age in which she lived, she is thought by some to have been
the first foundress of nunneries, of religious women living in
community, as St. Antony was of men. On this head consult Helyott,
Hist. des Ord., and Mr. Stevens in his English Monasticon, c. 1, p.
16. However, St. Antony's sister found a nunnery erected when she
was but young, and this was prior to the time of Constantine the
Great.

JANUARY VI.

THE EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD.

EPIPHANY, which in the original Greek signifies appearance or
manifestation, as St. Austin observes,[1] is a festival principally
solemnized in honor of the discovery Jesus Christ made of himself to the
Magi, or wise men; who, soon after his birth, by a particular
inspiration of Almighty God, came to adore him and bring him
presents.[2] Two other manifestations of our Lord are jointly
commemorated on this day in the office of the church; that at his
baptism, when the Holy Ghost descended on him in the visible form of a
dove, and a voice from heaven was heard at the same time: _This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased_.[3] The third manifestation was
that of his divine power at the performance of his first miracle, the
changing of water into wine, at the marriage at Cana,[4] _by which he
manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him_.[5] Upon so
many accounts ought this festival to challenge a more than ordinary
regard and veneration; but from none more than us Gentiles, who, in the
persons of the wise men, our first-fruits and forerunners, were on this
day called to the faith and worship of the true God. Nothing so much
illustrates this mercy as the wretched degeneracy into which the
subjects of it were fallen. So great this, that there was no object so
despicable as not to be thought worthy of divine honors, no vice so
detestable as not to be enforced by the religion of those _times of
ignorance_,[6] as the scripture emphatically calls them. God had, in
punishment of their apostasy from him by idolatry, given them over to
the most shameful passions, as described at large by the apostle:
_Filled with all iniquity, fornication, covetousness, maliciousness,
envy, murder, contention, deceit, whisperers, detracters, proud,
haughty, disobedient, without fidelity, without affection, without
mercy, &c._[7] Such were the generality of our pagan ancestors, and such
should we ourselves have been, but for God's gracious and effectual call
to the true fa