A CHRISTMAS SERMON.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 39, 22 December 1894, Page 13

A CHRISTMAS SERMON.

Having come to the season of the year when we are accustomed to indulge in festivities, I beg you with conscience properly enlightened go forth to your duty, I would that all your homes might be made a jubilee. Gather home your children. Make the days and the nights as merry as you can. Drive care from the heart and gloom from the face, and unharness yourselves. Do not take next year’s work and trouble into the charmed circle of seven days. Let the old forget their staff, and they who are worn out with anxieties and troubles, for one short while, be happy. Love and joy on earth are types of something better. Heaven itself is only a warmer love and a brighter joy. “ Oh,” says someone, “ I have had so much trouble, and there are so many shadows on my hearth, I can’t possibly take your counsel to-day.” My brother, mourn not as those who have no hope. If for none of the other promises of the Gospel, come before God to-day and thank Him for that blissful assurance, “ Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” “ Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” .... I learn, finally, from this story of the birth of Christ, the glorious result of a Saviour’s mission. Have you ever thought how strangely this song of peace must have sounded to the Roman Empire P Why, that Roman empire gloried in its arms, and boasted of the number of men it had slain, and with triumph looked at conquered provinces. Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Macedonia, Egypt, had bowed to her sword, and crouched at the cry of her war eagles. Their highest honours had been bestowed upon Fabius, and Scipio, and Caesar. It was men of blood and carnage that they honoured. With what contempt they must have looked upon a kingdom, the chief principle of which was to be goodwill to men, and upon the unarmed, penniless Christ, who in Nazarene garb was about to start out for the conquest of the nations. If all the blood which has been shed in battle were gathered together in one great lake, it would bear up a navy. But brighter than the flash of shields and musketry is the light that falls on the Bethlehem shepherds, and louder than the bray of trumpets, and the neigh of chargers, and the crash of falling walls, and the death groan of armies is the song that unrolls from the sky, as sweet as if all the bells of heaven rang a jubilee : —“ Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace—Peace, Goodwill to men.” “ Oh, for the hastening on of the time when swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and fortresses shall be turned into churches, and warriors of earthly renown shall become good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and the cannon that struck down whole columns to death shall announce the victories of the truth.—Talmage.