The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-10-23

forced. 70 dispute the States right to
control public worship was to incur
serious peril.
In the year 33 peasant of Galilee,
in a remote province of the Roman
empire, proclaimed himself the long
expected Messiah of the Jews. He
was Of peasant parentage, although his
mother came of pTincely line. OF
the first years of his life we know almost
absolutely nothing, how he lived, what
he did, nor with what purpose he was
animated. His putative father was
mechanic, and tradition asserts that he
assisted his father in the making of
yokes and ploughs. 1t is certain that
he had not the culture and refinement
enjoyed by the rich and the great. He
was simply a common peasant, and he
bore the stamp of the broad seal of
poverty to the day of his death. Near
the close of his life he said, most pit
eously, "The foxes have holes, and
the birds of the air have nests, but the
Son of man hath not where to lay his
head" After brief ministry of two
years, he was arrested by the Roman
authorities, at the instigatiOn of the
Jewish Sanhedrin, and was speedily
cTucifed between two thieves. So great
was the 0bscurity in which ne lived
and died, and the dispersion of his fol-
lowers after his death was so complete,
and the movement of which he was the
head was regarded as SO insignificant
and contemplate, that but one voice
from secular history, dating from his
own time, or near it, has come down to
us to attest that such person ever
lived. Tacitus, in his Annals, speaks
of "a set of men, hated for their wick
edness, who were commonly called
Christians, whose leader, called Christ,
suffered death in the reign of Tiberius
by sentence of the prOcuTatOr, Pontius
Plate" 1t is evident that his death,
and his disappearance from his accus-
toned haunts, created scarcely ripple
on the surface of Jewish and Roman
life. A single drop of water, from a
cloud less in size than a mans hand,
fell upon the bosom of the great ocean,
a moment more and it was gone and
the great ocean throbbed on as before.
Jewish and Roman life went forward
in their accustomed channels, and the
world, apparently, was unchanged.
La the year SO, the only representa-
tives of the crucifed Galilean were
twelve men whom he had commissioned
to go teaching all nations the things
whatsoever he had commanded them.
With single exception they were Cali
leans. They, too, were neither cult
waited nor influential. They were plain
working men from the humble class in
which their Master was born They
had mo ritual, no learning, 10 books,
no brass i'll their purse, no philosophy
in their mind, no elOquence on their
tongue They were men absolutely
without social standing or political in
fluence. They were not even naturally
brave men. As simple minded and
illiterate men mostly are, before they
have been tried in some great emer-
2eney, or before truth has seized upon
and fortified with undinching convic-
ton every vital element of their being,
they were timid, yea, even coWardly.
After the arrest at Gethsemane they
fled terror stricken to their homes. 1t
is evident that, for the moment, they
were thoroughly dem0ralized and gave
up all as lost. Nothing could have raj
lied them again to action and restored
their lost confidence, but the supernat-
ural presence of the Master among
them after his crucifxion, and an invig-
Grating wave of inspiration from celes-
tial coasts And yet, to these men,
these twelve poor, timid, illiterate Cali
leans, the Master had said, in defiance
of the Roman Empire, in defiance of
the Jewish Hierarchy, in defiance of all
the Paganism, and all the falsehoods in
all the world, Fear not, little flock,
for it is your Fathers good pleasure to
give you the kingdom"
Could anything have been more pre-
posterous than such an assurance, given
to twelve Jewish peasants, in the year
SO,
Let us endeavor to obtain a view of
the field, upon which is about to begin
the most momentous struggle heaven or
earth ever witnessed, "a struggle in
volving not merely the fate of a State or
single nation, but the fate of the
human race. Let us summon from the
yasty deep Of the past, the stage, the
scenery, the actors, that were then liv-
ing realities.
Two ancient forms of religion are in
their death throes, and new form of
religion is coming forward, in due order
of things, as the new ever succeeds
the old, to take their place. And yet,
the old was not yet ready to resign the
scepter and yacate the throne. The
contest between the old and the new
was destined to be long, bitter and
bloody. The old, with its hoary locks,