Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-31

forgive not men their treSpasseS, now can
you expect your heavenly Father to for
give you? Forgive them if they ask your
forgiveness, and forgive them anyhow.
Shake hands all around, good will to
men,
Oh, my Lord, Jesus, drop that spirit
into our hearts this Christmas hour. tell
you what the world wants more than any
thing else-more helping hands, more
sympathetic hearts, more kind words that
never die, more disposition to give other
people ride, and to carry the heavy end
of the load and give other people the light
end, and to ascribe good motives instead
of bad, and to find our happiness in max
ing Others happy.
Out of that Bethlehem crib let the bear
and the lion eat straw like an OK. "'Good
will to men. That principle will yet set
tie all controversies, and under it the
world will keep on improving until there
will be only two antagonists in all the
earth, and they will side by side take the
jubilant sleigh ride intimated by the
prophet when he said: "Holiness shall
be on the bells of the horses. -
3 3. Again, l remark that born that
Christmas night in the village barn
was sympathetic union with other
worlds. The only skepticism l have ever
had about Christianity was an astronomi-
cal skepticism which said: "Why would
God out of the heavens and amid the Jul
pliers and Saturns of the universe have
chosen our little bit of n world for the
achievements of His only begotten Son
when he might have had vaster scale
and vaster worlds?'' But my
sKEPTICIsM is ALL GONE
as come to the manager and watch its
surroundings. Now 1 see all the worlds
are sisters, and that when one weeps they
all weep, and when one sings they all
sing.
From that supernatural grouping i'll the
cloud-banks over Bethlehem, and from
the especial trains thar ran down to the
scene, find that our world is beautifully
and gloriously and magniicently sur
rounded The meteOTs are with us, for
one of them ran to point down TO the
birthplace. The heavens are with us,
because at the thought of our rcdemp-
ton they roll hosannas out of the mid
night sky.
Ont yes; do not know but our world
may be better surrounded than we have
sometimes imagined; and when child
is born angels fetch it, and when it dies
angels take it, and when an Old man
bends under the weight of years angels
uphold him, and when heart breaks an
gels sOothe it. Angels i'll the hospital to
take care of the sick. Angels i'll
the cemetery TO watch our dead. Angels
i'll church ready to fly heavenward with
the news of repentaut souls. Angels
above the world. Angels under the
world. Angels all around the world.
Rub the dust of human imperfection
out of our eyes and look into the heavens
and see angels OF pity, angels of mercy,
angels OF pardon, angels OF help, angels
crowned, angels charioted. The world
defended by angels, girdled by angels,
cOhorted by angels-clouds of angels.
Hear David cry out: 1.-The chariOts of
God are twenty thousand. Even th0us-
ands OF angels. - But the mightieSt
angel stood not that night i'll the clouds
over Bethlehem: the mightiest angel
that night lay among the cattle-the
Angel of the new covenant
AS the clean white linen sent in by
some motherly villager was being wrap
ped around the little form of that Child
Emperor, not cherUb, not a seraph, not
an angel, not Il world but
WEPT AND THRILLED AND SHOUTED.
Oh! yes, our world mas plenty of SYM
pathizers. Our world is only a silver
ruug of a great ladder at the toRas&
which is our Fathers house. No. More
stellar solitariness for our world, not n
friendless planet spun out into spaerto
freeze, but q world i'll the bosom:Sf di-
vine maternity. A star harnesssd to a i.
-
4. Again, l remark that that night
born i'll that village barn was the Offend
er's hope. Some sermoniZeTs may say l
ought to have projected this thought at
the beginning of the sermon. Oh! no l
wanted you to rise toward it. l wanted
you to examine the comedians and the
jaspers and the emeralds and the chrsa-,
lis before L show you the Kohinoor-the
crown jewel of the ages.
Oh! that jewel had very poor setting.
The cub of<bear is born amid the grand
old pillars of the forest, the wbelp of the
lion takes its first step from the
Jungle of luxuriant leaf and wild-tiower,
the kid or goat is born in cavern chande-
iered with stalactite and pillared with
Christ was born in a bare
barn. Yet that nativity was the Of
tenders hope. Over the door of heaven
are written these words: "None but the
sinless may enter here -
''Oh, horror, - you say, "that shuts
Us all OUT No. Christ came to the
world in one door, and He departed
through another door. He came through
the door of the mauger, and He departed
through the door of the sepulchre, and
His one business was so to wash away our
sin that one second after we are dead
here will be no more sin about us than
about the eternal God.
l know that is putting it strongly, but
hat is what L understand by full remis-
sion. All erased, all washed away, all
secured out, all gone. That undergrad
ne and overarching and Graduating and
possibility for you, and
or me, and for the whole race was gwen
IN that Christmas night.
Do you wonder
We BRING FLOWERS TO-DAY TO CELEBRATE
uch an event? Do you wonder that we
axe organ and cornet and youthful voice
md queenly sOlOist TO celebrate it? Do
you wonder that Raphael and Rubens
md Titan and GiottO and Ghirlandajo,
md all the old Italian and German paint
rs gave the mightiest stroke of the pen
ii to sketch the Madonna, Mary and her
10Y?
Oh! now l see what the manger was.
Not so high the gilded and jeweled and
cradle of the Henrys of En-
:land, or the Louises of France, or the |
Hredericks of Prussia. Now l find out of |