Sermon IX.
The Epiphany.
"They found the Child with Mary his mother."
St. Matt, ii., 2.
(From the Gospel for the Day).
The Feast of the Epiphany, my dear brethren, is as it were a second Christmas. Christmas Day is a feast which all Christians hold in common, whether of Jewish or Gentile blood. If either had more claim than the other, it would seem to belong rather to those who are of Jewish origin; for, "to you is born this day a Saviour in the City of David" was the announcement made by the angels to the Jewish shepherds. But this feast of to-day is peculiarly ours. This is the great Gentile-Christian feast. The motto which we put up over our altar on Christmas eve, and which still hangs there, "Christus natus est nobis," "Christ is born for us," is especially appropriate to-day.
There is, however, still another distinct class of persons to whom this day ought to be especially dear. You, my dear brethren, who had not the greater privilege of belonging to the Holy Catholic Church from your infancy, but whom God in his mercy brought into it in after years, this is your feast. You have an interest in these Gentile converts, your ancestors in the faith, whom the Church commemorates to-day, which they have not who never knew any other creed. What I propose this morning, is,
1. To give you a sketch of the history of today's feast; and
2. To show you how these Gentile converts are models of men truly converted to God.
I. History Of The Feast.
Whilst angels were telling to the shepherds of Judea, as they kept watch over their flocks on Christmas eve, of the glad tidings of the birth of the Redeemer of the world in Bethlehem, a strange apparition aroused the inhabitants of a great city in the far distant east. They were awakened from their sleep, and the windows, doors, and streets were thronged to look at a bright star, which hung in the sky, just over the city.