Our Christmas Message.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1920, Page 1 (Supplement)

Our Christmas Message.

(Specially written for the News by Rev, A. H. Collins.)

Ring out, ye crystal spheres Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so: And let your silver chime Move in melodious time: And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony Make up full concert to the angelic symphony. "Christmas," say the French, "is talked of so long that it comes at last," Now that the festival is at our door, we hope it will find us tired enough, with honest toil, to enjoy the relaxation and the merriment it brings. Idle folk have no holiday. By almost universal consent, / December the 25th is kept as the date of the Holy Nativity. It is probably an incorrect date. It has no ecclesiastical, or other authority, to establish it. Easter and Whitsuntide passed quite early from the Jewish to the Christian calendar, but there is no trace of Christmas in the first three of the Christian centuries. It began to be observed in the fourth century, and has now become a rooted custom, obserraAy multitudes who attach no import, ance to religious feasts and fasts. Devout spirits, of all communions, and of many races, make mental pilgrimage at this season to Bethlehem, and join the lowly shepherds, and the eastern magi, round the cradle of the new-born King. Christmas is everywhere regarded as a domestic festival, a time of family-reunions and fireside felicities, And rightly so, for Christianity is the only religious faith with a message of hope for womanhood and childjiood. And it is no small matter that in an age when motherhood is disowned, or regarded with aversion, when home is assailed, and the marriage bond is relaxed, the thought of the world is recalled to the rude Khan of Bethlehem. No nation can be noble and virile which undervalues childhood and makes light of home. Our orphanages and Hie manifold agencies employed to guard and save thv young life that is ever freshening our faded humanity, are due to the influence of "that beautiful Saint of Syria," who by his advent sanctified childhood, elevated womanhood, and hallowed the home. It is significant and suggestive that the Christ-eliild entered a home of poverty and toil. He was not bora in the palace of the lordly, amid scenes of affluence and luxury, but in a mean caravanserie. He was never gorgeously apparelled. His home was the dwelling of an artisan. From the earliest days He was familiar with toil and tools. He has set a halo on the brow of the pooiyand dignified common labor. Working men may learn from Him the sacredness of "the daily . round the common task, and find some solace for their hard lot in the thought that "the Son of Man had not where to lay His head." Christmas celebrates the birthday of hope. Nothing is too good to believe for the race thus honored and exalted. Bethlehem shed light "on some of life's darkest problems, and pledges universal -progress and universal peace. The event commemorated at Christmastide marked the birth of a new vitality and the coming of a new impulse, the granting of a new revelation of the wisdom-love, working in the world from its foundation. It proclaimed tlie triumph of self-renunciation, and laid the foundation of a new social order in which love, not selfishness, shall rule. Christmas is the festival of universal gladness. No land but is warmed by this gracious Christmas spirit. Setting forth from Bethlehem, like a beautiful summer day, it has journeyed from land to land, from century to century, and changed the face of the world. It has blessed children, and no gifts are too precious for little ones who are dear to the Son of Man. It has invested the widow and the orphan with eternal worth, and therefore generous gifts, which make gold splendid, will be sent to the homes of the poor. Christmas is pre-eminently the festival of hospitality and mercy. It supplies a fine opportunity for fostering the spirit of peace and goodwill.' The best "blessing" said over a Christmas dinner is that pronounced By the aged, the lonely and the poor- for whom we have at; least tried to make the day gilt-edged with a little human kindness. The Son of Man, whose wondrous birth we chant in carol and roundelay, has baptised the world with a new spirit. He taught on the highest themes, and schools were founded, libraries established, and \mC versities reared. He has lent lustre to art, sweetness to music, and wisdom to books. He has made cold laws warm. He has shattered fetters, flung wide open prison doors, given health to sick folk, and ampler life to the j impoverished in mind and heart. He has consecrated i labor, lent dignity to common tasks, made loads lighter, j and turned love into a sacrament. It'is said that if one J were to suspend a bell weighing a hundred tons, and a i little child were to stand beneath it and play upon a flute. i the vibration of the air produced by the playing of the ' flute would cause the hell to tremble like a living thing, J and resound through all the mass. As bell responds to ! flute, so the heart of the world responds to the message j that, issues from the manger-cradle of the Babe of Bethlehem. The time must come when the music fro-m thatmanger shall melt itself into all earth's babel sounds, and fill the world with harmony. When the heart of humanity has been everywhere touched and tuned into accord with the ground-note of Bethlehem, it will become a golden bell, whose rhythmic strokes in the towers of time shall "Ring, out the.'want, the care, the sin, '■ > • The faithless coldness of'the time." In that; confidence, we greet our readers in the old-time . phrase, and wish them all 1 • 'A. ME&&Y CHRIST'tAfc" j