A Word in Season

Feilding Star, Volume IV, Issue 86, 22 December 1883, Page 3

A Word in Season

I_ADVEBTIBBM ENNT.] We wish you all a happy Christmas. But let us be properly understood. We don't mean that stupid and colorisb merriment that men revel in when robbed of reason and self-control by i alcohol, nor do we mean merely those temporary emotions of gladness that regale men's natures at the different local gatherings of this season of the year. The happiness we wish to others in such as invariably arises from a proper appreciation of the glorious fact of which W« are reminded as Christinas with its bright and tender memories return to us again. The fact we refer to is none other than this, M That Christ Jesus came inio tie world to sare sinners." He who was the Son of God assumed our humanity; took up His abode with men i« this world of suffering and sin; that He at the end of His earthly tojoura, spent as it was in holy and active benevolence, might taste death for «verr man. He drank that cup of death one* for all on Calvary's Hill, and that to it* very last dreg, and now through what He has done, pardon, parity, and joyi flow| in one rich stream of blessing into the hearts of all who believe in Him. This happiness arising from thrilling consciousness of being personally and eternally interested in what he accomplished on earth, and is now carrying on in Heaven as our Mediator is the happiness we wish to all who may read these lines, at this, another Christmastide. While not wishful to debar any from the minor enjoyments » of this festive season; providing they are harmless and beneficial at the same time, we are chieflj anxious that all should be the happy partakers of the joys of this Great Salvation that the Lord Jesus by His humiliation and death has procured for every member of our fallen race. These joys which are the daily heritage of the saved are incomparable. While earthly o joys 'are fleeting, shallow, and stationary, tearcely surviving the • becation'that gave them birth, and depending on .changeable circumstances, as well as being subject to the most cruel interruptions, the joys of salvation are independent of earthly sources, and unaffected by earthly circumstances. They are ever fresh; P»"«, M(l * ull - . liike a great river broadening and deepening the further it goes from- its source, until its bug* volume of waters are lost in the j mightier waters of the wide hearina ocean, even to these joys swell into a mightier volume the nearer the Christian nets to Heaven, inspiring louder and «ofter strains, and shedding brighter lustre upon character and life, until,: it eventuates in the . infinity of Heaven's blis* and immortality.. Header, may,such joy be thine as the light pf another Christmas morn shall salute thine opening-eyjeß.rrAi>vT. „ .....-.,.' \