her. Each follows a prince, who met the prince of
the other, in mortal conflict. Let us thank Him, who out of this world
chose us for Himself.

II. LET US TRACE THE STORY OF THE WORLD'S HATRED.--_It was foretold in
Eden_. "I will put enmity," so God spoke to the serpent, "between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." We are not disposed
to treat that ancient record with which our Bible opens as romance or
fairy story, but to regard it as containing a true and authentic record
of what actually transpired. That declaration is the key to the Bible.
On every page we meet the conflict, the bruising of the Church's heel
by the dark powers, and the increasing area of victory covered by our
Emmanuel, the Virgin's Child. This hatred is then in the very nature
of things, for this is but another name for God. It is, like others of
the deepest facts in the experience of man, fundamental and inevitable,
the outcome of mysteries which lie beyond the ken of man.

_And it has characterized every age._--Abel is slain by Cain, who was
of the evil one, and slew his brother. Joseph is put into a pit by his
brethren, and into a prison by his master's wife; the Hebrew is smitten
by the Egyptian; David is hunted by Saul as a partridge on the
mountains; Micaiah is hated by Ahab because he always testifies against
him; Jeremiah lives a very suffering stricken life, until he is slain
in Egypt for remonstrating against a policy he could not alter; each of
the little company then listening to Christ is forecast for a martyr's
death, with, perhaps, the exception of John himself, whose life was
martyrdom enough; Stephen sheds the blood of his pure and noble nature,
and from that day to this the blood of the saints has poured in
streams, until the last harrowing records, which have come to light,
only of recent years, of the indescribable tortures and death of
Armenian martyrs.

Each age has had its martyr-roll. They have been tortured, not
accepting deliverance, have had trial of mockings and scourgings, yea,
moreover of bonds and imprisonment; have been stoned, sawn asunder,
tempted, and slain with the sword; wandering in deserts and mountains
and caves, and the holes of the earth: of whom the world was not worthy.

_The root or ground of hatred is not due to the evil discovered in the
persons, who are the objects of the world's hate._--"They hated Me
without a cause," our Saviour sorrowfully said. There might have