THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Evening Star, Issue 15064, 21 December 1912, Page 4

THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

fe’< __ RELIGIOUS REFLECTIONS. v , [By Tm; Pilgeixl] pf|;lS|aye to no sect, who takes no priyatfe M'* ioa<] ” ■■ §si, '■ THOUGHT FOR*THE WEEK. day, which giv’afc tho eternal lie Ssi"6i;:self, : and sense, and all the brute ®Sp>withiii; foh, i. come to us, amid this war of life; §.To.,hall and hovel come; to ail who toil sCnate,'shop, or study; and to those %' JU-warned and sorely tempted— r . J "T feCometo them, blest and blessing,' ChvistM,- 4 mas Day. : pfell them once more the tale of Bethle<T ' ’ hem, i'jJThe kneeling shepherds, and tho Babe , •• divine; f ' k And keep them men indeed, fair'Christfnas

. Charles Kingsley, 1863. V ' THE MESSAGE OP "CHRISTMAS. f When, “the tune draws near tho birth iAot Christ, ’’ and hearts are aglow with the |-gQdd-will and go6d cheer of the Christmas | Season, it is well to think a little of the deeper message of this great Christian jsi festival. Like other .such festivals, it has its roots deep in pagan customs attaching y to' a strategic point in the march of the feeeasons, and it has seized in its growth ffemany practices having no direct bearing jjfpupdnMts Christian significance. But that iff Christian significance is vital and emphatic. feThete-is no Christianity without Christ, ffYnd There is no adequate Christ apart from T-yDne who is the Son of God incarnate. The ■■lifestival that celebrates the coming of “ God in the Qcsh ’’ consequently brings j;’ recurrent reminder of the central fact of A,Christian truth and of human life, i- ■ In ‘ The Alarquis of Lossie ’ George Alacphdonald speaks his own thought through A 1 tho lips of a chief character; “It makes the earth very holy and veiy lovely to iTthink that, as we are in the world, so was ■si He in the world. ... If God should ' be so nearly one with us that it was nothing strange to Him thus to visit His A people 1 That we are not tho offspring of V the : soulless tyranny of law, that knows LJIoJ-even its own. self, but the children of fare unfathomable wonder, of which science gathers only the foam bells on the Hiore—children in tho house of a living Father, . so entirely our Father that He cares even •' 'to death that wo should understand and

;Eiin!’’ That Vo are thus linked i ; 'to Gixl, and that He does so care, ■ tho Incarnation clearly announces. A ;-radiance is east over liumau life by Mho light of that fact. It is not merely that "Christ is the linking ladder for / ascending human nature and descending ■ ! divino love. The place of the ladder’s ’foot is made glorious. In earth itself, //seemingly so far from heaven, are seen ;/ to bo already present the conditions makk ingpossible tho presence of the divine. Too often—as often in religious ecstasy v- as ■■■in irreligious despair—wo speak con- ■. temptuously of this life and its conditions. // /There is a haste to be away. We fain / would shuffle off this mortal coil. We lack spitefully against the earthly conditions of onr being and blame them for ’f ournot being better than we are. We call “earth a failure, God-forsaken, aute- / room. of hell.” If only we could get rid ; •..of .the conditions of hrimau life—why, we » jthink wo could be. angels at once! But, so Christmas reminds us, into this ■teidespisod life of earth, has come the divine, uAin human, form and in full humanity. yATher© is no place remaining for reasonable t;/ contempt of earth; There has been here *>ono. perfectly holy life; why may there i” not bo others? Christ’s presence gave the |/^i. world its “Holy Land”; why should |itithere not be many, holy in more than riv-name? Since Christ showed ns the Father if ;om‘s can never be regarded as an orphaned ijki world. His coming has proved that tho conditions for tho projection of the divino i yinto human life are certainly here. •U't ■ That He stands solitarily peerless, that i feGHis Church has not yet become unnecessary iSjtlaxragh an. achieved mission, that the lyAwbrld .He came to bless with peace and =■ ;/good-will still knows strife and selfishness, should not make us despair. Cynicism Li can . find material for scoffing in this year grace, with its .European war, its in’l turmoil, its tale of horrors and of ‘fy'woeg. Man, at war with man, seems to had no ears for the Clrristmas mes■Li.itage of the Nativity angels’ song. But Acynrdsm' is ever blind. ItsTist of earth’s • is bat a partial'record of tho of history, and the omissions {'■.. are _ serious. Thoroughly informed and a !,' critical students of the past agree to assert ikythat, as compared with earlier days, the world to-day shows a balance of good, ri;Moreover, the very standard that fur(Wmish'es the basis of tho cynic’s judgment i;Vis. a witness to his error. Life’s ideal, as IT Christ brought it to the world, is as clear/by cut and definite as ever. Its survival is a Vi p-roof of its heeding. The song of the j|/•angels has not died into silence. Still through the cloven skies they come ••U With peaceful wings unfurled• VV . And still their heavenly music -floats y.\ ; O’er all the weary work!. V? Above its sad and lowly plains . They bend on hovering wing, jL- And over o'er its Babel "sounds iff". The blessed angels sing. I*f It wil) take ages yet ere Christ he formed j|V, folly ia tiro consciousness of the race and ;//Hh> ideal of character be generally l-v*. rertched. Tho process is slow, but invin cible. The angel song of peace and goodii will, still ringing its challenge to earth. i.-TsLyvill yet be joined in by a multitude oi (£ the earthly host. (■/*’, hoc lo! the days are hastening on. • • Hy prophet bards foretold, ya- When with the ever-circling years Comes round the ago of gold ' .When, peace shall over all the earth ; A , Ns ancient splendors fliuo-, •jt 1 - And the whole world'give back the sous .V " Winch now the angels sing. A That “ago of gold” will be hastened a: Li -each indivdua! life catches the spirit o ~. tho Christmas message. For the season -an appeal To inon as well ns a meaning v . for man. Xuat, meaning for man we see i |A, a glorifying of earth. But the glory hj potential .rather than actual: we lean .what ■ earth. may ho rather than see whn LA earth is. Tho Incarnation, while it de k clared tho nearness of earth and heaven -L ■ involved nevertheless a condescension am /; a sacrifice for Him whose coming we com • memocate. He laid aside His glory an< -v. becanve a man like others. Tliat humblim ... w'3s to be the weakness ami dependence 6 |; V babe, and to a life of poverty and toi f - and shame. ‘ Such an advent is an eternal rebuke t ; .out - self-seeking. It tells us that manhocn r k wpl ho realised, not through selfish grasp - ing and assertion, but by a. service t Ik others that may involve ourselves in loss. I l .i' For Him, Bethlehem’s manger was th f: beginning of the way to Calvary’s cross pand. by tho cross He ascended to a majest ;on high. _ “ Being in the form of God, H counted it not a prize to be on an ecraalit

ivdih God, but emptied Himself, taking the ‘ ■■-•form of a servant, being made in the'likci/f .-ness of men; and .being found in fashion uj -i.sr-zs a man, ho 'humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to death, yea, the death of ( the cross. ■ -Wherefore ‘also God highly .Him, and gave Him tho name wu ywMch is above • every name • that in the Mrsjjaame <of Jesus every knoo should How.” It.-Through descent He ascended : humbling r -J.-,lcd to exaltation: service won-a sccptro a crown. For us men there is no |3teother way to enduring honor than that inthe message of Christmas. ifeßl«b day, -which aye reminds us, vear by if. year. ® / *'{ s >What J tis to be a man: to curb and spurn %g«T%e'tyrant in us; that ignobler self ti/; Which boasts, not loathes, its likencee to the brute, RJ: rAnd owns no good save ease, no ill save }.;> pain— H^No -purpose, save its share in that wild war' which, through countless ages, living tilings ||£ : ,Gomp6te in internecine greed. ’. , , fpwWhue.ever out of the eternal heavens down the great magnanimous (Maker of all worlds, did sacrifice felAfl'to-Himself? Nay, but Himself to one; > taught, mankind on that first. Christ- ‘. mas Day, *£:Whrt ’twas to be. a_man; to give, not Wjfh\;;take; . Ife'Ba sarTe. not rule j to nourish, not devour; WmSm-'-he]yi, : not cniiSh ; if negd, - to die,,"Hot 1ia > ~ , '

GHI £. 1 -™ BABBI vacancy.—expected APPOINTMENT OF DR DRACHAIAN. Tho problem which has been troubling Anglo-,Jewry for more than a year, that of finding a successor to the late Dr Adler as Chief Rabbi, at length seems within measurable distance of solution (writes a Jewish correspondent of tho London ■ Daily Mail ’ on October 20). Until recently the chief candidates were Dr Hyamscm; head of the Jewish Ecclesiastical Court in London, and Dr Hertz. Then Dr Bernard Drachman, of New York, who had been invited by the Selection Committee to, become a candidate, arrived in England. Tic preached in two important synagogues in London, and attended an important communal function. Those who came m contact with him recognise iii him an erudite scholar of dignified bearing and high culture. Most of the honorary officers ot the United Synagogue, including the senior vice-president, Mr A. H. Jessel, K.G., heard Dr Drachman preach at St. Joints Wood Synagogue. The rabbi created a.profound impression, and many of those who hoard him arc convinced that in Dr Draeliman will be found the ideal' lium fur the chief rabbinate. With the object of bringing about an early election, pressure is now being brought to bear upon the Selection Committee to propose i)r Drachnian's election. Although born in New York, and a graduate of Columbia University. Dr Draclnnan spent a. great deal of his time - iir the leading Continental Jewish seminaries, whore he obtained the highest rabbinical diplomas, together with the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. For three years he acted as rabbi over the Breslau community. He returned to New York, where he was appointed Professor of Biblical Exegesis and Hebrew Philosophy .at the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York, [.ater he became dean of the same, faculty and Professor of Bible and Rabbinical Codes at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He now holds an important appointment over tho two largest orthodox congregations in New York.

WE AUK ALL HOMESICK. For eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. "Mo are all craving lor that consummation.” says the Bev. R. J. Campbell; “consciously or unconsciously wc are all homesick, all crying out for" the life that is life, indeed. As Wordsworth says in his ‘lntimations of Immortality’: '1 hough inland far we he. Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither. Can in a moment travel thither. . And see the children sport upon the ’ shore, , And hear the mighty waters rollhm evermore " ° Every sold belongs to two worlds, and lives by both—the world of sense and the world of spirit. But it is the world of spirit that is the world of causes; the wor d of sense is only that of effects. And those whose faith enables them to pass in spirit to the side of the higher as through an open door, arid ' behold the 'Workings of the providence of God, will never be deceived by the menacing shadows of caith. lor he alone ‘sees life steadilv and sees it whole ’ who views it from the standpoint of eternal life.” NONCONFORM I STS AND THE WELSH CHURCH. Mr Henry Radclifie, one of the most prominent laynieu in the Calvinistio Methodist connexion in Wales, discussing tho Welsh iJisestablislmient (jiiestioii in opening a bazaar at Cardiff, said tiiat it had ceased to be a icligiou.s one, and had become political. The time had arrived when they must ask if tlieic was anv religious Christian person who was prepared to transfer £135,000 a year from religious to worldly purposes, as "was proposed. Already they had too little money for religious work, and he would prefer to see a Bill promoted to give £135,000 a year lo every Nonconformist body in Wales. He would vote for that with both hands, and he would rather see the tithes he paid doublet! or trebled than see them taken away from religious and used for wbrldlv purposes. The Government which did that would bring punishment upon their heads, and rightly so. He agreed with the Bishop of St. • David s that it was a “mean little Bill.”

Mr.Stmmonds, an official of the Church, endorsed every word Air Radclifie had said.