The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-12-26
FESTIVAL OF INNOCENCE. "
Why Unitarians Make so Much of
Christmas.
The Festival of Gift-Giving and the
Children's Part Therein-Secret
of Christmas Joy.

Christmas, said the speaker, is the
one festival in the Christian calendar in
which the children take the most promi-
nent part, and when it comes it brings to
US all sweet memories of our own child
hood and thoughts of childhood's limo
cence and purity. Inspired by these
thoughts the old grow young again, time
is forgotten and love fills all hearts. Hard
must be the heart that is not softened by
the warmth of Christmas feeling, and
stiff and coldmust be the miser's fingers
if they do not relax their hold upon the
purse-strings to give some little token
to some one that he loves a little less than
his gold.
1t is what we give out of our hearts that
brings US greatest JOY rather than what
we get; but what we get brings JOY with
the gift because it shows loving heart
behind 1t and the gift reveals the feelings
OF another's heart toward us.
The gift without the giver is bare"
says Lowell. Herein is the secret of Christ
mas Joy, and only as presents are SYM
bols of affection are they of value. 1t is
the outgoing of the soul in affection
which reacts upon us with such power
and creates the feeling of bleSsedness
within which makes US feel the Eearness
OF the Kingdom of Heaven at this season.
Love inspires love. 1t is one OF natures
laws which in the soul life contradicts all
the laws of the animal or selfish nature.
Love grows upon what 1t gives. Jesus
gave his life, unasked, but by such gift
drew the world to himself. 1t is the self
sacrificing love of the parental heart
which first appeals to the heart of a
child, and makes 1t feel the emptiness of
the world when mother is gone. 1t reacts
upon the child in true tilial affection.
1nsomuch as this parental love goes be-
world
yearns over the world, does it approach
the love of Jesus or His conception Of the
All Fathers love.
The love of Jesus was so generous that
the world was not too large to be taken
into his heart, and by his so doing he
drew the world out OF itself and into the
knowledge of higher life than it had
ever known before, and this in spite of
the creeds that grew up after he was gone.
And the fact that the whole civilized
world celebrates this day is proof that
creeds cannot limit the love OF God as it
manifests itself in the human heart. In
spite of the limitations which the creeds
impose, the celebration of Christmas by
one and all testiies against them and
proclaims that love in its essence is uni
Versal.
This annual breaking down of fences
will result finally in doing away with
them altogether and the love that is now
but ideal will unite all hearts and sects
and races and we shall then have a new
heaven and a new earth. God speed the
day!
In the incident which gave ground for
our text, Jesus makes clear to us all that
nothing short of absolute innocence is
necessary before we can expect perfect
peace within. Not that we should ever
strive to become childish or ignorant of
our powers as children are, but he makes
1t plain that we should strive to have in
our longer lives that innocence, purity
and faith which Is so clearly manifested
in the child's early life. None of us could
lay claim TO any such state of mind and
heart and yet there is that in us all Il ex-
cept none which bears witness to the
truth of the Masters words and prompts
US to see in this ideal possibility to strive
for.
The child of the text was not old enough.
l should judge, to believe anything. 1t
could only trust and love and be inno-
cent; and yet the official standards of all
the churches in Christendom, except the
Unitarian, demand some form of belief,
some test of creed, before the gates of the
Kingdom of Heaven can be opened.
have said that this Festival of limo
cence" which we celebrate to-day has
become universal to the civilized world,
and yet it did not begin to be celebrated
until several centuries after Jesus time
Wherein is the secret of it all? Why has
the Christian world left the Pagan world
so far behind? Before Jesus the teach
ings of Confucius. Buddha, and the phi
1osophers of Greece had all impressed the
world with high ideals of life. The
golden rule was in use five hundred wears
before Jesus in China, tho in a negative
form.
But when we turn to Palestine we find
the domestic virtues not only believed in
but practiced-practiced with austerity.
The penalty of the law of Moses was be-
hind this austerity, and made Jehova
seem to be law-giver and a Judge Then
came Jesus, a prophet of the prophets.
His nature fulfilled the higher aspirations
of those who had gone before him, and
his spiritual inside enabled him to under
stand that saying of Hosea: 81 desired
mercy and not sacrifice" 900. With him
came a new life to the world a life that
balanced the inequalities that had gone
before, tempered justice with mercy and
crowned wisdom with love. In child
hoods innocence Jesus saw the open
gateway to a new heaven and new
earth, and blessed it as the manifestation
of the very essence of all being
God incarnated in man, not once for all
but in all forever; and incarnation which
comes to light in the mind, is felt in the
heart, and manifested outwardly in the
life to degree, by every soul that is ever
born into the world. God reproducing
himself in man. This life of God coming
gressively, claiming the allegiance of
every soul as it untolds to the ideal of
truth-abstract in the mind but concrete
in the life. 1t was in teaching this thai
Jesus differed from all other teachers. ex-
cept the prophets, whose higher concep-
tions he simply fulfilled. But it was not
so much in his teaching as in the fact that
he was what he taught.
The life that was in him he felt was God
in him. Interpreting his feelings in
action as prompted by such life was
simply manifesting God. How much OF
God there is that Jesus did not manifest.
we do not know, but we do know that He
is all that Jesus was, multiplied by infin-
ity.
But that of which Jesus was witness is
ali important to us because it reveals us
TO ourselves and brings us in touch with
the loving heart of the Father of All.
The life of Jesus reveals to us the life of
the spirit of man carrying out the
thought of God in the reformation of his
spiritual nature in humanity. 1t was
not what he thought / repeat. so much as
what he was that gave such trans
forming power TO the world. Not what
he was from the theological standpoint,
but from the moral-from the human
standpoint, and his life as human being
teaches us what we may become
If, then, we keep the inuocency and
purity of childlike nature, no test of
creed Will ever be necessary to omen
Heaven to rs, but our souls will rise by
force of their own Godlike natures into
that realm of spirituality which would
create the Heaven of our dreams right
here on this world. And having il in our
souls with all its faith, and trust, and
with us into the next life, wherever that
may be