The Russellville Democrat., 1890-01-09

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 My subject also strikes at the delu- sion that the religion of Christ is dolor- ous and grief infusing. The music which broke through the midnight heavens was not dirge, but an anthem. It shook joy over the hills. 1t not only dropped upon the shepherds, but utitsprang upward among the thrones. The robe of Saviour's righteousness is not black. The Christian life is not made up of weeping and cross-bearing and war waging. Through the revelation of that Christmas night find that religion is not groan. but a song In world of sin and sick bed and sepulchers, we must have trouble; but in the darkest night the heavens part with angelic song. You may, like Paul, be ship wrecked, but 1 exhort you to be of good cheer, for you shall all escape safe to the land. Religion does not show itself | in the elongation of the face and the cut ! of the garb. The Pharisee who puts his religion into his phylactery has none | left for his heart. Fretfulness and com plaining do not belong to the family of Christian graces which move into the
  | tianity does not frown upon amusements and recreations. It is not Q cynic, it is not shrew, it chokes no laughter, it quenches no light, it defaccs no art | Among the happy, it is the happiest. It i is just as much at home on the play 1 ground as it is in the church. It is just l as graceful in the charade as it is in the l psalm book. It sings just as well in 1 Surrey Gardens as it prays in St. Paul's. Christ died that we might live. Christ walked that we might ride. Christ wept that we might laugh.
 Again, my subject imp:esses me with the fact that glorious endings sometimes have very humble beginnings. The straw pallet was the starting point, but the shout in the midnight sky revealed what would be the glorious consumma- tion. Christ on Mary's lap. Christ on the throne of universal dominion. What an humble starting! What glorious ending! Grace begins on small scale | in the heart. You see only men as trees walking. The grace of God in the heart is feeble spark, and Christ has to keep both hands over it lest it be l But look at the same man when he has entered Heaven. No crown able to ex- press his royalty. No palace able toex- press his wealth. No scepter able to express his power and his dominion. Drinking from the fountain that drips from the everlasting rock. Among the harpers harping on their harps. On sea of glass mingled with fire. Before the throne of God, to go no more out forever. The spark of grace that Christ had to keep both hands over lest it come to ex- tinction, having famed up into honor, and glory, and immortality. What humble starting! What glorious con summation.
 The New Testament Church was on a small scale. Fishermen watched it. Against the uprising walls crashed in fernal enginery. The world said anaht- ema. Ten thousand people reioiced at every seeming defeat, and said: "Ahai ahai so we would have it." Mar tyrs on fire cried: "Iiow long, o Lord, how long?" Very humble starting, but see the difference at the consummation, when Christ with His almighty arm has struck off tho last chain of human bond age, and Himalaya shall be Mount Zion; and Pyrenees, Moriah; and os,eans, the walking place of Him who trod the wave cliffs of stormed Tiberias and island shall call to island, sea to sea, continent to continent, and the song of the worlds redemption rising, the heavens, like a great sounding board, shall strike back the shout of salvation to the earth until it rebounds again to the throne of God, and all Heaven, ris- ing on their thrones, beat time with their scepters. Oh, what an humble be- ginningl What glorious ending! Throne linked to manager, heavenly mansions to a stable.
 My subject also impresses me with the effect of Christ's mission upward and downward. Glory to God, peace to man. When God sent His Son into the world, angels discovered something new in God, something they had never seen be- fore. Not power, not wisdom, not love. They knew all that before. But when God sent His Son into this world then the angels saw the spirit of self-denial ir God, the spirit of self-sacrifice in God. ft is easier to love an angel on His throne than thief on the cross, a seraph in his worship than an adulteress in her crime. When the angels saw God-the God who would not allow the most insignificant angel in Heaven to be hurt--give up His Son, His Son, His only, only Son, they saw something that they had never thought of before, and do not wonder that when Christ started out on that pilgrimage the an gels in Heaven clapped their wings in triumph and called on all the hosts of Heaven to help them celebrate it. and sang so loud that the Bethlehem shep- herds heard it; ''Glory to God in the highest"
 Butit was also to be mission of peace to man. Infinite holiness-acoumula depravity. How could they ever come together? The Gospel bridges over the distance It brings God to us. It takes us to God. God in us, and we in God. l Atonement. Atonement! Justice sat isfied, sins forgiven, eternal life secured, Heaven built on manager. But it was also to be the pacification of all in- dividual and international animosities, What sound this word of peace had in the Roman empire that boasted of the number of people it had massacred, that prided itself on the number of the slain, that rejoiced at the trembling provinces. Sicily and Corsica and Sar- dinia and Macedonia and Egypt had bowed to her sword and crouched at the cry of her war eagles. She gave her chief honor to Scipio and Fabius and Caesar all men of blood. What contempt they must have had there for the penni- less, unarmed Christ in the garb of a Nazarene, starting out to conquer all nations. There never was place on earth where that word peace sounded so extensively to the ears of the multitude as in the Roman empire. They did not l u,ant naaoa Tho s,raateet rnnaic fhey