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WILLIAM DAY SIMONDS. 
 
THE CHRIST 
 OF THE HUMAN HEART 
 
 A CHRISTMAS GIFT-BOOK 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM DAY SIMONDS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 UNITY CLUB OF OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA 
 PRICE 50 CENTS 
 
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 *(DJjUju 
 
A VISION OF JESUS 
 
 pMETIMES winged imagination — most 
 God-like gift possessed by man — carries me 
 across oceans and continents, and back through 
 many dark and dreary centuries until I stand an 
 Israelite, worshipping at the altars of my people, 
 I hear the laws of Moses learnedly expounded and 
 in the stately Sabbath service pay fitting, if formal, 
 praise to that dread Jehovah whose name I dare not 
 take upon my lips. 
 
 But the world is sad. My people are oppressed. 
 We are looking for a deliverer — one who in might 
 and majesty will drive the hated Roman from the 
 land, and give us once again the glory of ancient 
 days. So life goes on 'twixt fear and hope until at 
 length we hear the rumor strange, ^'Behold the 
 Messiah, the Man of Galilee draws near!* In 
 imagination wrapt I stand amidst the multitude of 
 those who gaze into his face divine, and listen to the 
 music of his words, 
 
 I hear him call that distant and cloud-robed God, 
 worshipped from afar in synagogue and temple, 
 HIS Father, and I am astonished at his speech. It 
 offends me that a man should call God, FATHER. 
 
 209423 
 
Again the prophet says of poor and outcast men — 
 these are my brothers, and again I am. offended, for 
 what communion hath light with darkness, knowl- 
 edge with ignorance or virtue with vice. 
 
 But soon I see the truth profound that underlies 
 this strange new gospel. If there be a God at all — 
 who is the life of all that was — and is — and is to be 
 — that God the father is of all mankind. And if we 
 all were born into this realm of smiles and tears by 
 one high wisdom and one strong love, then are we 
 BROTHERS to the last man of us, forever. 
 
 Henceforth the Nazarene^s faith is mine, and 
 through the eventful days I follow on — not know- 
 ing whither I am, led — toward Herod's court and 
 Pilate's cross. I see the fickle crowds who hang 
 upon his words and deeds saying in thoughtless 
 speech, ^^This is a God,'' I see the growing hatred 
 of bigotry and power, before which flees the timid 
 multitude like silly sheep. And then those sad, 
 proud days whereon the Master fronts alone — for 
 we were faithless friends — the powers that seek his 
 life. Was there ever in ^'all the tide of times," we 
 ask, such dignity in defeat, such tenderness in mis- 
 ery. Herod's slaves can wring from him no syl- 
 lable that says, ^^My Mission is a Lie.'* Pale and 
 scarred with torture stroke he answers Pilate with 
 fearless words and wise — ^^To this end was I born 
 
and to this end am I come into the world, that I 
 should bear witness unto the truth." 
 
 Oh God! How long the way from judgment 
 seat to that bare rock on which the sweetest life 
 since time began must yield its breath to cruelty 
 and hate. And there for one dark momenfs space 
 we — who have loved him, and by resistless fascina- 
 tion drawn, behold him suffering — fear that his 
 faith will fail. For sadder words man never spoke, 
 ^'My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me/* 
 Darkness for one momenfs space and then we know 
 that victory is his and ours. With cry of ^^finished"^ 
 trial and of pain, that Pilate might have heard in 
 distant palace, our Master yielded up his life, 
 wholly brave, wholly true, wholly God's to the last 
 death word that smote our coward hearts. 
 
 And now I do announce that yonder, helpless, 
 nail-pierced hand shall change, at last, the course 
 of centuries — writing, above creeds that bind and 
 blind — and tyrannys that crush, his own eternal 
 verities — The Fatherhood of God, The Brother- 
 hood of Man. 
 
Cf)e C!)rts;t of tfie fluman fleart 
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY 
 
 Gj^IDDEN away in my well-worn and well-be- 
 ?^ loved volume of Walt Whitman, I find these 
 lines, expressing in his own quaint fashion an error 
 in our modern ways of thinking: 
 
 "When I heard the learn'd astronomer; 
 
 When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; 
 When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide 
 
 and measure them; 
 When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with 
 
 much applause in the lecture-room, 
 How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; 
 Till rising and gliding out, I wandered off by myself. 
 In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 
 Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars." 
 
 The poet gliding out into the mystical moist 
 night air to escape an icy intellectualism that he 
 might gaze in perfect silence at the stars illustrates 
 the longing we all experience at times to escape 
 the critical temper of our age. We would fain 
 leave the lecture-room for some beautiful temple 
 of faith and there worship in untroubled confi- 
 dence the God of our Fathers. As the astronomer 
 may deal with solar distances, with the motion and 
 
size of suns and stars until he forgets the beauty of 
 the silent heavens, and misses the grandeur that 
 awes the soul of child and poet, so we moderns, 
 who are nothing if not critical, in our critical 
 blindness are in grave danger of losing the beauty 
 that streams across the centuries from the life and 
 work of the Man of Nazareth, as conceived in the 
 loving imaginations of men. 
 
 The intellect has its Christ, a changing figure, 
 a man of peace in one age, a warrior in the next, a 
 creature of debate, holding uncertain position in 
 the Godhead, often the incarnation of fanaticism 
 and persecution, the inspiration of theological 
 subtlety, the mysterious, the unloving, the impos- 
 sible Christ. 
 
 Side by side with this official Christ of the 
 Creeds, the world, rarely consistent in its thinking 
 or loving, has cherished another ideal, a dear, 
 brave, tender, struggling, faltering, conquering 
 brother and teacher to whom I like to give the 
 gracious title, "The Christ of the Human Heart." 
 
 This ideal is very old, in some of its phases older 
 than Christianity or the gospel story. When the 
 Egyptians said of Osiris, the Christ of the Nile, 
 "His heart is in every wound," they were certainly 
 sensible of the tenderness, the divine pity that must 
 characterize a saviour of men. And when the 
 
ancient Persian worshipped as his teacher and 
 leader a prophet whose greatest word was ^Turity," 
 he anticipated the gracious gospel of the Nazarene, 
 "Blessed are the pure in heart." And certainly 
 when the wandering Buddhist, long before Mary 
 welcomed her babe in Bethlehem, lovingly pic- 
 tured the birth scene of Lord Buddha, when the 
 very heavens rained flowers, he was helping to pre- 
 pare the minds of men for the story of the peasant 
 mother, the manger-babe, the singing angels, and 
 the far-flung light of "His star in the East." Very 
 old, then, and very beautiful this ideal of man's 
 aspiring soul, "The Christ of the Human Heart." 
 Let us recall this story — just as countless men 
 and women have treasured it, and just as countless 
 more will come to know and love it. 
 
THE MOTHER AND THE BABE 
 
 jtREDERICK ROBERTSON of Brighton 
 J' used to say that the doctrine and teaching of 
 the unstained motherhood of the Virgin Mary was 
 the most valuable contribution of the Ancient 
 Church to a sinful and sensual world. Guarding 
 our thought against the false implication that 
 Motherhood according to natural law may not also 
 be sweet, pure, and holy, we can but believe that 
 this constant ideal of unstained Motherhood in the 
 minds and hearts of generations of Christian wom- 
 en has given to that holy office new significance. 
 The saviours of men according to the ancient 
 legends have ever been of divine, or superior, par- 
 entage. The gods, or angels, or godlike men, have 
 fathered them, and unsullied maidenhood has 
 given them birth. Is there not here a poetic fore- 
 gleam of that science of Eugenics of which we 
 rightly hear so much in these enlightened days? 
 Must we not regenerate human life at its source 
 if we would redeem the race? Must there not be 
 something godlike in the one solemn act wherein 
 Man in creative energy is most like the God he 
 worships? As the purest waters come from the 
 loftiest altitudes where the kisses of the sun melt 
 
snows of dazzling whiteness, so from exalted fath- 
 erhood and consecrated motherhood will come the 
 ^'crowning race of human kind." 
 
 A babe so fathered and so mothered is rich 
 though it be born in a stable, and be counted lowli- 
 est among the lowly. Well may the angels sing, 
 and the stars in their courses rejoice in such a birth 
 hour, and wisely may wise men come from afar to 
 kneel in such a presence. The Mother and the 
 Babe! Always dear, always beautiful, always 
 sacred; there is something here that human passion 
 cannot wholly blight, for we ever feel as we enter 
 the birth-chamber, and look upon the new-born 
 babe, ^'Once again, a creature fresh from the hand 
 of God." And of the pale faced mother, "She has 
 passed through the sanctuary of motherhood, and 
 there's something queenly about her now, some- 
 thing divine, for behold, she is a mother." 
 
 The Mother and the Babe. Art will cherish the 
 picture, and from age to age will retouch it with 
 loving patience. Music will express its sweetest 
 charm, and in the home of prince and peasant alike, 
 as the unceasing wonder of babyhood ennobles life, 
 fathers and mothers to the end of time will cher- 
 ish the story of Mary of Nazareth and the babe 
 she bore in tears and pain that the world might be 
 blessed by a new revelation of truth, purity and 
 love. 
 
THE CONSECRATED YOUNG MAN 
 
 /|lp HERE is a story— best told, I think, by Theo- 
 ^^ dore Parker — that when Jesus was a boy of 
 twelve, he stood one Sabbath-day with his mother 
 at the door of their little cottage in Nazareth, and 
 he said, "O mother, would that I had lived in the 
 times when there was open vision, and the Lord 
 visited the earth, as in the days of Abraham and 
 Moses. These are sad times, mother, which we 
 have fallen in." 
 
 But Mary took a sprig of hyssop out of the nar- 
 row wall, and said, ^'Lo, God is here; and, my boy, 
 not less than on Jacob's Ladder do angels go up and 
 down. It is spring time now, and the voice of the 
 turtle is heard in our land, and the blossom of this 
 grape vine is fragrant with God. The date tree, 
 the white rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley, 
 root in him. He is in your little garden, not less 
 than in grand Eden, with Adam and Eve." 
 
 "Nay, mother," said Jesus, ''God has left the soul 
 of Israel for their sins, so Rabbi Jonas told us in 
 the synagogue to-day. Oh that I had lived with 
 Elias or Amos, when the spirit fell on men. I had 
 also been filled with him." 
 
Then Mary with gentle earnestness replied, 
 "God is as near to you as he was to Abraham, 
 Moses, Amos or Elias. He speaks to you as to 
 Samuel. He never withdraws from the soul of 
 men, but the day spring from on high comes con- 
 tinually to the soul of each. Open the window, and 
 the sun of righteousness comes in." 
 
 And Jesus watched at evening tide, the story tells 
 us, as the purple faded out of the sky, and the great 
 moon passed, pouring out her white fire, with a 
 star or two to keep her company in heaven. And 
 when the moon was overhead there came two young 
 lovers, newly wed, and as Jesus caught the joy of 
 their love for one another, and saw all the beauty 
 of the night, there came to his young heart a deep 
 devotion, a holy faith, and he said, "My Father 
 worketh hitherto; I also will work," and so laid 
 him down to his dreams, and slept, preparatory to 
 the work which fills the world. 
 
 Whether at his home in Nazareth — a country 
 home of vines and flowers, of fields rich in flocks, 
 and woods peopled with birds — or in the temple at 
 Jerusalem, disputing with the doctors, Jesus first 
 dimly felt himself a Godsent man, we may not say. 
 But in our hearts we cherish the image of a mar- 
 velous boy, like, and unlike, his fellows. One day 
 a merry lad with others at the games, and then for 
 
 OF THE 
 
 c ^^ 
 
many days shy and solemn with the far-off look of 
 genius in his eyes. Perhaps he never fully awoke 
 to the call of God within his soul until he listened 
 to the stern preaching of John the Baptist. Per- 
 haps he never trembled from head to foot with the 
 divine passion until the baptismal waters of the 
 Jordan closed above his fair young brow. But in 
 some hour the soul within him mastered all his 
 being; it was his second birth; for no man ever 
 passed to greatness save through the gates of soul- 
 birth. The men who move the world to finer issues 
 know the mystery of the second birth, and to them, 
 "Ye must be born again," is but the record of an 
 experience. 
 
 In that hour of glad and solemn awakening Jesus 
 foresaw the glory and the agony that awaited him 
 in the path his feet must tread. Not in hard, clear 
 outline, as men see objects in the near sun-glare, 
 but terribly real, as men see ships making port in 
 cloud and storm. And thus with the shadow of 
 coming sorrows falling upon him, willingly, sob- 
 erly, he consecrated himself to a great work,^ — the 
 greatest this poor world has yet recorded. This 
 was the supreme renunciation. And is there any- 
 thing upon which our eyes rest quite so beautiful 
 as the giving of a noble life to a noble cause? 
 
The babe in mother's arms is beautiful with the 
 sweet beauty of innocence. The bride at the altar, 
 with the glow of love and pride upon her cheeks, 
 is beautiful. The mother is dowered with a sacred 
 beauty as she cradles within her arms the children 
 of her love. All this is natural beauty, — one with 
 the loveliness of a fair landscape, or the stars above ; 
 but that a man, young, strong, loving life and joy, 
 should consecrate himself to sacrificial toil and suf- 
 fering for those too ignorant to know, too blind to 
 see, too deaf to hear, too stolid to feel ; that strength 
 should give itself to weakness, that light should 
 shroud itself in darkness that it may one day illume 
 that darkness — this is sublime. 
 
 "The most beautiful of created beings," said 
 Victor Hugo, "is the virginal young man." Yes, 
 the virginal young man dedicating himself to the 
 service of the low, sad, sensual, savage world for 
 no reward but toil leading to severer toil until the 
 Voice that "called" him speaks again in welcoming 
 approval, "Well done, good and faithful servant, 
 enter into the joy of thy Lord." 
 
 And this is the picture men carry in their hearts 
 of the young man who — until his thirtieth year — 
 was known only as the Carpenter's Son. 
 
THE TEMPTED CHRIST 
 
 ^JIp HE New Testament story of Jesus is full of 
 startling contrasts. A strange blending of 
 strength and weakness. In one chapter, Lord of 
 wind and wave ; in the next, a homeless wanderer 
 who had not where to lay his head. Monarch of 
 disease, yet himself the helpless victim of brutal 
 men. To-day the center of adoring disciples, to- 
 morrow deserted by even the most faithful of his 
 followers. Men knelt to him and prayed for favors 
 as subjects beseech a king. Possibly some of these 
 same men plaited the crown of thorns and fash- 
 ioned the cross on which he died. In his hour of 
 triumph the multitudes sing "Hallelujah"; in his 
 defeat they hoarsely cry, "Crucify him!" 
 
 And the Nazarene in his inner life was given to 
 mysterious exaltations, and anon to heaviness of 
 spirit, as though his soul was like the strange world 
 through which he passed. Knowing how long the 
 world had waited for a teacher of truth and a 
 prophet of love, the peasant woman's son could 
 proudly declare, "Before Abraham was, I am." 
 Just as the wayside flower might say, "Before the 
 
mountain guarded the sea, and before the sea mir- 
 rored the sun, I existed, little flower that I am, a 
 vision of beauty in the mind of God." 
 
 "The Father and I are one," said the Galilean 
 teacher, and men of his own day cried "Blas- 
 phemy," while men of later times have made of 
 his idealistic speech a hard theology. "One with 
 God" — this homeless man; "One with God" — this 
 hunted heretic; "One with God" — this crucified 
 Jew! Assuredly, for his was the mind of truth 
 and the heart of love. Whoever makes it his mis- 
 sion to teach the ignorant, strengthen the weak, 
 comfort the sorrowing, cheer the despairing, and 
 save the lost is one with God forevermore. 
 
 But again we hear him say — as all true souls have 
 said since time began — "I can of myself do noth- 
 ing." He also was a suppliant at the common fount 
 of blessing and of power. And as one greeted him 
 with the salutation, "Good Teacher," he answered 
 as all sincere souls have ever answered, and ever 
 must, "Why callest thou me good? None is good 
 save one, even God." A clear vision of absolute 
 good renders humble the whitest soul. Weak of 
 himself, and humble, he was moreover poor, — poor 
 with a poverty that the beasts and birds knew not. 
 For when a certain scribe, a man of dignity and 
 power, came with loud professions of loyalty. 
 
"Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou 
 goest," Jesus sadly replied, "The foxes have holes, 
 the birds of the heavens have nests; but the son of 
 man hath not where to lay his head." "Why Man," 
 so it seems he must have added, "I am poorer than 
 the birds and the beasts. No vine-clad roof in all 
 Palestine is mine; no hearth however humble. I 
 am a man without a home." 
 
 Why was Jesus homeless? The land was full 
 of homes. For such a man as he home-making 
 had been easy. Why was he poor? To one so 
 endowed the world brings its richest gifts. That 
 homeless poverty was voluntary. It was a heart- 
 piercing sacrifice forced upon him by his sym- 
 pathy with human woe, by his love for human- 
 kind. And here we face true meaning of that nar- 
 rative — so often misread — the temptation of Jesus. 
 The older theology has much to say about the re- 
 nunciation of Christ, and his condescension in 
 coming to this sin-cursed earth. But it is a kind 
 of theatrical picture and the scene is set in other 
 worlds than this. It does not move the heart, or 
 even stir the imagination. The plain story of the 
 Testament is truer than Milton's poetry, or the 
 dogmas of the schools. 
 
 A young man, conscious of power, is offered 
 limitless power to effect all selfish ends, if he will 
 
but accept evil as a Master; offered all wealth if 
 he will but bend his knee to the God of Mammon. 
 This on the one hand — on the other duty and the 
 suffering people. And do the words, ^'I have not 
 where to lay my head, I am a homeless man," hint 
 at some dearer dream dismissed for duty's sake? 
 I do not know ; but if I knew that in service of poor 
 humanity Jesus turned away from the appealing 
 eyes of love with a sorrow he could not always for- 
 get, still dearer to me would be My Brother of the 
 Cross. 
 
THE TEACHING CHRIST 
 
 3C^EFORE Jesus came John from the desert, one 
 of those vanishing figures of history who 
 appear for a moment, and are gone forever. John, 
 the Baptist, rude child of nature, was a voice 
 arousing the slumbering conscience of a guilty 
 age. He was a gleam of light revealing the judg- 
 ment. Stern, inexorable messenger of Jehovah, 
 after his own fashion he prepared the people for 
 the gentleness of Jesus. The Tempest over, we 
 long for the kindly sun, the song of sweet-voiced 
 birds, the rich perfume of the flowers. After the 
 storm, peace; Jesus was that peace. 
 
 What of severity you find in the Master's speech 
 dates, for the most part, from the later months of 
 his ministry, when opposition, blind and brutal, 
 compelled rebuke from lips of love. Yet even 
 here severity is the exception; gentleness is ever 
 more native to his mood, and the earlier sayings, 
 parables, sermons, together with those tender words 
 uttered as he entered the silence and shadow of 
 death, are to-day the dearest treasures of human 
 thought. 
 
But who can make their beauty seen or their 
 sweetness felt. Every kind of difBculty besets one 
 attempting this impossible task. Who truly paints a 
 sunrise, or reproduces upon canvas the heaven's 
 deep blue? Who tells in words love's sacred story, 
 or pictures the joy of a soul at one with God? 
 Speech fails us on the higher ranges of spiritual 
 experience; we wonder and are silent. 
 
 Another difficulty lies in the unadorned sym- 
 plicity of Jesus' sayings. No deftly turned phrases, 
 no brilliant rhetoric, — calm, clear, strong; yet sel- 
 dom striking in form or rhythm. Here are words 
 for the ages to ponder; sayings the centuries will 
 not exhaust. Meditation and experience alone re- 
 veal their depth of meaning — meaning never con- 
 veyed by word of mouth, but rather flashed into 
 the soul in those wrapt moments when spirit touches 
 spirit. 
 
 And is it not true that a life-long familiarity with 
 these gems of spiritual teaching dulls oftentimes 
 the edge of our appreciation; especially that 
 parrot-like familiarity, that glib acquaintance with 
 sentiments so far beyond our childish comprehen- 
 sion that they remain ever for us mere words — 
 words, words. Like Alpine dwellers, who never feel 
 the sublimity of mountains men cross seas and con- 
 tinents to gaze upon ; like the millions who nightly 
 
behold the starry heavens with less of interest than 
 is afforded by some new device to light their dwell- 
 ings, — so we, accustomed from childhood to Chris- 
 tian teaching, read the great and gracious words of 
 Jesus, unmindful of their beauty and unblessed by 
 their truth. 
 
 Escaping as we may from these most real diffi- 
 culties, let us try to listen, as did the men of old, 
 to sermons, and stories, and sayings that after two 
 thousand years still move the world. We read of 
 Jesus that ^'He opened his mouth and said 
 'Blessed/ " We pause at the word, for it is a new 
 word, — falling from the lips of God's messenger. 
 A strange and dear word, — "Blessed." Has re- 
 ligion then to do, first of all, with blessedness, hap- 
 piness. We knew religion was restraint. We knew 
 that in temptation it might be strength, and in sor- 
 row comfort. But joy, happiness, blessedness each 
 day, and every day, — does religion mean this? 
 Here evidently is a new gospel. 
 
 "I have known a word hang star-Hke 
 
 O'er a dreary waste of years, 
 And it only seemed the brighter, 
 Looked at through a mist of tears." 
 
 "Blessed!" It is a star-like word shining from 
 the far heights upon the accursed and dolorous 
 ages, that they may a little change their course. 
 
But who are blessed? Was there ever such strange 
 grouping? The poor in spirit, the mourners, the 
 meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peace- 
 makers, those that hunger after righteousness, those 
 persecuted for truth's sake. Whatever this new- 
 teaching may be, it certainly is not the philosophy 
 of the world — the cold, hard world of two thous- 
 and years ago. 
 
 "Resist not evil," "Love your enemies," "Do 
 good to those that hate you," "Pray for those who 
 despitefully use you," — ^words like these may lie 
 cold upon the page, but they are dear as the light 
 of morning when translated into conduct. And 
 is it not true, — absolutely, scientifically demon- 
 strated, — that we move toward a higher civiliza- 
 tion as we learn to lay aside weapons of violence? 
 Even in our treatment of the insane and the crim- 
 inal we have learned at last — at last — that in gentle 
 patience is both safety and healing. 
 
 Very strange to the old world, and altogether 
 foolish, was the tenderness of Jesus toward the 
 outcast and the sinful. "He eateth with sinners," 
 was the deliberate and sincere condemnation of the 
 best society. His answer was the answer of genius 
 touched with divinity: "They that are whole need 
 not a physician, but they that are sick." When 
 Jesus said, "I am come to seek and to save the lost," 
 
he gave the true motive of every genuine reform. 
 ^'Conscience is born of love," and progress is the 
 child of that masterful tenderness which unceas- 
 ingly seeks to save the lost. What unfathomed 
 depths of pity in the cry, "I have compassion on 
 the multitude." Cold-hearted aristocracy does not 
 say, "the multitude" ; it says " the mob." And if one 
 speaks kindly of the burdened masses it is charged, 
 ''He panders to the mob." "Be it so," said Hugo, 
 "if anything is great that is great." "Sacrifice to 
 the mob, to that unfortunate, disinherited, van- 
 quished, vagabond, shoeless, famished, repudiated, 
 despairing mob; sacrifice to it, if it must be and 
 when it must be, thy repose, thy fortune, thy joy, 
 thy country, thy liberty, thy life. The mob is the 
 human race in misery. The mob is the mournful 
 beginning of the people." 
 
 With open arms and loving heart Jesus said to 
 the great, burdened, sorrowing multitude, to those 
 who knew "the inherent and appalling sadness of 
 existence," "Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
 heavy laden and I will give you rest." These 
 words are deathless. Their truth and beauty make 
 them so. The sad heart of the world is ever up- 
 held by this calm faith of the Nazarene, that the 
 infinite God is "our Father," and that man, way- 
 ward and sinning, is still "our Brother." The soul 
 
attains serenity, and society safety, as men enter 
 through this gate of blessing, ^'the boundless dawn 
 of Jesus Christ." 
 
 ^And there is no other way. Like the despairing 
 agnostic, I have seen the sun shine out of an empty 
 heaven to light up a soulless earth. For the great, 
 glaring sun was only a ball of fire, and my poor 
 little earth was scarred with graves. I have seen 
 night come, not to bring rest and peace, but only 
 deeper anguish. I have heard the birds gaily 
 singing when the song mocked my grief, and even 
 beautiful flowers were but gaudy decorations of 
 the tomb, hiding my loved and lost. I have heard 
 the voices of my friends sounding dim and distant 
 as from the far shores of another world. And 
 then I have felt the frightful solitude of the faith- 
 less soul, the unspeakable desolation of all who 
 know not God as the loving Father, who cannot turn 
 to man as the sympathizing Brother. This, the 
 very heart of our faith, and the source of all com- 
 fort, we owe — above all others — to him who said, 
 **Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy 
 laden and I will give you rest." ^'^ 
 
 But we might lay aside all this wealth of gentle 
 and merciful teaching, and if there were left us 
 the Master's story of the Sinful Woman, the story 
 of the Prodigal Son, and the Good Samaritan, — 
 
by virtue of these alone we might claim that Jesus 
 was the world's divinest teacher. 
 
 Stupid men of learning, and self-appointed 
 guardians of other men's morals, have stumbled 
 and questioned as they have read the words of 
 Jesus to the woman taken in adultery, — ^'Neither 
 do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." They 
 have felt relieved that some of the oldest manu- 
 scripts of the New Testament do not contain this 
 story. Law and order must be maintained, and 
 would Jesus send from his presence a woman 
 breaking one of the great fundamental laws of 
 society with so little of rebuke? Yes, Jesus would. 
 Perhaps you and I would not, and could not. Per- 
 haps this woman — like thousands of her class — - 
 was more sinned against than sinning. She might 
 have been — as Robert Burns once wrote of an un- 
 fortunate, "A poor plucked pigeon, — one who 
 closed her eyes in misery and opened them without 
 hope." 
 
 Whatever the circumstances the one great fact 
 is this — that in the face of the gravest crime Jesus 
 held to his own teaching. He would not resist evil 
 with evil, adultery with stoning. He was wiser 
 than to attempt to cure vice with cruelty. And 
 slowly — after ages of burnings and brandings and 
 torture — we moderns, most enlightened of men, are 
 
just beginning to learn that it is indeed folly to 
 dream of converting the criminal by cruelty, or to 
 imagine that we can protect society by severity of 
 punishment. The only antidote for evil is good; 
 the only cure for cruelty is kindness; the only rem- 
 edy for lust is love. Here again the Master is 
 right, though the world doubts and denies. 
 
 And the Good Samaritan. This beautiful story 
 is like a mountain lake, from whose pure and 
 pellucid depths the far-spreading valley is watered. 
 There is verdure and life in the valley because of 
 the lake, hidden in the hills. So along the devious 
 path of man, since Jesus lived, a great, broad stream 
 of brotherhood has been flowing ever on, and men 
 bathing in its waters have forgotten race and class 
 hatreds, and have remembered that they were 
 brothers. Who is my neighbor? The man of my 
 race? The man of my clan or class? The man of 
 like aptitudes and sympathies? The man not of my 
 race, not of my class, especially the poor and dis- 
 tressed man, — he is my neighbor. I forget him 
 at my own peril. Science is warning us with all 
 the solemnity and earnestness that befits the pro- 
 mulgation of saving truth, not to forget the solidar- 
 ity of humanity. The human race is one race, — one 
 human family from the savant to the savage. Black 
 and brown, white and yellow, man and woman, — 
 
we rise or fall together. We are neighbors and 
 brothers to the last sad and sinning man of us, now 
 and forever. What science teaches in the twentieth 
 century, the Man of Galilee taught in the first, and 
 with surpassing beauty and clearness. Not then in 
 lip-homage do we call him — Master. 
 
 As I write these lines I try to think of the almost 
 numberless congregations who have listened to the 
 Story of the Prodigal Son. Men of Europe and 
 America, of Asia and Africa, and the Islands of 
 the Sea; men of the first century, the twentieth, and 
 all the centuries between ; men learned and ignor- 
 ant, civilized and savage, — wherever the New 
 Testament has gone, men have been charmed and 
 blessed by that divinest portrayal of the nature and 
 heart of God ever framed in human speech, the 
 story — let us rename it — of the Forgiving Father. 
 
 For the central figure in this matchless story is 
 not the wandering and wicked boy, nor yet the 
 elder brother with his correct and cold morality; 
 but the Father, — patient with the wayward and 
 just to the unforgiving, — he who loved them both, 
 and who won them both — let us believe it — by the 
 power of his love to virtue and to God. 
 
 And this is the attitude of the Eternal Father to- 
 ward all of his sinning and suffering children ac- 
 cording to the gospel and teaching of the Christ.. 
 
In the light and hope of this matchless parable we 
 dismiss the dark dogmas of a false theology. We 
 will not call any man or woman lost while the 
 loving Father lives to welcome his repentant child. 
 Over the living and over the dead arches the bow 
 of promise because the sweetest and saintliest soul 
 that ever walked the way of life, he who saw 
 farthest into the heart and nature of God, taught us 
 to trust, when all else fails, the seeking love which 
 holds, and guides, the Universe itself. 
 
 No, we have not exaggerated. The light- 
 bringing words of Jesus are the dearest treasures 
 of human thought. 
 
THE HEALING CHRIST 
 
 ^RY SHEFFER'S justly celebrated painting, 
 Christus Consolator, in which those who had 
 been healed and blessed by the Master were 
 grouped about him, once suffered in reproduction 
 a serious mutilation. With the sick and sorrowing 
 looking into Jesus' face with devout thanksgiving 
 there was pictured a negro slave with his shackles 
 fallen at his feet. A certain northern missionary 
 society in the old slave days desiring to use this pic- 
 ture as frontispiece to a new prayer book, and fear- 
 ing to offend Southern brethren, actually inserted 
 a copy of Christus Consolator with the liberated 
 slave left out. This book is sometimes exhibited as 
 illustration of the effect of fear and prejudice upon 
 presumably good men. 
 
 In imitation of these timid disciples I imagine a 
 rationalist writing of Jesus would, a few years ago, 
 have "left out" all consideration of the so-called 
 miracles of healing. Now no true rationalist, — 
 that is a man who fearlessly faces all fact and truth 
 — can write of the gospel story and pass in silence 
 deeds of love and pity which the heart of the world 
 
has most tenderly cherished, even when the reason 
 doubted. 
 
 It has long been recognized by scholars that, 
 after making all allowance for that exaggeration 
 which seems inseparable from faith illumed by 
 love, it is impossible to read the words of Jesus 
 sanely and not come into the presence of one whose 
 works moved men to wonder and to gratitude. To 
 modern thinking people, trained to a superstitious 
 reverence for pills and powders, it seems a hard 
 saying that this man by the divinity of his spirit, the 
 serenity of his soul, put the demons of terror and 
 disease to flight. Yet here our unbelief may come 
 of our ignorance — not of our knowledge. There is 
 no deliverance for man from any ill save through 
 the power of mind. The mind of man pioneers the 
 way to every good. By its power we are fed, and 
 warmed, and clothed. By its wisdom we are 
 guided in sickness and in health. The mind links 
 us to the universal spirit and makes us to be a part 
 of the universal life. What wonder if the mind, the 
 soul of man, in superior development, should act 
 directly upon the body, stilling the pulse of pain, 
 purifying the blood, energizing the life forces, thus 
 lifting diseased and despairing humanity to hope 
 and health. 
 
At the dawn of the twentieth century the fair 
 minded must admit all this is possible, while the 
 good of heart must rejoice that evidence is massing, 
 daily demonstrating that mind is sovereign even in 
 the lazar-house of disease and suffering. So we 
 read the old, old story in the light of a new and 
 beautiful faith. It matters not if this or that seem- 
 ingly miraculous event be susceptible of proof, the 
 fundamental fact is susceptible of abundant proof, 
 proof amounting to absolute demonstration, namely 
 this : that within the mind of man are powers un- 
 realized, which once developed and controlled, will 
 rid the world of those dread scourges which scar 
 the earth with untimely graves. Of this the 
 gracious deeds of Jesus are radiant proof. 
 
 In loving imagination we follow the Master as 
 he enters the chamber of suffering. How fear, like 
 some dark shadow driven before the face of the sun, 
 is lifted as he draws near. He is so wise, and calm, 
 and strong, it seems a little thing that pain should 
 flee his presence. In the faded eyes there is hope, 
 in the weak limbs strength; the obedient body 
 answers to its master, the mind conscious of health, 
 and the power to impart that consciousness to 
 another; and so if he tells us to "take up our bed 
 and walk," the very bed upon which we have 
 passed so many dreadful days, why it were easy, 
 
and here is no greater miracle than that the sun 
 should draw the lily toward itself and paint it white 
 and gold. Nay rather here is promise of what our 
 race will be when the purposes of the Creator are 
 fulfilled. What if disease, and the liability to 
 disease, is but a stage in the evolution of man ? Man 
 walked on all fours once, if science reads the past 
 aright. We walk somewhat more erect these days, 
 but under heavy burdens. Suppose we throw aside 
 the burden and demand health as our birth-right 
 from God. 
 
 Not that we may disobey the laws of life and 
 escape due consequence, but rather that we may 
 fulfill all the laws of mental and physical being 
 and come into our rightful inheritance; come 
 also into that gracious sympathy with others' woes 
 which is itself the healer's divine secret; for love 
 is the cure of many ills the flesh is heir to, if it were 
 wise as it is strong. 
 
 I 
 
THE SUFFERING CHRIST 
 
 3 ONCE HEARD an earnest radical say, 'That it 
 would have been better for the world if Jesus had 
 lived thirty years longer, and far better if he had 
 died a natural death." When called in question for 
 this statement he made defense to the effect, 'That 
 it is the life that counts, not the event or manner of 
 death." Thus did this narrow-minded liberal knife 
 the truth with a proverb. As a current saying it is 
 true enough "that the death matters little; it is the 
 life that counts," but often it happens that a 
 glorious and heroic death is the only fitting cul- 
 mination to a consecrated life. Words that were 
 weak and local are winged by martyrdom for uni- 
 versal conquest, and deeds otherwise forgotten in 
 a day are rendered immortal by dauntless dying. 
 It was said of John Brown — fanatic though he was 
 — that he made the gallows as glorious as the cross, 
 and it may be said that nothing he ever did so re- 
 vealed the greatness of his soul as the sweet dignity 
 of his death. We forgive poor Robert Emmet his 
 foolhardy attempt to free Ireland with a hundred 
 men, and remember only that he never flinched 
 
when his hour came, but, boy as he was, met death 
 like a hero. Tyranny might well laugh at the in- 
 surrection of Robert Emmet and tremble at the 
 manner of his death, for so dying he became a force 
 moving the hearts of men to ceaseless struggle for 
 liberty. Manifestly it is the death that counts — as 
 well as the life — when the reformer faces a careless, 
 stupid, cruel generation; a world of men whose 
 hands must shed blood ere their hearts can be 
 softened. 
 
 And so I declare — thoughtfully, as one who 
 weighs his words — that Infinite Wisdom could 
 scarcely have decreed a death for Jesus of Nazareth 
 so certain to enthrone him in the affections of the 
 race as the crucifixion he suffered under Pontius 
 Pilate. Painful the death and bitter the cup, cruel 
 the scourge, and heavy the cross, but he was blessed 
 in it all, for Gethsemane and Calvary were at the 
 Summit of an Ascending Life, and as one has writ- 
 ten, it were worth a dozen crucifixions to so move 
 the world. 
 
 There is evidence, too, that Jesus labored as one 
 consciously doomed to an early death. "We must 
 work while it is day," he said, "for the night cometh 
 soon." The Age seemed to know that it was not 
 worthy so benign a presence, and those who loved 
 him listened to his words as to one whose voice they 
 
might never hear again, and the sick thronged his 
 path as to a healer who might not pass their way 
 but once. It was his habit to speak of "his hour," 
 and so speaking Jesus gave proof that he carried 
 the coolest head as well as the warmest heart in 
 Palestine. He will die at the right time and in the 
 right place for his cause's sake. Herod, "the Fox," 
 nor yet the clamoring people, can hurry the God- 
 commissioned man. The victorious general plans 
 the last charge at the right moment, so will "he go 
 up to Jerusalem in the fulness of time." 
 
 And with his face steadily set toward the city of 
 his fathers, he will calmly say, — "And I, if I be 
 lifted up, will draw all men unto me." How well 
 he knows man, and the motives that move the heart 
 of man. There is a divine compulsion in suffering 
 goodness which nothing can resist. Men will for- 
 ever read his story in the light that "streams from 
 the cross," — a light shedding heavenly radiance 
 upon words and deeds, memorable and beautiful. 
 
 Traditional theologians preach the gospel of the 
 cross as revealing man's sin and God's love. True, 
 dropping scholastic terms, for virtue shone like a 
 star and vice groveled like a monster on that cruci- 
 fixion day. Surely the "thoughts of men's hearts 
 were revealed," as the prophet had spoken. The 
 mask falls from the hard face of the Pharisee. We 
 
see him as he is, cold, crafty, cruel. The Sadducee, 
 man of the world, would crucify the innocent, if so 
 be it the powers are pleased. Pilate, ambitious and 
 tricky politician, stands forth true to the instincts 
 of his class. Judas, the false friend, and Peter, the 
 boasting disciple, first to offer defense, and first to 
 flee a lost cause, and the Soldier, obeying orders 
 that discipline be maintained though he drive a 
 spike through the hand of God, and the timid mul- 
 titude, hardly ceasing to cry "Hallelujahs" as they 
 scurry to cover at the first sign of danger, — "They 
 all forsook him and fled," is the simple statement 
 of the unending tragedy of reform. The People, 
 the Dear People, they are invariably true and brave 
 — after the martyr is dead. 
 
 And in the midst of all — ^Jesus. 
 
 "But Thee, but Thee, O Sovereign Seer of time. 
 But Thee, O poets' poet, Wisdom's Tongue, 
 But Thee, O man's best man, O love's best love, 
 O perfect life in perfect labor writ, 
 O all men's comrade. Servant, King, or Priest — 
 What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, 
 What least defect or shadow of defect. 
 What rumor tattled by an enemy, 
 Of inference loose, what lack of grace, 
 Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's — 
 Oh ! what amiss may 1 forgive in thee, 
 Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?" 
 
 Thus, Sidney Lanier, and wisely, for what flaw, 
 what lapse, what defect, or shadow of defect, do 
 
those last dread hours disclose? Out in the fields 
 of Galilee, and under the open sky, Jesus has talked 
 of a God who cares for man, — ^yea, for the sparrow, 
 — but what will he say now, this Peasant before the 
 judgment seat of Pilate. "Thou would'st have no 
 power over me at all except it were given thee from 
 above." Ah! it is the same dear gospel. In the 
 hour of trial and defeat his faith is unclouded. 
 
 Surrounded by his friends he has preached non- 
 resistance. In the hands of his enemies, the scourg- 
 ing and the cross so near that he walked as one 
 already in the throes of death, he bids the would-be 
 defender, — "Put up thy sword. They that take the 
 sword shall perish by the sword," 
 
 When the days were bright, and men thronged 
 his path, he spoke often of submission to the Will 
 of God. So have multitudes who later in distress 
 have been ready to "curse God and die." From the 
 depths of Gethsemane's darkness is heard the cry, 
 — "Father, not my will but thine be done." And 
 we are satisfied. This man will not fail us. No, 
 not if they leave him to die, mocked by his enemies 
 and deserted by his friends. 
 
 Once he told us "to forgive, until seventy times 
 seven." Strange teaching! Will he be true to it 
 himself when wrongfully led "as a lamb to the 
 slaughter?" How he might have startled the 
 
world with judgment pronounced from the height 
 of his cross upon his judicial murder, contrary to 
 both Jewish and Roman law. Thank Heaven, it is 
 the same gospel we heard in sunny Galilee. 
 ^'Father, forgive them, they know not what they 
 do." These words appeal to both mind and heart. 
 ^They know not what they do." Did any man ever 
 fully realize the consequences of his own wrong- 
 doing when temptation had its way with him? Is 
 this not a universal prayer covering your sin and 
 mine? "Father, forgive — they know not what they 
 do." 
 
 Speaking as never man spake before, in sermon 
 and parable, he taught his disciples to call, God, — 
 Father. Does that faith hold now in the bitterness 
 of death? If so all is well. "Father, into thy hands 
 I commend my spirit." So would we, his friends 
 and followers, have him ascend to "his Father and 
 our Father." 
 
 True to every letter and line of his own sweet 
 gospel, he is lifted on Pilate's cross above, the 
 gentlest and noblest of the race, to abide to the end 
 of time — not only our greatest teacher — but he 
 whose faith in suffering, and whose love in death 
 is the white dawn of our peace. Jesus is the 
 World's Ideal. He is the Christ of the Human 
 Heart. 
 
fesus antr tf)e Mottttn tSEorlti 
 
 3T has long been recognized that insincerity is 
 not uncommon in matters pertaining to re- 
 ligion. Men have coined a word to express, almost 
 in the sound of it, the extreme of scorn for falseness 
 in the religious life. Hypocrite — this word, of 
 Greek origin, is older than Christianity; doubtless 
 some word of similar import is as old as the altars 
 at which men have worshipped with simulated 
 piety. The hideousness of conscious falsehood is 
 felt and condemned, but it is by no means so clearly 
 seen that a comparatively innocent insincerity — 
 innocent so far as vicious intent is concerned — per- 
 vades as subtle poison the religious world of today. 
 In a kind of mental indolence, custom is placed be- 
 fore principle and sentiment before truth. 
 
 This false and fatal attitude is most apparent in 
 the professed homage of Jesus in the modern world 
 and the constant and flagrant disregard of his 
 plainest teachings. Seventy years ago Emerson said: 
 ^'Historical Christianity clings with noxious exag- 
 geration about the person of Jesus." This large 
 worship of the name and person of Jesus was never 
 
more marked than now. If Jesus were to return 
 to the churches of to-day we can imagine that he 
 would listen to the hymns, prayers and sermons, 
 and in the bitterness of sorrow exclaim : ^ 'Why call 
 ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I 
 say?" 
 
 How can we explain this mystery of unveracity? 
 Is it not because of a conviction — of which perhaps 
 we are only half conscious — that the teachings of 
 Jesus are not applicable to modern life? Beautiful 
 as abstract sentiments, fine enough for Sunday 
 theorizing, we seem to feel that they are out of 
 place in the field of practical ethics. 
 
 This conviction is an error. Civilization re- 
 quires and society demands for security, constant 
 and sincere application of the teachings of Jesus 
 to the life of the people. 
 
 It is of prime importance that we understand 
 clearly that the tendencies of civilization are not all 
 good, that some of them are distinctly and distress- 
 ingly bad. Moreover, civilization seems to carry 
 within itself the forces that may yet destroy all this 
 fair fabric of modern society, for in society, as in 
 nature, the forces that give life also condemn to 
 death; the forces that build destroy. Unless a 
 higher force, a diviner law, can become dominant, 
 one can pronounce, in the light of history, the end 
 
of civilization. At just these danger points, just 
 where civilization is weakest, the teachings of Jesus 
 are strength and safety. 
 
 Consider first how civilization intensifies the 
 passions and quickens the appetites. The savage 
 man is calmed and disciplined by nature. Moun- 
 tain and forest, river and plain, teach him sobriety. 
 The hard necessities of life shield him from 
 more than occasional over-indulgence. Civilization 
 means first, abundance, then luxury and finally de- 
 generacy. Drunkard making and harlotry are 
 monster vices of civilization, not of savagery. Over 
 against this we place Jesus' doctrine of purity, of 
 personal chastity, as sweet and severe for man as for 
 woman. Where can we find safety from the vices 
 that threaten to destroy, save in this Christian gos- 
 pel of cleanness in heart and life? 
 
 Note again that civilization develops class con- 
 ditions, class strife, class hatreds, and this appar- 
 ently by inevitable law. An aristocracy cold and 
 cruel, a populace wronged and envious, these seem 
 the natural result of advanced civilization. Al- 
 ready it is taught in high places that the honored 
 maxim of simpler days, ^'The greatest good to the 
 greatest number," is vicious, producing a coddled, 
 pitiful, weak and low-minded race. The doctrine 
 of equality is said to be poison, and we are told that 
 
we ought not even to try to make the unequal equal. 
 To an alarming extent this is the working theory of 
 the world today. It will result, as in all the past, in 
 an aristocracy dying of its own vices and in a popu- 
 lace submerged in its own brutality. What can 
 save us? Jesus' divine doctrine of the brotherhood 
 of man ; nothing else and nothing less. With this 
 society demands for its stability the abolition of 
 war, the realization of the Master's kingdom of 
 peace and good-will among men. 
 
 Once more, and the thought is sobering, civili- 
 zation tends in no slight degree actually to increase 
 the sorrows of life. By so much as the civilized 
 man is refined, by so much is he made more sensi- 
 tive to the evils of existence. Between the savage 
 mother bearing many children for whom she cares 
 only in infancy and the civilized mother of a few 
 children for whom she cares with lifelong devotion 
 there may be all the difference of a sorrow that 
 passes with the seasons and a sorrow that ends in 
 despair. 
 
 Refine the sensibilities, develop the affections, 
 and you plunge man in deeper distress unless there 
 is for him a gospel of comfort and of love. Never 
 was the vast hope which breathes in the words of 
 Jesus more necessary to the health and sanity of 
 the race. We need his unfaltering trust in God, 
 
his unwavering confidence in the tearless land be- 
 yond death ; we need the sweetness and radiance of 
 his faith in man and truth. Because of these 
 things we may declare with the German philoso- 
 pher, Fichte, that "To the end of time sensible men 
 will bow low before this Jesus of Nazareth." 
 
/^IpO the great majority of those who still observe 
 ^^ Christmas as a religious festival, it is a day of 
 tender reminiscence. The devout imagination re- 
 creates the scenes of long ago. Nazareth becomes 
 as real as our childhood's home. The gentle 
 mother, the helpless babe, the adoring shepherds, 
 the singing angels, the heavenly voices proclaiming 
 ^Teace on earth, good will toward men" — all these 
 on Christmas day are as sounds and scenes we have 
 ourselves heard and witnessed. Very real, then, 
 are all the gracious days and deeds of Jesus' life 
 from manger-cradle to the cross. 
 
 In former time, when men more loyally believed 
 the gospel story, when myth and miracle provoked 
 no harsh denial, the saints fancied that in Christmas 
 vision they saw the Christ and heard the music of 
 his speech. Some dim radiance of that vision yet 
 abides. For on Christmas day his story is told in 
 all the earth, his praises sung in all lands. And 
 thousands who know him not — or who believe not 
 — do yet live out his teaching in deeds of love and 
 charity. 
 
More than this, congregations of mistaken men 
 will worship at his shrine who are not obedient to 
 the truth he taught. Nations at war will lift, as it 
 were, bloody hands in prayer to him who said, 
 ^'Love your enemies. Do good to those that hate 
 you." A society based upon the so-called scientific 
 principle of the survival of the fittest — that is, 
 strongest — ^will this day pay formal reverence to 
 One who loved most where the need was sorest, and 
 who said, "It is not the will of your Father that one 
 of these little ones should perish." This is the 
 Christian paradox, that startling inconsistency 
 which leads many to declare that our civilization is 
 not civilized, that our Christianity is not Christian. 
 
 Is there explanation for conduct so at variance 
 with common honesty and common sense? To my 
 thought, yes. And that explanation is found in the 
 fact that Christmas is the world's prophetic day. 
 Christmas looks not so much backward as forward. 
 It is not so much of the present as of the future. It 
 belongs to an order of the world not yet attained; 
 to a Christianity not yet realized; to a coming, but 
 perhaps distant, kingdom of brotherhood among 
 nations and men. Christmas is a prophecy of what 
 all days will be. 
 
 One day we consecrate to unselfish love ; to mak- 
 ing others happy. We give ourselves no end of 
 
trouble that the child may have his toy, the friend 
 some token of our regard. We strive in the very 
 spirit and method of Jesus, though we know it not, 
 to increase the joy of the world. We feed the hun- 
 gry and clothe the naked. We remember the sick 
 and sad of heart, and if we could we would bring 
 Christmas cheer to the weakest and the worst. 
 Some rays of Christmas charity fall within the 
 prisoner's lonely cell, and penetrate the darkness of 
 city slums. We have no heart to smite, to harm; 
 the cruel word or deed is not for us, for the Christ 
 love is law of life one day in all the year. 
 
 Christmas is a day of the heart and the home. 
 The careworn son of toil, who in life's losing battle 
 may have regretted that young lips ever named him 
 "father," this day is happy in the laughter of his 
 children. The overburdened mother, who knows 
 all the grief of weariness and want, is this day lifted 
 for a few bright hours into at least the semblance 
 of joy. 
 
 Husband and wife, too often living in self-im- 
 posed slavery, striving for the riches that perish, 
 and forgetting that love is the sunshine of life, may 
 this blessed day renew the old endearments and find 
 within a humble home a palace of delight. Sister 
 and brother, friend and neighbor, give to each 
 
other a kindlier greeting, and the living draw sac- 
 redly near to the dead upon this day of the soul. 
 
 O day of heart, we welcome thee ! O day of the 
 home, we rejoice in thy light! Come, rich with the 
 gifts of love, with the offerings of pity, with the 
 consolations of faith. 
 
 But why live one day by the law of love and 
 many days by the law of strife? Why not live ever 
 in the Christmas spirit? If brotherhood is so good, 
 so in accord with the Master's lofty faith, why not 
 dwell together as brothers while the years speed 
 on? And if we are alone blessed in promoting the 
 good of others, why not act evermore above the 
 range of those "miserable aims that end in self." 
 Jesus is eternally right. Love is better than hate, 
 and to give is better than to receive. The surrender 
 of selfish desires is the beginning of life. 
 
 Will this faith yet conquer the world? Assur- 
 edly. Love is not only better than hate — it is 
 stronger. Peace is not only happier than war — it is 
 nobler. And to help our brother on the rough way 
 of life is wiser than to trample him into the dust. 
 The precepts of Christ's Christianity are beyond 
 the mutations of time. The influence of his holy 
 life is an unspent force destined to command the 
 ages. 
 
Much that we prize may fail us, but the joy and 
 strength of his unclouded faith in God and man 
 shall abide — the day star of progress while the 
 world endures. Of Jesus' final victory Christmas 
 is prophetic. 
 
A CHRISTMAS PARABLE 
 
 /f\NE Christmas morning long ago there seemed 
 to stand beside my bed a tall and stately Angel. 
 Seeing clearly the beautiful, the kindly radiant 
 face, I was not afraid. ^'Comel^ said the Angel, 
 ''and I will show you a world where Christmas joy 
 is unclouded by the wrongs and woes of earthly 
 life.'' 
 
 A moment's space, and swiftly, yet without 
 weariness, we were passing through the streets of a 
 great city. The Angel must have touched my eyes, 
 thus granting me new range of vision, for nothing 
 was hidden from our view; yet I saw not upon the 
 right hand or the left the hovels of the poor. ''Is 
 there no poverty in this great city?" I asked. With 
 a smile, reflecting something of Heaven in its 
 beauty, the Angel replied — "Poverty was abolished 
 long ago. It was a foul evil, the parent of many a 
 crime. In this good commonwealth it is unknown." 
 At this I felt a new and strange delight, for never 
 yet a Christmas day, but some shadow of the 
 world's dark want had fallen across my path. 
 
I looked again, and yet again , on either side the 
 well-kept streets for the gaudy fronts of Palaces of 
 Vice. Not seeing these, I asked, — ^^Are there here 
 no dens of infamy, no soul-destroying haunts of 
 drunkenness and crime?^' I thought in look and 
 voice I detected faint trace of impatience, as in one 
 who recalls unwillingly dark deeds long forgotten. 
 *'In all our city not one. These belonged to the sav- 
 age age of man. Progress swept the last of them 
 away generations ago J* 
 
 Wondering, and almost in excess of joy at 
 thought of deliverance for my race so great and 
 blessed, I began to study the faces of men, women 
 and children in the multitude about me. What a 
 revelation! Innocence! I had fancied I knew the 
 meaning of that word — but the cherub faces of 
 these children gave to the dear old word new 
 beauty. I have heard men call the human form 
 and face divine, and so they are when life has 
 known no taint of poverty or sin. How long I 
 gazed, enraptured, into eyes that bore no evidence 
 of care or sorrow, I know not; but, at length, a 
 couple in serene old age, stood before me. Sur- 
 prise forced yet one more question to my lips, for 
 such sweet peace I had never seen reflected from 
 face of man or woman. Doubting — fearing that 
 the answer might bring me pain, I asked, ^^Is there 
 
no death in all this goodly city, no heart or home 
 where Christmas joy is but a mockery?^^ 
 
 ^^No death/^ said the Angel, ^^as you are wont to 
 think of death. True, in the fulness of years, men 
 pass painlessly into the higher life; but God^s 
 Heaven is so near a sinless world that the ascended 
 ones seem always near us, and we wait in gladness 
 of faith our own departure/' 
 
 I do not understand the cause of a certain faint- 
 ness which overcame me as the Angel thus made 
 gracious answer to my eager question. Perhaps 
 the revelation was too great for mortal strength, I 
 heard the Angel gently whisper, — *^It is enough/' 
 then came a strange sensation as of falling from 
 some lofty eminence, and I — awoke. 
 
 I have pondered long upon this dream. Was it, 
 indeed, a dream? Or was it a vision and a pro- 
 phecy? 
 
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