The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-12-26

ell than earth. Remember the inner
ent dignity of man, how he stands
alone as If all the world was made fol
him, no one entering into his real life
| Remember the infinite worth of a hui
man SOUL the boundless capacity of
man to think and hope and love, and
the great truth which fills our thoughts
to-day is not so hard to understand.
We have been taught TO think of the
4 Son Of God incarnate, especially as the
Saviour Of men from their sins. Be
cause man had sinned and because
aiienated from his Father, he needed a
Saviour. But the Son of God might
have come and taken his place among
US and united our nature with His own
even if sin had not done its awful work
in the world IF the race had not gone
its way forgetting God, wasting its in
hemtance, filing the earth which God
called good, with violence and wicked
ness, there might have been blessed
work for the Son of God to-day in COM
ing among u.s. There might have been
an Incarnation without an abatement,
nativity without a CrueifiXion, a
/ Christmas without a Good Friday. He
| came that we might receive the adop-
/ ton of love- that we might have the
feeling of Sonship as regards God, ana
| of brother love as regards one another.
1t is the sense of sin and need and de-
pendence which sends men to Jesus
Christ and keeps them close to Him.
But the coming of the Son of God has
meant untold blessing for men NOT
simply as sinners in need Of forgiveness
and restoration, but as the children OF
God needing to know of Gods Fathef-
hood, by the coming to them of his
Son as their elder brother and fellow
heir. Even if the awful story OF sin
in the world had not been written, and
the need of a Saviour from sin had not
been what it is, the Son of God might
have come that we might receive the
adoption of love and that we might
know that we are members of one fam
lily in God on the earth.
This is the Christmas lesson which
bring you to-day. The Son of God has
come at this time to make us know
that we are the children of God. 1t is
a thought so familiar to you that you
do not feel it's blessedness. You have
been saying, "Our Father who art In
Heaven, all your life, without enter
ing into the meaning of the words You
learned as a little child that in Bap-
tism you were made a member of
Christ, the child of God, and an inheri-
tor of the Kingdom of Heaven and
you have never taken in the truth
which is in the words. You do not fol-
low St. Paul as in triumphant tone he
writes. Wherefore thou art no more
a servant. but son; and if son, then
an heir through God. This thought OF
adoption as the Sons Of God, meant
great deal for the first disciples.
Among the very first words of st.
Johns Gospel are these: "As many as
received Him to them gave He the
the right to become the Sons of God,
even to them that believed in His
Name" My discourse might be filled
with quotations from the Gospels and
Epistles which declare that because
the Son Of God became the Son of man.
The Sons of men became the Sons of
God 1t is one of the great truths of
our religion and it is the day above
all days in the year to take it in.
There is a little child in the manger
at Bethlehem, and we take up the
prophets words and say, Unto us a
CI11Q Is DoTu UNTO US sui 10 SiNSii
the Prince of Peace"
The child holds not the relation of a
child to us, SO much as that of a
brother. He is the Son of God in a
sense in which no other being has been
or can be- He is the Son of God by ma
ture, and through Him men shall be-
come the sons of God by adoption. BY
so much of humiliation as He comes
down from the glory Of heaven, by SO
much of exatation shall the sons of
men be lifted up. The condescension |
of the Son OF God measures the new
dignity of the sons of men. God has |
through His son come into a new re-
lation to men which shall be fruitful |
In untold blessings. The Holy Child |
whose birth calls angels out of heaven |
brings the gift of sonship to men on the |
earth. All men are in sense the sons |
Of God by birth, but more than that is
needed-even the realization of the |
of sonship and fatherhood |
and brotherhood And all of this is
possible now because the Son Of God |
has become the son of man. Our God |
has revealed Himself in a way which I
we can understand, in a way which APP
oeals to our hearts. He was for men
n the old time the great power behind
all his works, to be feared rather than
owed. He seemed to have made all
Kings, to have set all in order and mo-
ion and then to have stood aside while
he wheels of fate grind pitilessly on,
And men lived in fear of the power
lbove them and counted God jealous of
heir happiness And in their fear
hey sought to propitiate God with sac
ifices which meant horrible suffering,
unnatural and cruel acts, which make
me shudder in the recital, They who
lived in Israel's convenant had a high
r conception of God than the people
bout them, but they had little knowl-
dge of the life to come and no sense of
with other than Hebrews.
he life of Israel was narrow and linn
ted, like the life of the child who can
lot be trusted to know and use his in
eritance, who is in preparation for the
reedom and larger life to come. You
alue your adoption as the children of
Tod lightly because you do not appre- +
late the blessedness of the incarnation,
n dthe new thought and feeling made .
ossible by the coming of the Lord ,
esus. The Christian world has turned :
way from the old conception Of the ;
aligion because Jesus Christ Is born