Kansas City daily journal., 1896-12-28

Deer the dominant
power in guiding the activities of the
human race and givin color TO all
history for nearly nineteen centuries. In
the Forum at Rome, when she ruled the
world by her great power, there stood
golden milestone, which marked the be-
ginning of the various highways that led
from the capital city to all the provinces
which We're tributary to her. The spot
where Christ was born, in Judea, is the
golden milestone in the forum of the GEN.
turies which mark the beginning of all
modern history and the genesis of all mod
ern civilization. Christianity is great
fountain whence spring the waters
of purity, honesty, morality and righteous
ness. 1t is a power that is felt in every
phase of life and every branch of trade.
1t reaches down to the lowest depths and
lifts humanity up to God. 1t hears the
worlds sigh of anguish and stoops to kiss
away its tears of sorrow and regret.
1T commands the nations to be at peace
and cements the hearts of faithful individ-
uals with brotherly love; and, best and
sweetest of all, it takes our prayers to the
throne of God and lays the tribute of our
souls affection upon the altar of everlast-
ing truth. When the dawn of Christian
civilization broke over the earth, gliding
the hilltops with its roseate beauty, it fell
unheeded upon an ignorant and a haplesS
race. Destined to bless the world with its
benignant rays, it was ushered in amid
shouts of heavenly triumph and songs of
angelic sweetness.
'.At the time Jesus was born the whole
world, so far as it was known at that
time, was under one government-that of
Rome. The Atlantic ocean was, as yet, an
uneNplored body of water, upon the waves
of which the trepid mariner never ven
tured. The Mediterranean sea, then the
largest body of water known upon the
globe. was but a Roman lake. 1t was the
central portion of the Roman empire.
Around its shores were clustered the prov
inces and the majestic cities which gave
Rome celebrity above all previous dynas-
ties and which invested the empire of the
Caesars with fame that no modern king
dom or republic, save our own deathless
land has been able to eclipse. Little did
the Roman emperor think as he sat en-
throned in his palace, upon the Capitoline
hill that babe slumbering in a manger
at Bethlehem, in the remote province of
Syria, and whose infant wailings blended,
perhaps, with bleating of goats and low
ing of cattle, was to establish a kingdom
before which the empire of the Caesars
was to dwindle into insignificance.
Il do not pause at Bethlehem because it
is the place where Jacob buried his beloved
Rachael, for Christ has taken from the
grave its gloom; nor because it was the
place of David's childhood. but because it
was there the Prince of Peace chose TO
enter this world. Every age has its hero,
every heart its idol, and every nation its
shrine. England pauses at Westminster to
do honor to her noble dead. casting flowers
upon the grave of Wellington. the Iron
Duke; France adores her Napoleon, and
our own dear land has by common consent
made Mount Vernon the nations shrine
as she made its illustrious occupant while
he lived her idol But all the nations by
common agreement have made Bethlehem
their Mecca, and it's Bible the object of
holy alteration. Thebes, Palmyra. Nineveh.
Jerusalem Rome, Athens, Alexandria
magnificent mansions once lined their spa
ciouS streets and pride and opulence
thronged their dwellings; but their names
are almost forgotten; their splendor is lost
in the remoteness of the long forgotten
past; their rocy sepulchres are swept
clean by the winds of centuries and none
but a. few antiquarians care for their pris-
tine splendor or their modern decay. Beth
lehem has nothing to make It notable, but
the fact that there Jesus was born.
Around this hallowed spot the affections of
q world center.
'It was her blazing fires of martial glory
that attracted the eyes of subjugated and
wondering world to the Eternal City; it
was the supreme excellence of Greeian art
that tipped the brushes of her painters
with such immortal zest, enabling them to-
spread the beauty of her lovely sunsets upon
the impressive canvas; it was from the
hands of her sculptors that Italy received
the monuments of her immortal fame, rich
with the genius of heavenly splendor. En-
gland is indebted to her scholars for the
proud position which she holds in the realm
of good literature. Shaw says her novelists
paint the finest portraits of human char
acter; her historians have learned the
secret of enhancing description: her
philosophers probe farthest into the
phenomena Of mind. and her poets sing the
sweetest songs.
But it was the life of a moral and
spiritual hero that has caused the name
of the Holy Land to be enshrined in the
hearts of thousands who never saw the
light break upon the hills of Zion or the
seas whiten upon the Galilean shore
pass by the names of all whom the world
calls great and pause at the manger OF
Bethlehem. The world is full of great men
as it counts greatness. What we need is
real greatness; quality. not quantity merely.
"In the first 1.500 years of its history,
Christianity gained 100000 adherents. In
the next 800 years, 100 900, coo more. But in
the last 100 years 210.oo0 600 more. In the 800
years since the Reformation 1t has gained
more than double the number that 1t
gained in all the 1900 years preceding the
Reformation. At the present rate OF in
crease the year 1000 will find 1,2O0, 900, ,o0o Of