, 1888-01-05
THE CHRIS r.
A Discourse bv E. NJ. Wheelook to
the Unitarian Society OF Spo-
kane Falls, Washington
Territory, on Christ
Nav t0az


pulse beats and heart beats. Human pro.
grtss, thou..h real, is not smoothly contin.
uOus. IL IL sure. but its programme IS in
| paragraphs. II IL often checked and
| turned aside from Its Iath; 1t is IN piece
meal and in sections. Such Is the law OF
mans approach TO better conditions.
| The movement of the race Is never on
straight mathematical line, but like that
Uf noble ship, which, though moving
ever towards Its port, yet tacks to every
gale and turrows all the sea.
| Thus, there are found to Occur In human
history, periods ol pause, retrogression and
decline. Then the shining sun OF religion,
| IKE the solar orb in mid-winter, seems to
set each day u little lower IN the horizon.
The pages VI history sometimes reveal to us
such unworthy aud declining ages. when
hereditary vices taint riankind, and pos
terity goes ON from bad to worse, till the
hand vi God comes in and restores the
balance. There appear, from time tu time,
crises in the collective life ui humanity,
analogous to the changes of the year. Bud.
dihg, growing. ripening, and dying eras
occur: wintry epochs, when the human
the old leaves tall.
To such y wintfy, dying era came Christ,
| ana he came to renew the human year.
II is coming marks the turning point In the
life oi the race. A new descent of divine
iorces from the higher world OF cause and
|
and tile heart faint and aye aftei uge of
moral retrogression had left its stain on the
forehead OF mankind. All Things awaited
tue ihconing of nsw wave OF the divine
spirit into man. BY common instinct.
ely ilizrd man dates his era and counts his
centuries from the advent; tor this was the
new birth day OF the ce, shining ut the
| Joint Of It's lowest historic descent, III the
thickest night oi m :, and letting IN eter.
nal daylight on the soul.
| Before his coming, practical and organ
| lied philanthropy, thousand armed and
myriad hearted, was unknown. In the
| whole Roman empire there was not u free
hospital nor really benevolent institution.
The nations were like u herd of wild
beasts, devouriny the weak, tranipling on
the fallen, enthrOning the remorselessly
strong Rome was robbery organ zetl.
Art culture, the divine philosophy. were
quenched in Greece as u lighted Lamp is
quenched by thick, poisoned vspors The
classic literature oi that age, as shown in
the pages of racitus, Suetonius and others,
Is revelation of the last states of hum an
putrescence. The fatal taint was in the
heart, the mind, the household, the tenn
piles OF religion. God of Purity was not
known to the faiths ot that age.
The conquring Roman had assembled in
his splendid Pantheon the deities OF the
wide world. swart Asia sent her dim and
mythic train. Ethiopia led forth her
ghosty powers The rude Norsenian was
not without his witness there. Jove and
Apollo almost spoke from the marbles of
delieuic art Ape worship, fire worship,
star worship passion worship oil stand
embodied in fitting symbols in that
proud temple. There luvelin,ss
there shrewdnrss, there volup,uuusness
there august aud ideal caliu gaze upon you,
IS rom marble eyes putrut to awe and to
command but upon no brow IN all that
nnjestic asseinb.ase, IS purity inscribed
not one,
IL Aas the las; days of the Jewish hier-
archy, when faith had iwindled down until
all ti,t was ieit of II was n wunina crescent
sett ing below the sky, and when even belief
IN the -iupIe Tact ut Immortality fingered
among men with slight hold. like that Of
au''lnn's Las, Leaf upon the maple. Man
worship, nature worship, demon worship
they 'ad all grown old. Men were asking,
by myriids, fur some sure word OF life
Among the people of all lands there was
this lifting up of pale, longing faces, ia the
dark moral midnight, unto God, and Men
drifting IN in this Wxv began TO feel the
premOnitions oi coming change.
There ran Though the race . spiritual
tremor longing and expectation A tore
boiling ois come great change III the worlds
state is ever felt when previous meniiestA
tlons of the spirit, in tho external torMs OF
Thought and religion, have declined FROM
their hover tiiac, sud begin 10 strew the
earth With ~lthered leaves. IN those days
hdlN ~ w. W tbbHH3 1ti nau HAfE n
great, Z" II = bell III the inmOst silence Of
the sou, ~IUss solemn sacred vihratinus
ever and anon echoed lar into the e1ternal
Consciousness. pause ensued as though
the hands of eternity We're laid upon the
pulses oftbe world. As nature. III its vast,
vague instinct, knows OF the coming OF nat
nral change; a. the dumb animal, or the
bird thai wings the ether, knows when an
earthquake IL Mt hand AS these, when that
Invisible ih6uence moves over them, know
the power THAT stirs, that pushes up with its
huge shoulders against the shuddefing doors
oi the wOridso over the human world, ut
that day, passed the trenor and sensation
Ola spiritual change Palestine felt it,
the whole world felt il. The earth WAS
waiting all past history had prepared the
way. and nations and people at that hour
were looking tor the uawn of new IRA.
They telt an overshaduwing Jrcseiice
broodng upon the world, the presncce U u
new descent Ui spiritual life, approaching
through the vanlted chambers al the liu.
man uiid rs through the clouds of heaven.
For great events are. a- 1t were, in the air
before they descend to EARTH They are
wrought into the hidden consciousness of
universal man they f,at as sublime vis-
ions. or struggle to announce themselves sis
prophecies. Ana this general and BREATH
less desire that made itself felt and heard
in the heart Ot natipiIs, was the proI Ilet of
its owniultiiIlnent. For God reveals II in,self
in the wild stirrings that agitate the human
breast. first creating in the man desire
He then proceeds to satisfy. This world Is
linked witt higher world OF causes, by
internal relations land sympathies, and as
the divine agencies draw ever and anon
higher To to the collective soul of man kind
the tidings run down on Invisible chords,
and thrill through the heart Of the race
Thi, Is th. law of prOvideutial manifesto
tiors In all time. Such was the
desire nf the nations such the long.
ing of the world, at the birth of Jesus.
The world awaited the coming vi the
Sp ritual her" aud leader of the race. who
II he In NIL I'm. .i..L