light foundations a well-rounded
legend may be built. In the year 1572 a wonderful "new star" appeared in
the constellation Cassiopeia. At its brightest it outshone Venus, and,
though it gradually declined in splendour, it remained visible for some
sixteen months. There have been other instances of outbursts of bright
short-lived stars; and brief notices, in the annals of the years 1265
and 952 may have referred to such objects, but more probably these were
comets. The guess was hazarded that these objects might be one and the
same; that the star in Cassiopeia might be a "variable" star, bursting
into brilliancy about every 315 or 316 years; that it was the star that
announced the birth of our Lord, and that it would reappear towards the
end of the nineteenth century to announce His second coming.

One thing more was lacking to make the legend complete, and this was
supplied by the planet Venus, which shines with extraordinary
brilliance when in particular parts of her orbit. On one of these
occasions, when she was seen as a morning star in the east, some hazy
recollection of the legend just noticed caused a number of people to
hail her as none other than the star of Bethlehem at its predicted
return.

There is no reason to suppose that the star of 1572 had ever appeared
before that date, or will ever appear again. But in any case we are
perfectly sure that it could not have been the star of Bethlehem. For
Cassiopeia is a northern constellation, and the wise men, when they set
out from Jerusalem to Bethlehem must have had Cassiopeia and all her
stars behind them.

The fact that the "star" went before them and stood over where the young
Child lay, gives the impression that it was some light, like the
Shekinah glory resting on the Ark in the tabernacle, or the pillar of
fire which led the children of Israel through the wilderness. But this
view raises the questions as to the form in which it first appeared to
the wise men when they were still in the East, and how they came to call
it a star, when they must have recognized how very unstarlike it was.
Whilst, if what they saw when in the East was really a star, it seems
most difficult to understand how it can have appeared to go before them
and to stand over the place where the young Child lay.

I have somewhere come across a legend which may possibly afford the
clue, but I have not been able to find that the legend rests upon any
authority. It is that the star had been