Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-12-27

itduuS tue SttuS OF q new ClVll1Zd-
tion. 1t was, too, a time of
awful moral decadence when the son of
righteousness arose with healing in his
wings. When Christ was about to COM
mence his public ministry, the Roman
satirist, Juvenal, in burst of despair,
wrote: 'EPosterity will add nothing to
our immortality; our descendants can but
do and desire the same crimes as our
Selves
The old heroism, the old belief, the old
manliness and simplicity were dead and
gone, and superstition was in the ascend
ant The Emperor of the Roman world.
Gibbon, in stately phrase declares was at
once priest, an atheist and God. 1t
was an age of enormous wealth unscru-
pulously obtained, existing side by side
with the most abject poverty.
1t was when atheism and superstition
were rife that the advent occurred,
for when the manger-cradled child was
receiving the homage of those who saw
in him the hope of earth was the bitter
sarcasm of the historian true; that the
common worship was regarded by the
people as signally true; by the philoso-
pliers as signally false, and by the magis-
trates as signally useful. The ceremonies
of religion were performed with ritualistic
splendor, but all belief in religion was
dead and gone. How hollow and heart
lessithe worship must have become; Judge
further from st. Augustine's words, who
says of one illustrious in human annals,
''He worshiped what he blamed he did
what he refuted; he adored that
with which he found fault
And so, too, when Christ came,
it was time of boundless luxury There
was no form of luxury, no refinement of
vice know anywhere that had not been
adopted by the Roman world, till the
proverb, "Woe to that city in which a
fish costs more than an OK" carried with
1t terrible satire on the extravaganza
and gluttony that. prevailed. The rise,
progress and influence of Christianity
was rapidly portrayed in the achieve
ments of Christ and his apostle after their
mission began. The centuries that have
passed since Christ came bear the impress
of his shaping hand, and show how he
has set the world along the path of
true greatness-a path most free
from pitfalls, and lying under the
sweetest, purest light. 1t was only after
Christ came, that John could draw his
picture of heaven; a Magdelene shed her
tears; Christian martyrs die for their
faith Paul astonished the world with his
self denial and heroism; and such artists
as Raphael and Angelo paint for the
world their immortal pieces. The fact is
we have not realized how nightly Christ
has constrained the heart of the world,
persuading it to abolish slavery, and now
pleading for the cessation of war, prompt
ing it to build schools and asylums, and
send the missionary to the equa-
tor and pole, and make the hymn of wor-
ship sound amid perpetual verdure:
What ancient sages were longing for has
cOme-What heather testimonies pointed
to has been realiZed-the result of sort
of organic instinct of the heart of man
And now the problem is to lead the world
to see the great light which has risen up
on it. to behold him who hath taken
away its sins, to believe in him who came
to die for it. AS of old the ministering
priest at the altar used to wave the burn
ing censer until the colored smoke
and the delicious perfume filled the
whole temple, and from the fretted
windows tioated out toward heaven, so
Paul, and Peter, and John, standing at
the first Christmas affairs, have swung
their lighted vessels to and fro, until now
the world is o'ershadowed by the pillar
and cloud of fire and breathes into day
the sweet-scented air. Men have ever
been slow in finding the truth that
lighteth every man, slow in discovering
the untasted well-springs of Joy, opened
amid earth's plains of want; slow to be-
lieve in him who came from the manger
and travelled onward to the cross; but that
cannot alter facts; it cannot change the
truth that Christ has come, and that
the blind strivings of the world have
been accomplished in his, incarnation
Somehow there will be an insinuating
potency in the message our reioicings
express, and those who have miscon-
ceived Christianity and grown skeptical
over its dogmas, will accept in all it's
sweetness and promise the advent
truth, and coming towards Christ each
one, however embarrassed by doubts or
laden with sins, will rise from all oppo-
sition to such religion as Jesus embod-
les and offers to the believing and duti-
full The old life with it's dark days
spent amid debates and unsat-
isfying speculations will come to an end,
bitter tears will cease to fall because of
the sorrow and shame engendered by
sin, the cross will not be disliked or it's
symbolism be other than precious. For
then shall each new finder of the Christ
whose long ago advent brought such
gladness to earth, with the wise men, re-
joice with exceeding joy.