Morning journal and courier., 1883-12-24
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December "A. 1888.
Calvary Baptist Church.

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 Monday, December x4. 1883.
 Calvary Baptist Church. Christmas ssrvfces-The Anniversary Appropriately Observed-Sermon by Rev. MT. Samson.
 At Calvary Baptist church yesterday the day was devoted to Christmas services In the morning the pastor, Rev. T. s. samson preached an able discourse from the gospel according to St. Luke, 2d chapter, 1st to 20th verses inclusive. Following is a brief ab- 1 stract
 There is an air of simplicity and historic truthfulness about these passages of scrip ture which describe the birth of our Lord. Any man, less than one divinely inspired, net to say faithful historian, would be be- trayed into the utterance of his own person al administration of the wonderful events connected with the birth of our Lord which he describes. But these passages of Scrip ture from the pen of Luke are singularly ex- empt from this criticism. He proceeds straightway with his account of the birth of cur Lord.
 The time of his birth is carefully and &C., curateIy stated. It occurred, he says, wri- ting as he does for the Roman age, during the reign of the first Cesar Augustus, or, to be more definite, ns Augustus reigned 45 years, it occurred when the first edict for a census of the Roman empire WAS issued, when Cyrenius, or Quirinnius, was Governor of Syria. Critics have examined this state ment with cIearness of scrutiny to which mere profane history has been seldom sub jected. But in paragraph of the Annals of the reign of Tiberius, the successor of Au- gustus, Tacitus has furnished contemporary testimony to the historical accuracy of Luke. From the statements mentioned in the third chapter of Luke's gospel, together with Matthew's statement as to the death of Herod, in our Lords infancy we are enabled to fix the precise year of his birth as four years earlier than that of the received Christian era.
 The season of the year is also alluded to by Luke. On the night of our Lords birth shepherds were abiding in the fields keeping watch over their hocks by night. In Palestine the hocks are led out into the mountains away from the villages in the summer and the shepherds are constantly with them. It was not in the winter season, then, when the virgin mother could hardly have endured the journey from Nazareth, and, especially, the exposure to an open stable; but it was in the mild season. when the shepherds could pass the night in the open air. Of the precise day and month, and season even, of the year in which our Lord was born, God has left us ignorant, perhaps for the same reason that no man in Israel knew where Moses was sepuIchred. God desires that we should worship Him in spirit and in truth,
 The place of our Lords birth is also men toned by Luke with the accuracy of 8 care ful and reliable historian. The prophet Micah had predicted that he should be born at Bethlehem. Matthew, accordingly, had mentioned that Jesus was born at Bethlehem in Judea. But Luke ex- plains how it was that Jesus was l born at Bethlehem instead of Nazareth where his reputed parents lived. The enrolment ordered by Augustus compelled Joseph and Mary to be enrolled at Bethlehem, the town 1 of their ancestors. Luke also is more defi- 1 nite about the place. There was no room for 1 the parents of Jesus in the inn, he says, and 1 the child vas born in a stable and laid in 8 manager. This stable was 8 cave in the hill sides which are used in Palestine es places of shelter for the flock during the winter. The traditional spot is still well located and point, ed out to the traveller.
 | There were also certain miraculous events connected with the birth of our Lord and of l John his forerurner. Zacharias, the father | of John, was deprived of the power of 1 speech, and it was as suddenly restored to bim. The angels appeared in the heavens at the birth of Christ. The shepherds, sccus- toned to the most unusual heavenly phe- nomena, saw them and heard their songs. l The object of these events WAS the fulfllment of prophecy. God did love the world into l which sin had brought such trouble and gave his son for it. The time for that gift had come. The worlds hope and expectation was not to be disappointed.
 These incidents are crowded with lessons of moral and religious truth. The neighbors of Zacharias and Elizabeth came to congrat- ulate them upon Gods great favors to them. Religion makes happy and peaceful state of l all kindly and neighborly expressions of sym pathy and acts of love. The parents of John and of our Lord treasured the promises of God about their children until the boys be- came men and the promises were fulfilled. Let us treasure up the promises of God in reference to our children. See these boys born in obscure villages, one of them era 1 la5 ir1o ia fo he poor. The shepherds of Bethlehem had a hard and humble lot. But God made them to receive the promise of the Messiah. And so now the humble disciple is often the recip- tent of some revelation of God which others cannot know. The bustling householders of ! Bethlehem made a mistake in not entertain ing the carpenter of Nazareth and the moth CT of Jesus in her travail. Let us not be for getful to entertain strangers. At the last the Anointed may say unto us: ''I was 8 stranger and ye took mel in''. Jesus must have been an exalted being. The angels de, clared that he was savior. His birth was the great focal fact of Gods creative design. It is no marvel that the world should be in- terested in that event and while the angels ! sang praises at its occurrence we may not be silent. It was not for angels that he came, but for us. And if our feet may never stand upon the spot of his birth, we may read the story of his life and feel the power of his spirit and with the shepherds hail and adore him as Savior and Lord. As our faith visits it's Bethlehem to-day it shall see not the peas. ant of Galilee, the young mother and her in- fant child, but in the light of nineteen centuries of history it shall see the race nov ing ever onward and upward under ths benign influences of Christian civilization, and the prosphetic day drawing ever nearer when at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess him Lord It shall see him, whose birth place was a stable, ] who had not where to lay his head, gather ing, one by one the nations unto himself, until from his cross of shame, he rules the world.
 The order of exercises for the services morning and evening were handsomely printed and distributed to the congregation. The order of services for the day was as fol- IoWs