The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1899-12-27

But HerOd cQuld not nnQ LnaL crdule
All the detectives he sent out failed I'D
the search. Yet it had been pointed out
by hashight from the midnight heavens
All the neighborhood knew about It. The
angelic chorus in the cloud had called
musical attention to it. No sentinel
guarded it with drawn sword, passing
up and down by the pillow of that Beth
lehem caravansary. Why, then, was It
that the cradle was not despoled of its
treasure? Because it was divinely pro
tected. You cannot reasonably account
for that unhurt cradle except on the the-
Dry of a special divine protection. And
most cradles are likewise defended. Di-
vinely protected! The most of your chill
dren would have been dead long ago but
for that.
The Starting Place.
Another CLEAN of light scattering some
Of the gloom of that Christie pillow in
Bethlehem was the fact that it was the
starting place Of the most wonderful OF
all careers. Looking at Christ's life from
mere worldly standpoints, it was amaz-
ing beyond all capacity of pen or tongue
or canvas to express. Without taking q
years curriculum in any college, or even
a day at any school, yet saying things
that the mightiest intellects of subse-
quent days have quoted and tried to OK
pound. Christ was eloquent without ever
having studied one of the laws of ora
tory. He was the greatest orator that
ever lived
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."
His power of hyperbole: a camel try
ing to crowd it's hump through the eye of
a sewing woman's needle and all that
learned talk about a gate called the nee
dies eye," only belittling the hyperbole.
Power of sarcasm: The hypocrite styled
by him ''thc whole who need not ply
sician." His power of peroration: The
crashing of the timbers of the poorly
built house on the beach of the Mediter-
ranean. Power to take advantage of cir
cumstances. Magnetic and epigrammatic
this inspired peasant! Useless attempts
he declares as ''pearls cast before Swine;'
funimportant results he describes as the
attempt to "gather figs of thistles." AL
iegories! Why, the parallels are all ale
gories, and how he flung them out upon
his audiences, whole armfuls of anne
thysts and emeralds and diamonds and
rubies!
Viewed from Worldly Standpoint.
But we must not only look ut 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 midnight of those
who had been born blind, and turned
deaf ears into galleries of music, and
with one touch made the scabs of incur
able leprosy fall off, and renewed healthy
circulation through severest paralysis,
and made the dead girl waken and ask
for her mother, and at his cruciixion
pulled down the clouds until at II o clock
at noon it was as dark as II 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 bounding of foot, and the last
pauper will get his palace, and the last
sinner taken unto the warm bosom of a
pardoning God. Where did all this start?
In that cradle within sound of bleating
sheep and believing cattle and amid
rough bantering of herdsmen and camel
drivers. What a low place to start for
such great heights! o artists, turn your
camera obscura ON that village of Beth
lehem. Take it all in-the wintry skies
lowering, the focks shivering in the chill
air, Mary, the pale mother, and Jesus,
the child. No wonder that Paul Vero-
nese and Cuyp and Rubens and Tintoret-
to and Correggio and Perugino and CHR
landajo and Raphael put their best pen
ellis in that scene. Lord God, by thy
gracious spirit, fix that Madonna in all
our souls! So these thoughts come in
upon us at this gladdest part of the year.
Swing softly, bells, on Christmas morn,
Wake not the King Of Glory!
Swing soft and swift across the snow
The old Judean story"
SO 1 have shown you the shadows and
the sunshine Of that Christie cradle of
Bethlehem. In these Christmas times l
realize that there are many cradles under
shadows. Oh, the story of empty cradles
all up and down the earth, in cabins and
in palaces! There are standing in gar
rets or in storerooms cradles that will
never rock again. Rachel mourning for
her children and will not be comforted
because they are not" But through all
the shadows break CLEANS OF sunshine,
as the clouds of the Christie cradle were
cleft by glorious light. Escaped from
the struggles through which we have all
passed and must yet pass, those little
ones took heaven at one bound.
The Uses of Shadows.
But shadows have their uses There
must be a background to every good pic
ture. Turner always put at least one
heck Of cloud on mis- canvas, and the
clouds of earth will be the background
to bring out more nightly the brightness
Of heaven. Ana will it not be glorious
if after all this scene Of earthly vicissi-
tude we meet again in our Fathers house
and talk over the past in an everlasting
holiday. But meanwhile look out for the
cradles. How much they decide for this
world and the next! When Wellington
was born at Mornington, England, that
decided Waterloo and saved Europe.
When Handel was born in Halle, Saxo-
NV that dncida1 tho GRO tnrios, of NT,Joe