Connecticut western news., 1898-12-29

have soon torn to pieces the Lamb, and I am so glad that not only did you bring the frankincense and the myTrh to the room in that caravansary, but that you brought the gold which paid his travelling expenses and those of Jo- seph and Mary in that long and danger ous flight to Cairo, in Egypt, and paid their lodging and board there and paid their way back again. Well enough to bring to the barn of the Saviour's na- tivity the flowers, for they aromatized the dreadful atmosphere of the stable, but the gold was just then the most i'm portant offering. So now the Lord ac- cepts your prayers, for they are the per fume of heaven, but he asks also for the gold which will pay the expense of taking Christ to all nations.
 When Peace Came.
 Still further remarking upon the mar row escape which you and l and the world had in the diversion of the perse cutors from the place of nativity, let me say that had that Herodic raid upon the swaddlins clothes been successful the world would never have known the value of righteous peace. Much has been made of the fact that the world was at peace when Christ came. Yes. But what kind of a peace was 1t? It was peace worse than war. It was the peace of graveyard. The Roman eagles ! had plucked cut the worlds eyesight and plunged their beaks through the heart of dead nations. It was peace like that spoken of by dying Indian ! chieftain when Christian home mis- sionary said to him, "You have been a warrior, and 1 suppose have been in many feuds, but you must be at peace with all your enemies in order to die aright." The dying chieftain replied: "That's easy enough. I am at peace with all my enemies, for have killed all of them"
 l That was the style of peace on earth when Christ came, but the spirit of ar bitration, which is to garland the tomb of this century and coronet the brow of the coming century, is consequent upon the midnight anthem above Bethlehem, two bars to that music, the first of di vine ascription and the second of earth ly pacification. "Glory to God and peace 10 men," In his manhood Christ pronounced the same doctrine, Blessed are the merciful." Before the Bethle- hem star flashed it's significance, the theory was: "Blessed is wholesale cut. throatery. Blessed are those who can kill the most antagonists. Blessed are those who can most skillfully wield the battleax. Blessed are those who can stab the deepest with spear or roll chariot wheel over the most wounded : or put his chargers hoof on the most dead" Tbn entirely new theory of our Christ was blessing for oursing, prayer for those who despitefully use you, foundries to turn spears into pruning hooks, redhot furnaces to melt swords into molds shaped like plowshares. If gigantic acerbitles and worldwide tiger isms had, without any gospel opposi- tion, gone on until now and been aug mented by 1898 years of ferocity, by this time what would this world have been turned into? You need not remind me of the awful wars since the opening of the year 1 of our Christian era; for if the earth has been again and again lacerated into an Aceldama through improved weaponry of death and more rapidity of fire, Prussian breechloader which in 1866 startled the nations with unprecedented havoc eolipsed by eontrivanoes that can sweep vaster numbers to death by one volley and telegraphy adding to gunnery new facilities for slaughter by instantly or dering armies to where they can do the most wholesale murder-I say if all this woe has been wrought, how much worse would it have been if the Christ ly revelation had not been let down from heaven on five runged ladder of musical scale and there had been no preaching of good will all up and down Christendom for 19 centuries The Bethlehem manager has given the most potent suggestion of peace the world has ever received. The cavalry horses cannot eat out of that manager.
 Light on Dark Pillows.
 I take another step forward in show
 ing the narrow escape you and had and the world had in the secretion of Christ's birthplace from the Herodic detectives. and the clubs with which they would have dashed the babes life out, when I say that without the life that began that night in Bethlehem the world would have had no illumined deathbeds. Before the time of Christ good people closed their earthly lives in peace, while depending upon the Christ to come, and there were antediluyiau saints and Assyrian saints and Egyptian saints and Grecian saints and Jerusalem mt hofn hn n1o ohn Bethlehem became balcony filled with the best singers of world where they all sing, but cannot read that there was anything more than quieting guess that came to those before Christ deathbeds. Job said something border ing on the confident, but it was mixed mp with story of "skin worms" that would destroy his body. Abraham and Jacob had little light on the dying pillow, but compared with the after Christ deathbeds it was like the dim tallow candle of old beside the modern cluster of lights electric. I know Elijah went up in memorable manner, but it was terrible way to goa whirlwind of fire that must have been splendid to look at by those who stood on the banks or the Jordan, but It was style Of ascent that required more nerve than you and ever had, to be a placid oc- cupant of chariot drawn by such wild team. The triumphant deathbeds, as far as know, were the after Christ deathbeds. What a procession of hosan- mas have marched through the dying room of the saints of the last 19 centu- riesl What cavalcade of mounted halle- luiahs has galloped through the dying visions of the last 2,000 years save 100! Peaceful deathbeds in the years B. c. Triumphant deathbeds, for the most part. reserved for the years A. D. Be- hold the deathbeds of the Wesleys, of the Doddridges, of the Leigh Richmonds, of the Edward Paysous; of Vara, the converted heathen chieftain, crying in his last moments: "Tbe canoe is in the sea. The sails are spread. She is ready