let there rise the kindly salutation from master to men, The Lord be with you; and the pious answer from men to master, The Lord bless you; the charge to the young men that they touch her not; the generous leave to the poor to glean even among the sheaves; the cordial welcome to the gleaner to share in the bite and in the sup. It is fields like this that the Lord hath blessed. This is an incense which riseth with acceptance in His gracious sight. Do not, dear brethren, part with this inheritance. The friendliness it generates is worth more than all that gain could purchase. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith.

IV

And now, in the fourth place, we come to David. Bethlehem is the town of David, where David was. It was there that in his youth he kept his father's sheep, and slew in their defence both the lion and the bear; and practised that use of the sling by which he brought low Goliath ; and tuned the harp to which he sang The Lord is my Shepherd' and 'How excellent in all the earth.' All the arts which David used to such purpose afterwards he acquired at Bethlehem. The self-sacrifice, by which he ventured his life far and subdued his people's enemies; the wisdom with which, as their King, he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands; the sacred song which made him the sweet Psalmist, not of Israel only, but of the whole Church of God-all these he learned in the fields of Bethlehem. Above all, the loving faith in God which was the lode-star of his life, and won for him the high honour to be called of God the man after Mine own heart. David thirsted, in after days, for the water of the Well of Bethlehem. When his men, at the risk of their own lives, fetched him a draught of it, he would not drink thereof, but poured it as a libation before the Lord. It was the blood, he said, of those who went for it.

Lord, remember for David all his affliction.

We are reminded, as we recall his trials, of the tragedies, and the pathos, and the songs, of this poetic vale. The song of Yarrow, which out of all its tuneful store most touched the heart of Wordsworth:

'The verse

That paints by strength of sorrow

The unconquerable strength of love'

-that exquisite ballad' (as he justly calls it) by Hamilton of Bangour, is, in many of its lines, directly inspired by the strains of David:

'O Yarrow braes, may never, never rain
Nor dew your tender blossoms cover,
For there was vilely slain

My love as he hadna' been a lover.'

There can be no doubt whatever that we have here an echo of David's Lament over Saul and Jonathan-Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no rain upon you, nor fields of offerings; for there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, the shield of Saul as if he had not been anointed with oil.

We must note again, of course, the difference as well as the likeness. The songs of Bethlehem were psalms of praise to God. The songs of Yarrow move in a less elevated sphere. They sing of man, but in their lower sphere they are true and tender-the old ballads are that; and Hamilton's verse, and Willie Laidlaw's, and James Brown's, and Hogg's and Scott's. Nay, the last two can rise. There was a deep vein of piety in the Ettrick Shepherd; and, whether he sang of the stern Covenanter or the stainless Loyalist, he always made you think of the deep religious principle which animated both -as those who fought and suffered for what to them appeared the right of the homeless Prince, or stood up as they deemed it for the very Crown and Covenant of

1 Ps. cxxxii. I (R.V).

G

Christ. Sir Walter did not wear, like some modern writers, his religion on his sleeve. He would have considered it profane to introduce it at every turn. But it ruled his pen, which stained not a single page with malice or impurity. It ruled his life, and killed him, through his brave determination to die an honest man.' It came out at times in his poetry, as in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, or the description of a Christian Christmas in the Introduction to the Sixth Canto of Marmion. And, as his friends bent over his dying pillow to catch the almost inaudible accents from his lips, they heard him crooning over the metrical Psalms he had joined in here when he came, as he said, to worship at the shrine of his ancestors, or the 'awful burden' of the Dies Irae, most sublime at once and tender of human hymns; or the fervent petitions of the English Litany. The whole of human nature was dear to Walter Scott: the devotional treasures of all the Churches yielded to him help and comfort in the hour of dissolution. And it was not only in literature that his influence was felt. He was the pioneer in the nineteenth century of a new interest in the great men and great Churchmen of the Middle Ages. His indirect relation to the Oxford Movement-that great revival of Churchmanship in Britain-was often dwelt on in conversation by Dr. Pusey. The memorial brass there says that to him is due the reparation and adornment of many a house of God in Scotland and beyond it; but it was more than the material fabric which hailed him as its friend. The whole idea of the Church as a body and a kingdom continuous from the Day of Pentecost he materially helped to revive among us.

We are proud to put the brasses in commemoration of Yarrow's bards on the walls of the Kirk of Yarrow.

They are by no means inappropriate: they are here to remind us how for all that was noblest in their work both were indebted to the faith of the Lord Jesus. But while the brasses are there, they are not in the place of honour. The place of honour in this renovated sanctuary

is kept (as it should be) for the Word and Sacramentsthe means of grace whereby Christ (He that was dead and is alive again) communicateth to His people to this present hour the blessings of His Redemption.

V

I said at the outset that every church was now, by His grace, a Bethlehem. It is so, because in all places where He doth record His Name, He meeteth His people to bless them. Because, where two or three are gathered together in His Name, there He is in the midst of them. Jesus Christ, my brethren, will meet you here, whenever you come hither to meet Him. He will speak to you from this pulpit, in the reading and the preaching of His Blessed Word. The greater mind-the poet's-may perhaps be in the pew. But the preacher, even if he be not clever, is the ambassador of Christ; and those great ones of the past were well content to sit and listen in this House of God to His humble but faithful servants.

Long may the Word be preached! Long may it be honoured and believed in the parishes of Scotland!

And then, besides the Word, there are the Sacraments. There is a connection between them and Bethlehem. For it is on the Incarnation that the very principle of the Sacraments reposes. There is a connection even in the name of Bethlehem. For Bethlehem means the House of Bread. 'Rightly was it named,' S. Jerome says, ' since there was born this Bread which came down from heaven.' Jesus said, I am the living Bread which came down out of heaven. If any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever: yea, and the bread which I will give is My Flesh, for the life of the world.1

Year by year He fulfils His promise. In this church for two hundred and sixty years that Bread has been broken, and given, and received 'to the spiritual nourishment and growth in grace' of all who have duly taken

1 S. John vi. 51 (R.V.):

and received it. The supply of it is not going to fail. However long it may be ere He comes the second time, His Sacrament shall go on till then: As often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup, ye do shew the Lord's Death till He come. The Bread which we break is still the Communion of His Body, and the Cup of Blessing which we bless the Communion of His Blood. And still he that eateth His Flesh and drinketh His Blood hath eternal life, and He will raise him up at the last day.

These windows tell you of His Birth at Bethlehem, whereby He took our flesh. The Table in front of them is for His Sacrament of the Supper, where in Sacramental mystery He will give you His Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink. See that ye fail not to come regularly for it. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you, for Him hath God the Father sealed.

STAN