The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-12-25

such rare devotion, such patience and
such zeal, that we are fain to exclaim
that the age of heroes is not past,
nor the canons of sainthood closed.
Any mans private knowledge will show
him instances of Christian temper, as
fine and as thrilling as ever were writ
ten in the annals Of the church's noblest
lives.
If you would see how high already
in the heavens hangs the star of Christ's
ascendency over human lives, look out
and see how it has glorifed mems ideals
of duty, and shed new light upon the
obligations which are undertaken in
his name who was born at Bethlehem.
1t is the admitted marvel of the early
days of our faith, that it brought into
human life new conception of the
SOULS relation to its duty, and placed
the converts to its principles in a new
attitude toward the demands of the
moral law. The ethical disposition of the
early Christian was surprise to his
own age and an anomaly in human
history. The early annals of christen-
dom are constant challenge to urfaith.
Whence had these simple men and wo-
men their marvellous ideals of duty :?
How can this proud Roman citizen,
Paul, submit himself to indignities
against which every fibre in him must
rebel /? How can Jewish Peter over
step the barriers of his native narrow
ness to eat with the Gentiles? Can it
be that the crafty and deceitful Syrian
has become honest and ghtforward?
Whence have these simple and pro-
miscuous classes which furnish the ear
ly recruits to the faith, the new con-
ceptions of right and wrong, and the
new strength to choose the often hard
and repugnant right, which signalized
the life and the deeds of those early
centuries? What was it that trans
formed men and women stepped in the
luxurious vices of that day, into the
exemplars of a morality which was for
eign to every theory and practice of
their age -? What changed the servile
slave into a strong and aggressive de-
fender of the faith, unquailing before
the hottest fires of the stakeP What
dignifed these common and ignorant
men and women, into apostles, martyrs,
prophets of the word, whose deeds have
fixed the eyes Of later centuries in admi-
ration on the age they adorned? His
tory confesses it's inability to do more
than chronicle the fact that here, with
the rising of the star of Bethlehem, be-
gan new chapter in the moral ,devel-
opment of man. Here was new era
in his spiritual character. Here, as
Martineau tersely says, was "a new edi-
tion of human nature;" of that fact,
there can be no doubt. The advent of
Jesus Christ established new relation
of man to his fellows, revealed new
moral code, supplied new incentives,
new impulses, new life. The Christian
ideal of duty, and the Christian at
tempts to realize that ideal, are new
features in the spiritual progress of
man, which set off the ages since the
advent of the Son of man by bounda-
ries more definite than divide the ma
tons or separate the centuries.
But our thought is directed to the
fact that these ideals and this practice
are not Of the past, but of the present.
They are not the waning glow of
fading sunset, but the growing light of
day just frightening on the world.
The same morality that purified little
communities in the corrupt and de-
generate populations Of the empire, is
cleansing human life to-day, curbing
base lusts, resisting brutal appetites,
refining speech, and act, and thought.
The same brotherly love which prompt
ed the Christians to care for their sick
and dying enemies when the plague
swept Alexandria, still sends thousands
of devoted men and women into the
purlieus of great cities, into jails, and
hospitals, into the exile of the mission
station, into the strongholds of the pes
thence itself, to labor with zeal caught
from the very heart of the Christ for
poor, afflicted humanity. The same
sense of duty, duty which does not gall,
duty whose burdens are welcome, duty
which has become privilege, duty
which is the meat and drink of the
soul, is the inspiration and the strength
of thousands, who from their unnoticed
stations all through the world, take a
noble pleasure in the lowliest offices, and
honor the most trivial callings by the
faithful spirit in which they fulfill
them.
burn with indignation when hear
any man insult the Holy Ghost, and
mallgn his own age by implying that the
type of life in christendom TO- day, is less
admirable, vigorous, lofty, than when
Stephen fell asleep, or Paul preached,
or Origen taught. o, blind dreamerl
turning back to less favored past, what
you clothe with such superior merit,
because it happened yonder in Antioch,
in Athens, in Rome, is going on in your
own city, your own street, your own