all.

Was that baby-hand the shaper of destiny? Was that working-hand the
director of events? Even so. The Lord's power is not less the Lord's
power though it be not exhibited in the stretched out arm of majesty.

Some of you who read this and many more who can not are poor, perhaps
very poor, but you can stand beside that manger and look at that Baby's
face, you can reflect upon the Child, how He grew, what He said, what He
did, until a cross casts its black shadow across your vision--the war is
raising m