Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1895-12-25
THE STAR, THE SONG AND THE
MANGER OF BETHLEHEM.

Was heard for miles around;
The idle spear and shields were high
up hung;
The hooked chariot stood
Unstained with hostile blood;
The trumpet spoke not to the armed
throng;
And kings sat still with an awful eye
As if they knew their sovereign lord
was nigh.
MILTON.
This day, December %, 1895, takes us
back, over the lapse of nineteen CEN
turtles, to the dividing line between the
Old and New Dispensation-to the Star
that rained its fire upon the Eastern
night and guided the flock tenders in
their pilgrimage through the dark
Indean hills-to the song sang by the
moving stars-to the Manger, where
lay a woman on a bed of straw with
the soft cheek of the Child against her
pale face.
What a marvellous scene, this Bible
picture of the Nativity. The old beard
ed shepherds with plaid and crook
bringing gifts of gold, frankincense
and myrrh, the infant in the dual char
acter of Divinity and humanity, the
mother, the Madonna of the Bible and
the ages for whom all the Marys are
named, and the oxen and camels kneel.
ing to the new born babe.
God honored the lowly in selecting
s%peechless creatures to witness the
most ~stupendous event in history, in
selecting a stable instead of a palace
for the birth of the Stranger, in pass.
ing by kings and queens and calling
sheep herders from the fields to do the
first honors to his Son.
In this Bible scene God honored wo-
men, in making her the priestess of His
second revelation to man, developing
the passionate affection and absorbing
tendencies of Christian motherhood.
The full glory and boundless power of
that sacred relation revealed in the
Stable of Bethlehem and in the wan
derings in Egypt lie like a beam of
light across the history of mankind.
In this scene of the Advent God, in a
special manner glorified childhood. He
might have come down to earth, as
Elijah went up to Heaven, in a chariot
of fire, or lie might like Adam have
sprang into manhood from the dust
without the helplessness of infancy.
But this was not Gods way, any more
than it was his way to create a world
without circles and spheres.
The Son of man must have the child 3
prattling tongue, the child soft cheek,
the child's lustrous eye, and the child 8
eager pursuit and inquiry. All infan-
tine faces are made to reflect the face
of the Christ child. And thus child
hood, to quote Emerson, became the
perpetual Messiah. 1t comes into every
household with q message of love and
happiness that give it a charm, beauty
and individuality peculiarly its own.
Manhood; motherhood; childhood.
The trinity of the Advent blessed and
glorifed in a manger with a living
shrine in every home.
To enoble a race the individual must
be free is one of the most useful and
practical lessons furnished by this day.
Government, then, with the largest
liberty consistent with safety is civil.
cation in its purest and broadcast sense
one of the highest expressions of
Christian thought and aspiration.
Their forces have been working for
1900 years for the emancipation and
enfranchisement of man. We are
prone to boast that in no land has the
success of these been more marked
than in our own. Our claim may ex-
coed the bounds of modesty and truth,
all things considered, yet we do know
that the evil forces that hedge and
hamper are growing less and less as the
stars fade before the opening day.
1t is our duty as a Nation and as in
dividuals, instead of celebrated Christ
mas in revelry and debauch, to lift the
heart in praise and thanksgiving to
1.-THE Oliver of every good and perfect
gift" that our lines have been cast,
and we have an enduring heritage in
a land filled with affairs and shrines of
the religion revealed to mankind in the
stable at Bethlehem.