THE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST

New Zealand Tablet, 27 December 1917, Page 9

THE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST

We judge men by their personalitythe image they present to the world by their acts and words. So men are classified not by their stature or wealth or brains, but by the part they play in the affairs of life, the individual that is back of the mask we know nothing save as he speaks through it. Judged thus, is Jesus worthy to be followed? The message of the angels at His coming was a song of "peace on earth, good will to men." Not a word that He spoke, not a command that He gave, not an ideal that He uplifted set His life at variance with the angel song. The cradle song of Bethlehem is applicable to every day of his life. The Child became a Man—a man Whose mighty voice was lifted in protest against the ill will that mars peace on earth. Listen while He gives utterance to the one formal address that He ever spoke. He is telling those qualities of mind that will make men blessed. They have been well named the Beatitudes. Are they less applicable to every day of the year than to Christmas? Purity of mind, meekness of disposition, fraternity of attitude, hunger for righteousness, mercy in the treatment of others and the genius of peacemaking—when are these not applicable to our human life ? Were these practised by us every day, what black clouds of evil thoughts and more evil judgments would disappear from the sky of our mortal life! A great zest for right thinking and right acting would quicken our weary feet with the restlessness of youth. Our hearts would be sensitized to the cry of the hungry and the despairing. Social equality and economic justice would dethrone the gods of greed and selfish ambition. Every man, woman, and child would have liberty and fair play—room to stretch arms and souls, the right to live and the right to work, the right to be happy and to look up at the stars.—Rev. George B. Van Arsdal, Denver, in the Catholic Columbian.