A THOUGHT FOR CHRISTMAS.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 149, 21 December 1926, Page 26

A THOUGHT FOR CHRISTMAS.

The very first experience oi Jesus the Messiah in the world "He came to save, was to be crowded out of the caravanserai of Bethlehem—thrust away unregarded into the meanest corner tolerable to any sort,of life; and who should say thai;, in the great ,', caravanserai of humanity to-day, He is meeting with very much better treatment f

Here and there, no doubt, at this season of Christmas there will b<isome who, in their merry-making and feasting, will remember gratefully,. = the Author and Giver of the Feast. But, with the great majority, it is undeniable that the season ■ called Christmastide is every year becoming more and more the arcliitype of mass-hypocrisy, albeit unconscious; and it is just these unreasoned mass-movements which need < the, closest watching, especially where they trend upon spiritual things., ■Speaking of. His second coming, Jesns plainly told us that "of that day and hour knoweth. no man, no, not the angels of heaven," and that the day might come, therefore, when the hearts of men were least ready-^wtien human-kind was in a state ss in the day» of Noah, eating and drinking, marrying and giving.in marriage,;buying and selling, heedless of all save the pleasure or profit of the hour. A true word is often a hard word; hard to say, and always infinitely harder to receive. But the Christian who la thoughtful as well as faithful will iremember that other pregnant • saying of Christ's, "Woe unto them .. .in those days!"—unto them "that knew.; not until the flood came, and took them alt away: so shall be also the Coming of the Son of Man.". And if Christ's words are to turn out literally, true fa. this regard, wjiat more fitting seasonone is constrained to think—could -there bo for "the Sign,of the Son of.Maa!' to appear in-heaven, than any-one of these, our modern Christmas Daysf