Connecticut western news., 1899-12-28

that unnuit cradle except on the tne- ory of special, divine protection. And most cradles are likewise defended. Can you understand why so many chil- dren, with all the epidemics that as- sault them, and all their climbing to dangerous heights, and all their peril ous experiments with explosives and their running against horses hoofs, and daring of trolleys and carts fast driven, yet somehow get through, espe- cially boys of high spirit and that are going to amount to much? l account for their coming through all right, with only a few wounds and bruises, by the fact that they are divlnely protected. All your charges of Don't do this" and s'Don't do that" and Don't go there" seem to amount to nothing. They are the same reckless creatures about whom you are constantly anxious and wondering what Is the matter now. Divinely protected!
 Cleans of Light.
 Another gleam of light, scattering some of the gloom of that Christie pill low in Bethlehem, was the fact that 1t was the starting place of the most won derful of all careers. Looking at Christ's life from mere worldly stand points 1t was amazing beyond all ca pacity of pen or tongue or canvas to express. Without taking years cur riculum in any college or even day at any school, yet saying things that the mightiest intellects of subsequent days have quoted and tried to expound! Great literary works have for the most part been the result of much elabora- tion Edmund Burke rewrote the con clusion of his speech against Warren Hastings 16 times. Lord Brougham rewrote his speech in behalf of Queen Caroline 20 times, but the sermon on the mount seemed extemporaneous Christ was eloquent without ever hay ing studied one of the laws of oratory. He was the greatest orator that ever lived. It was not an eloquence Demos thenic or Ciceronic or like that of Jean Baptiste Massillon or like that which William Writ himself a great orator, ing house of Virginia, when the blind preacher cried out in his sermon, 'Soc rates died like philosopher, but Jesus Christ died like God"
 Christ's oratory was unlike anything that went before or came after. Even the criticism of the world said, "Never man spake like this man." Dramatic? Why, he took up child out of the au- dience and set him on table and by 4. l.. Nf MI taught humility. He sent the prose cutors of a poor, sinful woman, blush ing and confounded, out of the room by one sentence of sarcasm. Notice his power of emphasis and enunciation when he revealed himself after his res urrection, by the peculiar way he pro- nounced the one word Mary" his power of look shown by the way Peter, the great apostle, wilted under 1t. The book says, "fhe Lord turned and look ed upon Peter" It was an omnipotent facial expression. He looked upon Pc ter. Power of distinct utterance, so that every one could hear. "He opened his mouth, saying" No mumbling and indistinct utterance. He opened his
 
 veloped by open air speaking, was resonant and sonorous voice, or he would not have taken the top of the rocks of the Mount of Beatitudes for pulpit, for that pulpit is so high, as l declare from observation, that no speaker that I have ever known could have from that point made any audi ence hear one word of a sermon. His power of hyperbole: A camel trying to crowd It's hump through the eye of sewing woman's needle and all that learned talk about gate called the needles eye'' only belittling the hy- perbole. Power of sarcasm: The hypo- critics styled by him "the whole who need not a physician" His power of peroration: The crashing of the tim bers of the poorly built house on the beach of the Mediterranean. Power to take advantage of circumstances: When an auditor asked him whether they ought to pay taxes to Caesar, Christ practically said, ''If any gentle man in this audience kls in his pocket a Roman penny, wish he would just hand it up to me-" And some one handed him penny, such as you can now find In some of the museums, the obverse of it bearing the face of Iii berius, the emperor, and the reverse the words "Pontifex Maximus," the other title of the emperor, and then came the overwhelming answer of Christ, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are God's.'
 But we must not only look at him from a worldly standpoint. How he smote whirlwinds into silence, and made the waves of the sea lie down. and opened doors of light into the mid night of those who had been born blind, and turned deaf ears into gal leries of music, and with one touch made the scabs of incurable leprosy fall off, and renewed healthy circula- ton through severest paralysis, and made the dead girl waken and ask for her mother, and at his crucifixion pull ed down the clouds, until at F o'clock at noon 1t was as dark as 12 o'clock at night, and starting an influence that will go on until the last desert will grow roses and the last weak lung make full inhalation, and the last case of paresis take healthful brain, and the last illness become rubicund of cheek and robust of chest and bound ing of foot, and the last pauper will get his palace, and the last sinner taken unto the warm bosom of par doning God! Where did all this start? In that cradle within sound of bleat- ing sheep and believing cattle and amid rough bantering of herdsmen and camel drivers. What low place to start for such great heights. O artists, turn your camera obscura on that will lage of Bethlehem! Take 1t all in the wintry skies lowering, the focks in the chill air, Mary the pale mother, and Jesus the child.
 An Eternal Jubilee.
 So I have shown you the shadows and the sunshine of that Christie cra- dle of Bethlehem. In these Christmas times I rpaliZp that there are many ora