In these words is contained that meeting together of Advent and Christmas, in which we learn the truest meaning of each. The spirit of Advent is the spirit of expectation: it looks not back over the past, or down into the present, but forward and upward into the future. Yet its expectation is not of a dim point in the far distance: it is of a coming King and Lord, One who came once in the sight of men in great humility; who, risen above our sight, is with us now and alway, even to the end of the world; and whose coming we are taught by Scripture to recognize again and again in every shaking of the earth and heaven till that last coming, when the earthly life of men shall have run itself out to its close, and He shall pronounce the judgment of Heaven upon it all. The expectation is of a Lord who is at hand; at no moment far off from us, and sure before long in one way or another to make His presence felt. It is an expectation which should lead us not so much to submit and receive as to be up arid doing: ‘Lo he cometh; go ye forth to meet him.’ And if Advent teaches the whole year the lesson of expectation, Christmas teaches it the lesson of trustful rest in One already come.