RELIGIOUS WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1920, Page 10

RELIGIOUS WORLD

THE GREATEST DATE IN HISTORY.

WHEN CHRIST CAME. i (By the Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, D.D.)"When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law." —Galatians iv. 4. The text flashes forth from the context like the gleam of a lofty lighthouse across an evening sea. The writer was not an exacting and toiling author, whose epistles were mentally rehearsed before they left his pen. He was a prompt and spontaneous man, whose soul was full to overflowing and whose language, unpremeditated as it is, commends itself to the deepest thought of Christendom.

St. Paul is in the spirit of Christmas and celebrates it in his own way. He follows hard after the star-led wizards of the Eastern Road to lay his sweet odours at the blessed feet; he joins his voice into the angel choir and the hallowed fire which touched their lips is upon his also. The Infant wrapped in the rude manger is the focus of history and experience. His birth marks the departure of the old world, its many virtues absorbed, but never lost, in His teacuing. It also marks the coming of the new world, in which our affections and aspirations take fresh forms, and no longer mimic, but express, the reality of a Godlike humanity. The Desire of Nations suddenly appeared in the temple of our nature and filled its courts with the praises of the Redeemed.

OUR WIDER KNOWLEDGE. For us who to-day hail the King of heaven, there, is a fuller knowledge than even that of St. Paul; the knowledge of the glory of the Highest in the evolution of Christian centuries. When we think of these, of what went before them an& of what has since ensued, the naturalness of such wisdom and lore is its true miracle- Once more we find our dear God in the normal working of the process, and worship Him whose increasing purpose pushed steadily and undauntedly forward till it reached the great Master of Bethlehem. The Everlasting Father is in the midst of this Feast as the source of its delights. "He sent forth His Son," says St. Paul, and although Jesus means more thin we can tell, we must not forget the Giver of the Gift. Whatever Jesus was, one thing is certain; He was the habitual human centre of heaven's love for all flesh. In Him the Eternal Heart overflowed toward us and ours with endless benefaction.

Have you considered what, the gift meant to God Himself? It is a bold speculation, perhaps, yet not without edification. 'When you devote your son to his nation's cause in war, the sacrifice is painful, but enriching. I imagine (he coming of Jesus into our humanity added to the Father's solicitude, and alsp to His satisfaction. In our sorrows He was afflicted, in our release the glory was His own. These occurrences could not be felt here without being felt there. He heard His children make such symphon:es as never before were made. The mercy He bestowed came back laden with ceaseless devotion. Millions of His offspring felt the pressure lifted off their spiritual commerce; they bade their fenr and sloom depart; they abandoned their restlessness and suspicion. Eetween them and the Everlasting arose a correspondence which brought to God the affiliation He craved. Our relations with Him underwent a complete change. Christmas, thus understood, is the universal homecoming- The family of men led by the Babe's smiling infancy finds fiod. and God rejoices with us as He opens wide the gates of our restored ■ paradise. His presence overarches all ! hearts. Because He did not allow His pent-up powers of blessing to remain dormant, but, greatly loving, greatly gave, to Him belong the honour and the increase of this high festival. WHAT CHRIST TYPIFIES.

The qualities we attribute to Deity must be incarnated if we are to be moulded by them. His wisdom and strength are seen in Nature. His domestic perfectness is seen in Jesus, who was "born of a woman, bom under the law." He entered our estate as the partner and the friend of whatever is our lot. That plain statement satisfied St. Paul and it satisfies me. Curiosity may desire to know more, but even when laudable it must know its limitations. The permanent blessings of the Birth are not affected by it. We have also been corn of woman, and under the law that regulates human being. For us, as for Him, the sanctity of motherhood and infancy is supreme. For u&, as for Him, the path of duty leads to the door of death, and death to mansions of the just.

The Nativity could not be divine were it not so human, for man is God's poetry, and the Christ-Child is the Hero Everlasting,of the strain. John Fiske tells us that prolonged infancy and racial progress are two sides of one and the same fact- The lengthened helplessness of the baby gradually converted our forefathers from brute creatures to human creatures. The care of children has enabled us to acquire areas of moral growth, with an ease of which we are largely unaware. It is the promise of power unto further virtue. Many Christmas discourses dwell on the lowly bed in which Jesus lay, and the servant's form He wore. Yes, meekness was His, but do not mistake His humility for feebleness. That Babe was sent for the falling and rising of many and His tiny hands have burst the brazen bands of sin and death. He hides beneath the apparent weakness an omnipotence which can enforce every righteous decree.

"Born of a woman, born under the law," and not only of Rod, but also of us. He came from two .hearts —the heart of the Father and the heart of the Father's offspring; from the highest sanctuary above and from the ends of the earth beneath. W 7 e drank with Him at the same spiritual fountains. Our own kind carried the promise of. .Testis from Adam to the prophets, and from the prophets to the cross. For God dwelt with us and His tabernacle was among men even before Jesus came, so that He, in His coming, was no stranger to us, and that which He revealed was i old as well as new.

This is good news, is it not? and we can .fling it to every wind that blows Its anthem's resound across the wintry lands and echo where the flowers bloom. Christ knows no East, no West, no North, no South, no caste and no prescribed ranks. In Him we are one fellowship linked to the Brother whose gentle constraint woos the most unwilling. We gain, to-day, the meaning of the past, the assured love of our Father and the union of our present life with life eteraal. There are good grounds for honest

merriment. Cottage and mansion, high and lowly, rich and poor, can jubilate together. We can stop awhile and think of the children of, the slum, of our own children, of the friends that love us, of the trials many have to bear. We can bury our dislikes and enmities and greet our foes as friends, and open our heart's door to let the Christ Child in.— "Christian Age."