SUNDAY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 11, 23 December 1911, Page 8

SUNDAY COLUMN.

CHRISTMAS MESSAGES 13Y LEADERS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGH!.

The Pleasures of Christmas.

(By the Rt. Rev. Bishop Welklon.) What should ho the true temper oi Christmas Day? Not so much merriment, perhaps—although ; ‘a merry Christmas is a very frequent greet - ling—nor selfish enjoyment—Lm trujoy in the world is always diffusive blit rather social happiness. Cm happiness will he all the greater i we try to make others happy. Christ mas is the time for healing the wounds of family life. It bids us lay aside all hitter, unkindly words aim thoughts. It bids us make friends again with those whose friendship we should never have lost. It is tin time, too, when the rich should help the poor. if there are deserving and suffering poor at our doors, what a joy it is to give them a good meal In giving it we are not merely sat isfying their needs, hut we inspirthem with a kindlier feeling for then fellowmen; it may he even with t holier feeling.'for God. There are the sick, too, and the suffering. It i: difficult to conceive a higher pleasure than that of sitting beside the lifctfi patients and putting into their was: cd hands some poor present wide} brings the sunlight into their eyes and telling them of Him who tooi, the little children in His arms am put His hands on them and blessrc 'them. This, or something like it is in part what the angels meanwhen they brought to the shepherd? the “good' tidings of great joy” which should be to all people. But th happiness of Christmas is inseparable from the truth which Christmas enshrines. For then it is that tic church tells of One who left His loft?, place in heaven to live and suffer and die for men upon earth. And the Christian truth is so precious because it teaches men that Gfod Himsel could make a sacrifice for their sake; —even the sacrifice of His Son—nay more, that the Son of God coni achieve His great work for them_ b' becoming as they were, by taking so to say, their place and thus toad ing the lesson of perfect Divine sym pathy with them. The world ha not outgrown the Christ. It never wi! or can outgrow Him. We live i the morning rather than in the ever ing of His religion. More and mor will the world learn of the nobleness the self-sacrifice, the elevation, th purity, which stand revealed in Hi; life and death. It is for this larger better, holier, Christianity, for th “Christ that is to be” as the poc says, til at Christians may yet worl and wait. The Christ Chiid. (By Dr. J. R. Miller.) “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour is Christ the Lord.”—Luke 2:11. How wonderful this was! W> must remember who it was that wa: thus born. The birth of anothei child in this world was nothing strange, for thousands of childre. are born every day. But this was tin Lord of Glory. This was not the be ginning of His life. Ho had lived fc all eternity in Heaven. His hand; made the universe. All glory was His All the crowns of power 1 flashed upo. His brow. All mighty angels caller Him Lord. ,We must understand thi if we would understand His condos cension. Every schoolboy has rear, that Peter the 'Great left his throm and in lowly disguise apprenticed him self at Amsterdam as a, shipwright Among the common labourers In wrought, dressed in their workin<. garb, living in a hut, preparing hi? own fond, making his own bed. Ye J in doing so ho never for one mo ment ’ ceased • to ' be the -autocrat o: Russia. His royal splendour was laid aside for a time; his regal powei . and majesty were temporarily veilec ; beneat]i the disguise he wore; but there was never ah hour when he war : not an Emperor. So Christ’s glon ; was folded away under robes of hu man flesh. He' never ceased to be the Son of God; and yet he aseumec all the conditions of humanity. H< veiled His power and became a help less infant, unable to walk, to speak, to think. He veiled His knowledge and learned as other chihlre.i do. He laid aside His sov.vciguty, IDs majesty. What condescension! And it was all for our sake, that He might lift ns tip to glory. It was as a Saviom that He came into this world. He {became Son of Man that He might intake us sons of God. He came down to earth and lived among men, entering into their experiences of humiliation that He might lift them up to glory to share His exaltation. The Wise Men anti the Star. : Matt. 2: 1-23. (By George H. Morrison, M.A., Glasgow.) T. One of the first lessons of this passage is that God speaks to men in Mays they can understand. These Chaldeans had been stargazers from childhood; the study of the nightly a-, mens was their passion. They mid watched the stars with a patience and an act tract sue . as are never : uttered to go unrewarded. And now hj the aid of the stars they loved so well, and on which they had meditated with such unwearied devotion they are brought to the feet of the infant rung. The shepherds wore not Chaldeans, they wore Jews. They had been trained in the doctrines of the angels. f dare say they never went out to the pasture of a night without Imping to see some shimmer of angelwiligs. So it was by the long-ex-pected voice of angels that the sbepnerds received the tidings of the Christ. But the Chaldeans had not learned the lore of angels—it was the lore of stars they were familiar with. God spoke to the separate companies in separate voices, hut the voices were those that each could understand. Let us never forgot that that is- always true. He is a Father, and you never heard of a father wno took his children on Iris knee and answered their questions in Latin and Greek, but in wavs nod languages they understood. 11. Another lesson is by what unlikely ways men may be led to Jesus. A star —do you think that was a likely leader? Is that the duty and function of a star? Yet by a star as (surely as by angels men were conducted to the Bethlehem manger. Let us lie taught, then, that by unlocked for ways men may be led to light and love and liberty. There arc men who have beard unmoved a thousand sermons and been deaf to the whole range of evangelical appeal, who have been won for Christ by a stray word, or by some act of selfsacrificing kindness. There are women whom all the sanctuary worship has not moved, but who have I been turned to God by the ceasing of childish laughter. 111. A third lesson is the intense curiosity of those men about the King. Nothing would satisfy them but that they must leave home and kindred, and set out, on a long and toilsome journey and brave a hundred dangers on the road all for the sake of seeing and worshipping Christ. When I think of how they travelled •

undreds of miles to see Him —o er mor and feu, o’er crag and torrentad how they troubled Jerusalem abit Him, and would not be baffled or beaten in the search, I am amazed t the mysterious interest excited by he new-born Saviour. The strange dug is that from that hour that .niosity has never died away. More louglits are directed to Jesus in one ay, than to Caezar or Napoleon in ■u years.

IN’. Again, the most anxious impairs about Jesus were men who were -ry far away from Him. 1 wish ni to compare these pilgrims from io East with the men who were gath•ed in the inn at Bethlehem. the haldeans were many a long mile ,vay, and the company in the inn ere at the manger. Yet it was not ie' latter band, but the former who ere eager and anxious about Jesus. ,nd that is what often happens. At mie, in the bosom of a Christian iniitry, we are always in danger of irele’ss unconcern. We are exposed to iat worst indifference that springs ‘oni the dying of the sense of wonw. Meantime from distant Connies, come tidings of the kingdom eing taken by violencd. . V. Lastlv., let ns not fail to notice ■ie apparent insignificance of what :cy found. After all that journey, i the inn, expecting perhaps some glit of royal majesty, they found in ippy innocence—a child. .1 wonder - tliev felt a touch of disappointed. Was it worth while to make iat tedious tramp, and this—this htlq babe—the end of it? We know ow that it was well worth while; that afaut of days was the eternal Lord, > there come times to us when we ;k, “Is all our effort worth wilder nt- for .us, too, the eternal dawn is iming,, when the King in His Beauty hall meet us with a welcome; and think, we shall find then, like the use men from the East, that the lurney to Bethlehem was w'ell worth vhile. i