The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-12-30

Then. to begin on the outmost rim of
my subject, Christmas festivities would
never have been observed, Christmas
carols never sung, Christmas gifts
never bestowed, Christmas games never
played, Christmas bells never rung.
What an awful subtraction from the
worlds brightness would have been the
making of December 25 like other days
of the yearl Glorious dayl After
Frightening England and Holland and
Germany for centuries it stepped across
the sea and pronounced its benedic-
ticn on our shores. Why, we never get
over our childhood Christmasesl
Father and mother joined in them.
They forgot their rheumatisms and
shortness Of breath, and for awhile
threw off the sorrows Of lifetime while
they struggled with us as to who should
first in the morning shout the MERRY
Christmasl" Then there were all the
innocent allurements as to who brought
the presents, and the wonderment as to
how sleighs drawn by reindeer could
come down the perpendicular, and
afterward the disappointment as some
older brother or sister, with all the
pIide of discovery, tried to persuade us
that the chimney had not been the chan
mel of generous descent. Oh what
times they were, the Chris tmases of our
boyhood and girlhood days We still
feel in our pulses some Of the exu-
bcrance which we then unwittngly
stored up for future times, when the
eye might lose some of its luster and
the foot some of its spring and the heart
some of its rebound. How holly and
rosemary and ivy and mistletoe looked
interwoyenl The Puritans may not
have liked the Cay, and John Calvin may
have pronounced it superstitious and
feared it would bring into religious OBJ
servance the saturnalia of the heather,
the decorations of ivy inappropr ate be-
cause ivy had been dedicated to Bacchus
ard mistletoe had been associated with
Druidical rites, but we testify that
Christmas never did us any harm, and
the only objection we ever expressed
was that it was so long a time from
Christmas TO Christmas. Ecclesiastical
controversy as to whether 1t ought to
be celebrated on the 9th of January, or
2Sth of March, or goth Of September, or
9th of December, did not bother US
then any more than il bothers us now.
Can you imagine what a specification
OF the worlds literature would be the
removal of all Christ ever did and said :?
IL would tear down the most important
shelves of yonder congressional library,
and of the vatican library, and of Brit
ish museum, and Berlin and Bonn and
Vienna and Madrid and St. Petersburg
libraries, and St. Paul's life would have
been an impossibility, and his epistles
would never have been written. and 81;
John, from the basaltic caverns of
Patmos, would never have heard the
seven trumpets or seen the heavenly
wall with IL layers of illumined crysta.-
lization. Oh, wise men of the east,
am so glad you did not report to the i'm
perial scoundrel at Jerusalem where
the babe was, for the hounds would have
soon torn TO pieces the Lamb, and am
so glad that not only did you bring the
frankincense and the myrrh 10 the
room in that caravansary, but that you
brought the gold which paid his travel.
ing expenses and those Of Joseph and
Mary in that long and dangerous flight
to Cairo, in Egypt, and paid thor lodg-
irg and board there and paid their way
back againl Well enough to bring to the
barn of the Saviour's nativity the
flowers, for they aromatized the dread
full atmosphere Of the stables, but the
geld was just then the most important
offering. So now the Lord accepts
your prayers, for they are the perfume
OF Heaven, but He asks also for the gold
which will pay the expenses of taking
Christ to all nations.
Still further remarking upon the mar
row escape which you and l and the
world had in the diversion of the per-
secutors from the place of nativity, let
me say that had that Herodlc raid upon
the swaddling 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 peace was IL? 1t
was peace worse than war. 1t was the
peace of a graveyard. The RomaL
eagles had plucked out the worlds eye
sight and plunged their beaks through
the heart Of dead nations. 1t was
peace like that spoken OF by dying In
dian chleftain when Christian home
missionary said to him: "You have
been n warrior and suppose have been
in many feuds, but you must be a peace
with all your enemies in order TO die
Alright" The dying chieftain replied:
That's easy enough. am at peace
with all my enemies, for l have killed
all of them"
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 Inscription, and the second of earth
ly pacification. GLORY to God and