By the Rev. Hugh Miller, M.A.

"Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in
the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."—St. Luke ii. 13, 14.

Man, to begin with, was God's chief end in creation, and the angels sang not so much because a new world had been made, but rather because a new being akin to themselves was put into it, to whom they might minister and with whom they might co-operate in the doing of God's most holy will; and this season comes to remind us of our inherent dignity in God's sight, of the noble ideal He has formed for us, of the value He sets on those whom He sent His Son to seek and to save. As God made us and as He intends us to be, we are not a little higher only than the animals, we are rather only "a little lower than the angels." He has crowned us with glory and honour and set us over the work of His hands. He has put all things under our feet. The material universe was made for man, to be his home, to develop his powers, to be a test and discipline of his moral character. I refuse to be reduced to the same rank, or to be placed in the same order, as the beasts that perish. Remembering the angels' first song, I assert my supremacy.

And man is most of all supreme because God has given him the freedom to choose the objects of his life, and the means by which he can secure them. Sun, moon and stars are bound by laws which they cannot transgress. The movements of the animals are guided by impulses and instincts over which they have no moral control. To man alone belongs the power of refusing to bow before God's greatness and of disobeying God's commands. Man only has this sovereignty; but his sovereignty led to his servitude, and the chains that bound him were forged by an angel who fell before man's fall.

If, then, all the angels worshipped and adored when man was made with the great gift of free choice, how must the holy ones that remained after the first and great apostasy have grieved when the fallen angels took man along with them in their fall! For because of man's disobedience God's idea in making man seemed to be thwarted and the peace and good will to which he was called appeared no longer possible. Instead of being the master of creation, he was now to a large extent its unhappy victim.

We know from hints thrown out here and there in Scripture with what absorbing interest the angels followed the plans of God to bring order once more out of the chaos caused by sin, and the effort He put forth to create a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. No wonder, then, that when the fulness of the time was come, and God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem man, the angels should have sung a second time, and anticipated for man at last a happy time of peace and good will.

The angels had a clear perception of the purpose of Christ's coming. One of the chief of them said to Joseph, "Thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins." And they all sang when He came, because they knew that God was now dealing in a special and most effective way with that dark thing which cast its shadow on heaven as well as on earth. And it becomes us to remember that it is the sin of man which in the mind of God and His holy angels is associated with the coming of Jesus Christ. To this end was He born, and for this cause came He into the world.

The sin of our first parents had passed on from generation to generation, and each one of the millions of mankind had to say, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me"; and each fulfilled in his own life all too truly the sad promise of his birth. How was the tradition to be broken, and yet broken by one who really belonged to the race? The instincts of man himself foreshadowed the truth. Stories of a virgin birth here and there discernible in paganism show the deep intuition which was realised in Jesus Christ. He came into the world to fight with sin, to redeem a race steeped in a terrible heritage of evil, and that He might redeem it He Himself was born, and yet was free from evil.

He fought sin and He conquered it. Why, then, has the angels' song not been fulfilled? Why does sin still cast its shadow on earth and heaven alike? Why does God's loving purpose in sending His Son seem still to suffer so wide defeat? Because in his recovery as in his fall, man's will must play its part. I can only be saved from sin when I will to be saved; I only become a partaker of the benefits which Christ brought from heaven to earth when, yielding to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I turn with full accord to Jesus Christ as my Saviour. Marvel not, therefore, that we say to you with peculiar emphasis on the day in which Christ was born, "Ye must be born again." Otherwise, His birth is of no avail to you and me. We are not honouring Him, we are putting Him rather to an open shame, if we keep out of our thoughts at this time the supreme purpose of His coming, if we are not personally dealing with Him even now as to the burden and guilt of our sin.

But we can set the angels a-singing in the sky, and the melody of their music can be felt in our own hearts, if we turn in lowly penitence to Him who came to save His people from their sins, and to quicken them to a new life of righteousness and peace and joy. Only when a man comes to himself in lowly penitence, and then goes to his Father with a lofty faith, does he enter into the full purpose of his manhood; and only then, also, is there not only joy among the angels in heaven over the sinner that thus repenteth, but there is music and dancing on the earth as well, and the old life ends in which sin reigned, and the new begins in which Christ reigns; and His reign means "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men."

"There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."