The New Zealand Tablet WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1924. CHRISTMAS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 50, 17 December 1924, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1924. CHRISTMAS

When Caesar Augustus in the pride of : his empire was numbering his sub- . jects all over the civilised world, Christ was born in a stable in Bethlehem. That ancient census was a proclamation of earthly glory. It was a record of the grandof a power built up by long years of ■ Conquest and so widespread that the poet could sing that it was limited only by the stars. From the pillars of Hercules to the villages of Judea, from the cold mountains g of the North of Scotland to the African i deserts, the Roman armies had marched to victory, planting the Roman Eagle everywhere as a sign of their domination over the world. Could there be a greater contrast to all this earthly pride and greatness than the birth of the King of kings in a stable? The representatives of the earth had no place near His throne in the manger. Those who gathered round Him were the poor, the simple, and the wise whose wisdom is not of the world. So, too, to-day, the poor of spirit, the simple and single of heart, the wise who know what true wisdom means, will gather round the Crib and there renew in their hearts the lessons which Christ teaches from His humble birthplace. * The poor came to Christ at Bethlehem, and He came to the poor and abode with them during His mortal life. His foster-father was a carpenter; His mother was poor; He Jwas poor Himself all the days of His life f on earth. In His choice of poverty rather than riches there was a lesson for all time, and one specially important in our own time. To Him all things were possible, yet He chose the stable for His birthplace and Hf the carpenter's home for His dwelling-place.

\.nd when He selected the men who were to lo His work in this world, they were in nearly all instances poor also. Poverty has ilways been a. crime in the eyes of the world, Did it was, at the time of Christ's coming, synonymous with degradation in the Roman Empire. In the centuries that followed the poor were treated like slaves until the Church, moving quietly and slowly and as irresistibly as the tides, taught the thinkers if the world to recognise that all men were jrothers in Christ, and that poverty made nan rather more than less the brother of Dhrist. Wherever the Gospel was preached that luminous principle 'worked for the ameioration of the conditions of the poor, and inly where the Gospel was forgotten by men was it possible to regard God's poor as an nferior, degraded class. To look on them is mere animals — consumere nati —was Dagan, and is pagan to-day. Therefore, to ;he poor man, the man who has to fulfil the sentence imposed on Adam and to make a livelihood by the sweat of his brow, Bethleiem teaches a lesson of self-respect—for the vorkman is Christ's brother, and no patent )f nobility can be higher than that fact, — iud also a lesson of resignation and patience, 'or however hard the labor be, and however mute the gnawing of the teeth of want, still Christ too suffered these things, and suffered hem in preference to a life of ease which He tould have had at will. In this lesson ever since the Apostles went forth to preach the jrospel to every creature men and women lave found strength to become saints, and Pound too, in their poverty, a sweetness and a joy that the wealth of the world could neve/ pjive. And the lesson, so old, is ever new; and now in the years to come it holds out to the humble ones of the earth the true secret of a. peace and a happiness that is a pledge of heaven itself. For the rich the lesson of Bethlehem is there also. From the Crib Christ tells them that He Who could have had wealth far more, than theirs nevertheless chose poverty, already foreshadowing His declaration that the way to Him was not an easy way for therm that are burdened by worldly goods. He sets His nakedness of everything that men esteem against their pride in their possessions ; His table against their palaces; His manger against their comforts; His loneliness against their servants and their hosts of friends. If they are among those who oppress the poor, Bethlehem tells them that He too was poor, as, later, He was to tell them that as often as they neglect the poor the} neglect Himself; and if they set their hearts inordinately on riches He tells them now. as He told them later, that if they want tc follow Him closer they must imitate Him even in His poverty. Just as He teaches tin poor Unit they are lo find happiness anc peace in His example, so also He tells th< rich that they must learn to respect th< poor because the poor are His brethren and even more His brethren than the rich The world has forgotten, it follows Mammo: rather than the Child of Bethlehem. 0 this year, as on so many others, the festivr of the Child of Bethlehem, which is th

festival of the Prince of Peace, comes upon a world torn -with dissensions and suspicions, with racial hatreds and commercial rivalries, with jealousies and misunderstandings. Nations place their confidence in the destructive engines of war floating upon the seas or stretched along their frontiers rather than in the Prince of Peace Who, in His divine humility, chose the stable before the palace. Statesmen the world over speak with one voice for peace. Their words are charged with a mixture of sincerity and pretence; for while they no doubt wish to avoid war and its consequences, they will shake hands with peace only upon the terms dictated by their own pride and ambitions. Not peace, but smothered war, a peace sustained by force of arms, is their ideal. That is Mammon's peace, for pride and Mammon go hand in hand. lint while proud empires crack and fall to pieces, and monarchs tumble from uneasy thrones, the Crib remains to warn the world that the nations will find peace and security only by crying with the shep- ' herds of old, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see what has come to pass, as the Lord has made known to us." There before the Crib we can all find gifts of peace and hope such as the Child brought to the faithful hearts that came to Him in the loneliness of His first Christmas on earth: the peace which the world cannot give: the peace between Him and the soul: the peace that is always His blessing on men of good will. <X> THE CHRISTIAN HOME A SANCTUARY. Christmas time must pass of course, for life cannot be an endless holiday; but why should not the family reunion live and bind through the whole long year? questions the Rev. P. J. Scott. No other surroundings can furnish inspirations so strong and lasting as the influences of a Christian home. No other friendship can ever equal in strength the ties that come from blood. No friend can ever rejoice at another's welfare as a father glories in that of his child, and no trusted counsellor can advise as does a father in the wisdom which is born of love. What comradeship can equal the intimacy of brethren who have played and lived and thought in common? and where in all the wide world can he found a confidante so ever-ready, everloyal as a favorite sister? And when sympathy is needed or desired there is in every Christian home a. sanctuary wherein God has stored it in vast reserve; and that sanctuary is a mother's heart, a heart great enough to exult in the day of proudest triumph, to comfort and encourage in time of trial and distress, and to hope and pray in the dark hour of failure or fault. It is the abiding presence of this sympathy, always ten-" yet ever strong, that makes home the true nursery of heroes and of saints. Under its mellowing influence the girl develops the » unconscious charms of gentle womanhood, and ; the boy broadens out into chivalrous man- ■ hood; and after mother has exchanged the t home of earth for the imperishable abode of 1 heaven, her sweet influence still lives and I rules in the household that knew a mother's J worth.