“THE most famous sermon Mr Lachlan Mackenzie ever preached,” says Dr Kennedy, in the Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, “was on ‘The Babe in Bethlehem.’ It made a very deep impression on the minds of such of the Lord’s people as were privileged to hear it; and the memories of that sermon were always recalled with peculiar vividness and delight. The preacher having proposed to go to seek for Jesus, an inquirer was supposed to offer to attend him, and the two were represented as setting out together on that search. They had not gone far when, the inquirer’s eye resting on a fine house not far away, he said—’Surely this is the place where we will find Him.’ ‘Come and let us see,’ was the guide’s reply. They go to the fine mansion, and peeping in through the window, they see a company seated round a gaming table. ‘Oh, come away! come away! Jesus cannot be here,’ the inquirer cries. ‘I knew that,’ his guide replied. ‘but while we are on the way to some other place let me tell you what will be the fate of the company on which we were looking.’ He then detailed the future of the family in the mansion, and the programme he gave was actually carried out in the after-history of a family in his parish. ‘Oh, perhaps He is there,’ says the inquirer, pointing to another house. ‘Come and let us see,’ was again the guide’s reply. They reached the house, but they had only just stood, when the hoarse laugh of the drunkard sounded in their ears. Again the inquirer is satisfied that they must seek elsewhere for Jesus; and, again, with wonderful minuteness, the minister describes the future career of another household in his parish. After repeated trials, made at his own suggestion, the inquirer begins to despair of finding Jesus at all. He leaves himself now entirely in the hands of his guide, who brings him to the back court of an inn, and pointing to the door of the stable, says, ‘It is there Jesus will be found.’ ‘There!’ cries the inquirer, ‘behind that mass of filth,’ as he pointed to the dung-heap at the door of the stable.’ Applying this to the remembrance of past sins, and his fear that one so guilty as he could never find Jesus, the guide reasoned with the inquirer till his first difficulty was removed. He then brings him to the threshold, but the filth within now arrests him. ‘Oh, surely,’ he cries, ‘He cannot be in such a place as this.’ Applying this to the sense of indwelling corruption, his guide again reasons with the inquirer till the second difficulty is removed. But seeing beasts within, he is afraid to cross over to the manger. This suggests the presence and wiles of the tempter, and the inquirer’s fears, arising from temptation, are met and removed. At last the manger is reached, and there, in swaddling clothes, they find the infant Jesus. In the renewed will of the inquirer himself, seeking Jesus as revealed and offered in the Gospel, and as he fain would embrace Him in the promise, if he dare, Jesus at last is found, notwithstanding all past guilt, abounding corruption, and harassing temptations” (Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, 1897 Edit., pp. 65, 66).