Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1899-01-05

my subject, Christmas festivities would
never have been observed, Christmas
carols never sung. Christmas gifta
never bestowed. Christmas games never
played, Christmas bells never rupg
What an awful subtraction from the
worlds brightness would have been the
waking of December % like other days
of the year! Glorious day! After
Frightening England and Holland and
Germany for centuries it st" - across
the sea aud pronounced its benedie-
ticn on our shores. Why. we never get
over our childhood Chr;stmases!
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
Chrisimas!" Then there were all the
innocent allurements as to who brought
the presents, and the wonderment rs IL
how sle;ghs drawn by reindeer could
come down the perpendicular, aud
af,erward the disappointment as some
older brother or sister, with all the
plide of discovery, tried TO persuade Us
that the chimney had not been the chan,
mel Of generous descent. Oh wha:
times they were, the Christmases of our
boyhood and girlhood days! We still
feel in our pulses some of the eNu-
bcrance which we then unwitting,y
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 mistletoa looked
interviewer! The Puritans may not
have liked the Cay, and John Calvin may
have pronounced il superstiiious and
feared it would bring into religious OBJ
seryance the saturnalia of the heathen,
the decorations of ivy jDappropI ate be
cause ivy had been dedicated 10 Eacchus
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 it ought 10
be celebrated on the 9th of January, or
2Sth of March, or goth of September, or
2Gth of December, did not bother US
then any more than it bothers us now,
Can you imagine what specification
of the worlds literature would be the
removal of all Christ ever did and said ?
l, 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 mpossibility, 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 ~ layers of illumned crysta..
lization. Oh, wise men OF the east, /
am SO glad you did not report to the i'm
perial scoundrel ct 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 fight
to Cairo, in Egypt, and paid the + lodg-
irg and board there and paid their way
back again! Well enough to bring to the
barn of the Saviour's nativity the
flowers, for they aromadized 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 lie 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 | and the
world had in the diversion of the per-
secutors from the place of nativity, lei
me say that had that Herodic 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 1t? 1t
was peace worse than war. II was the
peace of a graveyard. The RomaL
eagles had plueked out the worlds eye
sight and plunged their beaks through
the heart of dead nations. II was a
peace like that spoken of by dying In.
dian chiefta:n when Christian home
missionary said to him: "You have
been warrior and suppose have been
in many feuds, but You must be al peace
with al! your enemies in order TO die
Alright" The dying chieftaip replied:
That's easy enough. am q peace
with ali my enemies, for have killed
ali 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 10 that music. the first of Di-
vine inscription. and the second of earth.
ly pacification. GLORY 10 God and
peace TO men," In His manhood
Christ pronounced the same doctrine: