MEMORY HYMN [411]

    "O Master, let me walk with thee."

THE FIRST MONTH

What month is this?  December.  It is the first month in the year.  “No, no,” you say, “December is the last month.”  I cannot entirely agree with you.  December is last on the calendar but first in importance.  Now you agree with me, do you not?

How many days has December?  One day.  “No, no,” I again hear you say, “December has thirty-one days.”  I think we can reach an agreement on this point too.  There is one day in December of unexcelled importance and loveliness; that day is the twenty-fifth.  Yes, we all say there is but one day in December.  How readily we agree when we understand one another!

What is the twenty-fifth?  It is the pivotal day in the history of the world.  It is the day upon which the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords was born.  Jesus, son of man and son of God, came into the world as we all come, as a tiny babe.  It brings him much nearer to us, does it not, to think that our Saviour was once as we are?  He grew up as a child, a boy, a youth, a man.  It is the birthday of Christ the Saviour we celebrate on the twenty-fifth of each December.

To whom did Jesus come?  He came to a lowly people.  He was revealed first of all to the shepherds.  The shepherd’s task was not an enviable one.  He was out in the open, subject to storms and winds and wild beasts.  His business was to shepherd the sheep, to lead them to good pasture, to protect them from all harm and danger.  The shepherd’s task was lonely as well as lowly.  His days and nights were passed in solitude.  Occasionally a group of shepherds would come together, but for the most part they were alone with their flocks.  God chose these people, whose minds were clear, whose lives were pure, to be the first messengers of the glad tidings of great joy.

MEMORY VERSE, Luke 2:  8

    “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the
    field, keeping watch over their flocks by night.”

MEMORY HYMN [115]

    "While shepherds watched their flocks."

HIM AND HYMN

I want to tell you to-day about two “Hims.”  The first is a man “Him.”  The second is a song “Hymn.”

The man “him” is Phillips Brooks.  He was born in 1835 and died in 1893.  He never married, so he had no girls and boys of his own.  But he loved all children.  He had a great, warm heart, and in that heart was a big corner for all young people.  He became a minister.  His first church was in Philadelphia.  Later he moved to Boston.  He had not been in Boston very long when, one night, about midnight, the people saw flames breaking out through the roof of the church.  A sorrowing congregation, with their pastor, watched their loved church as it burned to the ground.