it, but who delay their conversion: many others, who, as often as they are converted, fall back again into sin: and a great many who think that they have no need to be converted at all. All these must be damned; separate, then, these four classes of sinners from this congregation as they will be separated at the last day....Come forth now, ye righteous ones! Where are ye? Faithful children of Israel, pass to the right hand! Grain of Jesus Christ, separate yourself from this chaff that is to be burned!.... Great God! where are thy chosen ones? and what is left for thy share?....*-MASSILLON.

*The reader may be glad to be informed that the passage which we have here translated is considered by the most eminent judges-even by the atheist Voltaire himself-one of the finest pieces of ancient or modern eloquence. At one part of it, almost the whole audience in the King's chapel to whom the sermon was preached, were seized with an involuntary shudder and half rose from their seats, so as partly to confuse the preacher, whose consequent agitation made his language appear still more impressive.

THE CHRISTIAN CALENDAR.

THE ANNUNCIATION.

JUSTICE avenged: but MERCY said

"The woman's seed shall crush the serpent's head."

Four thousand years had pass'd away;
And man, 'mid sin and strife,
Now look'd for Him whose promis'd sway
Should give him unknown life;
Should open heaven and restore
Forgotten bliss-lost long before.

Oft had the promise been renew'd:
And many a Jewish maid had sigh'd
And marvelled, when a blushing bride,
If he from her should spring :-

If He, whom prophets had foreshew'd

As Saviour, priest, and king,

Should bless her race, should bless her name With fame beyond all other fame.

But not from man could God arise-
God though self-exiled from the skies.
His passage from his throne must be
All purity and mystery.

Mary in thee would God come down,
Thou full of grace! thou blessed one!
Thou virgin holy, undefil'd,—

Thine-thine shall be that heavenly child.

Blest be the day, for ever blest,
When Gabriel went, on God's behest,
And bore, to yon poor Jewish maid,
Tidings for which the world had pray'd :-
Tidings that He, desir'd by all,

At length, would come to break their chain:Would come to loosen Satan's thrall

Would come to open heaven again.

Oh, blessed hour! The promise given
In paradise, shall now be wrought:
The woman's seed shall open heaven,
The serpent's head be crushed to nought.
The legend now, the mystery

Shall prove a truth divine:

The woman's son God's Son shall be,

And Mary-Mary-thine!

Look up, thou lowly Jewish maid!
Accept the high behest:

Let not the greetings, Gabriel said,
Alarm thy gentle breast.

Oh, magnify the Lord: confess

The wonders He has done:

Nor fear to say how men will bless

Thee, too, thou favour'd one! Nations have bless'd thee-bless thee nowWill call thee "bless'd" for aye:

Mother of God, to thee we bow

For us, dear Mary, pray.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

List to the tinkling bell that rings
High o'er that turf-clad mound;
It steals upon the spreading wings
Of the night air, and cheerly flings
Its fitful notes around.

O'er the short grass, the nibbling sheep
Stray loitering: but when

They scent some sweeter herbage near
And run to crop it down, we hear
The silvery notes more loudly sweep
O'er mount and hollow glen.

Hard by their flocks, the shepherds lie
And watch their track all drowsily.
They deem no prowling wolf will dare
Steal forth upon a night so fair :
They deem-But lo! What angel high
Stands by them, and what light—
Resplendent so it blinds their sight-
Outshines the moon and fills the sky
With dazzling glare and brilliancy?
They start upon their feet, and there
Stand fearing with a mighty fear:
And the scar'd sheep together run;
Then turn and face that heavenly one.

"Fear not," the shepherds hear him say: "Glad tidings do I bring.

"Joy that to you and all shall spread,
"Joy to the living and the dead-

"A saviour 's born to-day.
"Down in the city of the king,

"He lies. No guards forbid his bed.
"His robes of swaddling clothes are made.
"This be your sign: his infant head
"Is in a manger laid."

Suddenly a heavenly host was seen

Wheel downwards from the sky,

And light upon the mountain green :-
And now, when God himself came down,
It seem'd as earth and heaven were one :-
The shepherds heard them cry
With hymn and joyous symphony.
The harmony of heaven,

Blent with these words, came o'er the echoing hill

"Glory to God be given!

"And peace, on earth, to men of ready will!"

They sought the stable; found the child
With Joseph and its mother mild;
And gladly told whate'er they knew

And what the angel said:

Then, praising God that all was true,
Back to their mountain sped.

And Mary mark'd the words, while o'er
Her wondrous Babe she knelt;

She mark'd; but spoke of them no more: