pire, and one of the earliest events of His
life on earth was His enrolment as a subject of that empire. If we had
been invited before His coming to imagine what would be the result upon
this empire of His appearance, we should probably have expected
something very different from that which actually happened. The real
Sovereign is to appear; the Being who made all that is, is to come and
visit His possessions. Will not a thrill of glad expectancy run through
the world? Will not men eagerly cover up whatever may offend Him, and
eagerly attempt, with such scant materials as existed, to make
preparations for His worthy reception? The one Being who can make no
mistakes, and who can rectify the mistakes of a worn-out, entangled
world, is to come for the express purpose of delivering it from all ill:
will not men gladly yield the reins to Him, and gladly second Him in all
His enterprise? Will it not be a time of universal concord and
brotherhood, all men joining to pay homage to their common God? "He was
in the world, and the world was made by Him"--that is the true, bare,
unvarnished statement of the fact. There He was, the Creator Himself,
that mysterious Being who had hitherto kept Himself so hidden and remote
while yet so influential and supreme; the wonderful and unsearchable
Source and Fountain out of which had proceeded all that men saw,
themselves included,--there at last He was "_in_ the world" Himself had
made, apparent to the eyes of men, and intelligible to their
understandings; a real person whom they could know as an individual,
whom they could love, who could receive and return their expressions of
affection and trust. He was in the world, and the world knew Him not.

Indeed, it would not have been easy for the world to show a more entire
ignorance of God than while He was upon earth in human form. There was
at that time abundance of activity and intelligent apprehension of the
external wants of men and nations. There was a ceaseless running to and
fro of the couriers of the empire, a fine system of communications
spread over the whole known world like a network, so that what
transpired in the most remote corner was at once known at the centre.
Rome was intelligent to the utmost circumference through all its
dominions; as if a nervous system radiated through the whole of it,
touch but the extremity in one of the remotest colonies and the touch is
felt at the brain and heart of the whole.[3] The rising of a Briti