The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1897-12-23
ALAYMAN'S CHRISTINA S.
BY "NEMo.


join again the angel chorus;
Tell of Gods great gift to men;
For the time is now before us,
When the Christ child comes again
Ever bringing to the nations
Thoughts of sweet simplicity,
As they pour their glad oblations
At the shrine of infancy.
Sing the joyous Christmas carol,
How the Great came to earth,
Not in glorious apparel
But by lowly human birth
Unto all men manifesting,
That Gods greatest gift is still
Nothing but spirit resting,
Child-like, on a Fathers will.
So we vain and hayward mortals,
In earth g wilderness beguiled,
Safe may reach the golden portals,
Helped and guided by child.
~
Oeasons revolve and we once more
y greet the festival OF "The Child"
Who can exaggerate its hold upon the
hearts of those who celebrate it.?
There is not a mother whose birth
pangs are vivid in her memory but
that is moyed with compassion tor out
cast Mary, remote from tender min
| istra.ions in the hour of her anguish !;
there is not a child whose little fingers
reach out In awe to touch the latest
tiny babe in the household, but that
finds the manger-cradle at Bethlehem
thing to marvel at j; there is not a
man who surrenders himself to thought
| but that sees a world-transformation
resulting from the squalid birth and
! the legends that have gathered around
it; there is not ch,lalees woman
whose Aeazt1g hungry for the pressure
of little face against her bosom, but
that can hear in the message of the
virgin angels, her own GRAND to the
world-to proclaim peace and good
will, and to ever see deeper even than
the contented mother into the holiness
and possibilities of all children.
| ~
! 0ver all virtues let us set simplicity.
y Great messages, great truths, great
happenings are ever simple In their
elements. Simplicity is the grandeur
of the great and the greatness of the
obscure. tits the charm of prattling
childhood it is the diadem OF the
learned.
~
Nov il we divest Jesus of the COM
IN pick theories of warning common
tators, strip him of bewlldering
creeds, which In any event
never came Into existence until
hundreds of years after his death,
we find his message to the world one
of intense simplicity. Drawing in our
minds from the cares OF the conflict OF
life for few moments, possibly we
may find inspiration to effort by look
Ing back at this man who led the world
out into broad truth whose simple
character is after ages of thought fore
ing itself to the front just because 1t is
so simple.
~0nward from the narrow thought Of
y the Jews who selfishly regarded
the God OF Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
as their own peculiar possession and
whose character was often outlined as
little more than that of blood-thirsty
leader Of a fighting natlon-onward
from the myriad deities of reverential
Asiatlc and European minds who
sought by the very multitude of Gods
to include all truth-onward with
greater clearness than all seekers who
had preceded him, he led the worlds
thought to assert the existence of one
God of one universe. He did not argue
Him to exist he assumed Him as the
simplest explanation of the powers,
visible and invisible, of a mighty crea-
ton.
Furthermore, as omniscience, ON
/ impotence. omnipresence are be-
yond the powers of our finite minds to
grasp, Jesus makes God greater than
the widest theories of eager souls, and
yet simpler than the simplest inter-
probation of Him, by announcing Him
as Father" and as ''Loye." The trou-
bled soul can understand that, and rest.
The Father" chastens His little ones
that they may develop, He breaks down
His truths into small fragments to suit
their growing powers, He interprets
thorny ways into upward paths, His
love makes all things work together for
good to those who love Him. Every
woman heart can understand Him as
"Love," for in her-love has been the
"ascent of man" and in His love has
been the ascent of the soul.
rs
fore simple by infinite extent than
Ill the complicated sacrifices and