Pomeroy weekly telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio) 1860-1866, 1861-12-27
Christmas.
1861

What hallowed memories cluster
around this day! Preceded by thou;
sands of years of promise and prophecy,
eighteen hundred and sixty two years
ago Celestial Messengers announced to
the Shepherds on the plains of Judea,
the advent of the worlds Deliyerer!-
Succeeded since then, by the intervening
ages through which has been proelaimed
q gospel of purity and love, we greet to-
day, its eighteen hundred and sixty Sec
pnd anniversary.
True, the greeting is strangely differ
ent frem what it would have been if
mankind lad accepted the teaching Of
the New Dispensation. That the race
is, through this teaching, to be ulti-
mately redeemed from the thralldom OF
error and vice into which it has fallen,
isa faith. built, not alone upon the Wis
ions of Seers, but upon the. inmost tut
tions of the pure and good of all times
and ali countries.
Here and there 7often through perse-
cution, and sore Affections; often through
the Confessor's prison, and wearing the
Martyrs crown. D sanctifed soul, By its
fidelity to the truth and the right. has
given the world demonstration ef the
capacity of man to realize higher and
better life.
But the sad truth, that the earth, or
this eighteen hundred and sixty second
anniversary of the Advent of the "Prince
of Peace is still in revolt against His
Paterna and benefcient Government, il
proclaimed in ''every days report of the
wrongand outrage with which the earth
is fillsd" 1t needs no painters skill
to make this manifest. Half the ma
tions still i.sit in darkness and the re.
gioHof the shadow of death, I" enveloped
/ in every degrading superstition
groping in profsaas ignorance, and
Shaping tbe-sbeaSts that perish" with
luss;'a66ess of their lives. While thos'
in which the light shines have
ed its guidance, and in the ute
hity of their unhallowed passions
ke lifted, every man his hand agains
Is brother.
From the lips of Immaculate purity
came to the discordant race of man, th
Divine injunction, "One is your father
even God, and all ye are brethren. ,
Therefore, "aohatsosver you acou1d tad
Others should do anto yo~, do ye euen S
unto them This simple precept uni
yersally obeyed, would Danish discor
from the earth, and make its grove
again the walks of angels, and me
their familiar companions. But in hi
blindness, man has rejected this Gospe
>.af~msrcy and love, and in its stea
adopted that other precept-
'Iet him get, who has the power,
And let him keep, who can"
And acting upon this Devils doctrine,
fraud, and violence-slavery, oppression
and every evil work, rams riot i
society.
Our own country, which ought
have pioneered the people Of othe
lands to freedom, prosperity and
higher civilization, is torn by intestin
tends in which the madness of ambition
spurning the restraints of law and jus
tice, is striking, with bloody hands,
the very life of all social order.
The nations of the old world al
zeaying, as in the throes of dissolr
lion, and "rumors of wars" are every
where making "men's hearts to. fail thei
through fear" or seethe in the, 6erc
passions which viii not be restfaine
from rushing into the strife of the gre;
. final conflict which seems impending.
All this presents picture suficientl
Ldls lsheartening, and calculated to engsi
- doubts of the pcrfectability of h'
.naturc But in the midst of q