THE QUIET HOUR

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 6, 22 December 1928, Page 5

THE QUIET HOUR

SOME SUNDAY READING.

CHRISTMAS,

(J.L.A.K.) ■ Christ’s Mass, i.e., the Festival of Christ: —“When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.” I f t took many thousands of years to prepare the human race for t’lie coming of Jesus Christ. Throughout that long period the race was learning that it could not do without God. Man had thought that he could, by his own effort, find out God: find out all about Him and how to serve Him. He had to. learn that he was a lost being and that, I instead of being able to find God, he lhad to be found by God. The heathen had elaborated their religious ceremonies' and devised all s'orts of mystic cults, in the belief that God would be found in some remote sanctuary. Philosophers believed that (by following thp Light of Reason they would find out 1 God. The Jews looked for some great Apotalypse that, would crown their devotion to the Mosaic law. Th e time came ■when every artifice of man wa s an I acknowledged failure and then God

revealed Himself in .the Person of His Son. In the Light of our Lord’s Incarnation, we see that all the

Saints who went before Him were

but heralds of His coming. There were no. “lesser Christs”: there was but the cue Christ, and He is the true Light of the World. What Christ 1 revealed to man, man could never have found out for himself, and what Christ has not revealed, man can never knew in their existence. The Mormons teach that their religion a fuller revelation than that made by our Lord. To admit that is to deny Christ, who claims ,to he the Light of the World. Not a partial light that may be increased by another, or even by Himself at 1 a later ■period of man’s earthy existence, but that true light which guarantees to

His followers that they shall not walk in darkness but shall have the Light of Life. The Christian cannot admit thalt there are any aid s to his faith outside or beyond the revelations that Jesus, the Son of God, the Chrisfch, has made. On the Mount

of Transfiguration, the disciples passed through and experience which they subsequently learned to mean (that Moses and the Prophets had but testified to Him. T 0 them and to 'every Christian, religion means Jesus and Jesus only. Born in time, probably about B.C.S of our reckoning, Jesus is, nevertheless, born again in every disciple’s soul. Christ liveth in him: to him, tb live is Christ. (Religion therefore means a union with God through Christ: a living ainion; a conscious union. It cannot be less, ilt could not be more. But that union is a progressive union, a living nearer and nearer to Gcd. “Now we see through a glass darkly: but then face to face.” Progressive C hristian ‘ experience means ,the progressive clearing of Itlie darkness from the glass. Such clearing is indicated in the sanctification of

the affections: a greater knowledge of God’ s will, and a greater desire to fulfil it. No lover of Christ asks for an, easier religion, a relaxation >of obligation: lie is striving after ..perfection, and although he finds the road increasingly narrow and increasingly steep, ■he also finds that 1 the goal is more earnestly desired and the vision of God is becoming clearer and more real. His whole life

becomes a witness to the reality (that Christ is born, Christ lives, He reigns and He reigns in glory. “Whom have I in heaven but Thee and there is none upon earth that I. desire in comparison of Thee.” “My heart is athirst for God.” Christinas is so much associated ,with holiday making and jollification that we mighit lose it s mystic meaning. *Uet our joys be the outburst of thankfulness to God who has not left us to wander through life in the darkness of our own understanding, but has illuminated that understanding with ithe Light of His Own ■Presence.

ing. *Let our j'oys be the outburst l.born Man. Not merely a member of of thankfulness to God who has not a certain nation. As Man. He has left us to wander through life in received us all "alike and to us all the darkness of our own understand- 'He has revealed (the Father, ing, but has illuminated that under- That revelation can only become a standing with ithe Light of His Own reality when the disciple can, withPresence. out the aid of books, laws or teaChristmas is a time of good-will, ch.ers, testify from hi s own experiSuch goodwill should be permanent 1 ence that Christ has truly come in and manifest itself in an absence of the flesh. That He has made His all conscriousness and in the realisa- abode hi him. And such testimony tion that the obligation c/f love and can only be given in the deepest charity is paramount. Christ was humility and penitence.

Christmas is a time of good-will. Such goodwill should be .permanent and manifest itself in an absence of all consoriousness and in the realisation that the obligation c/f love and