The Saint Paul globe., 1900-12-25
CHRISTMAS, A. d. 1860.

The season of peace on earth and good
will among men" opens on the American
people in the closing days of the nine
teenth century under conditions which
ind nothing like parallel in all history.
Liberty Is Today the watch word OF every
people calling themselves civilized. There
is not one ruler in all of Europe who
would openly ayow either purpose or dis.
position to deprive his people of what
they are led to look upon as the right to
conduct their own affairs Peace and
material progress are the great ends to
which all such rulers express them
selves as being devoted above all things
else. Yet is there no peace. The masses
of every land save this are borne down
by the yoke which the centuries have
so securely set upon their necl1s. Liberty
Is thing, according to what may be
termed twentieth century Standards
which any one people may enjoy if it is
the liberty which any other people that
can exercise control over them wishes
them to enjoy. In China, in the Philip
pines, in Sorth Africa, men have revolted
and have sought arms rather than ac-
cept their liberties at other hands.
state of war exists in all those lands.
Yet in every case war is the outcome
of the determination of one race to de-
eide for another what is or what should
constitute liberty for that people, and OF
the unwillingness of that race to accept
liberty with the conditions prescribed for
it.
Great indeed is the advance which the
world is making in material wealth. Such
wealth is the supreme motive of national,
as it is mostly of individual, endeavor.
The nation wrich has the most ships of
war and commerce, which has most fac
tories and does the largest business in its
exchanges, is the greatest nation. The
people which neglects its army or navy
or cannot show a balance on the right
side of the national and International
ledger is hardly accounted a nation at
ALL
And while the world thus passes on it's
way, an aggregation Of shops and shop
keepers, of war and warriors, and. hu-
man invention and industry harness
themselves to its chariot Christian civil
zation broods over it all and high court
of peaceful arbitration stands beckoning
traders and warriors alike to come to it
and adjust their disputes. But, like the
Roman soothsayer of old, the rulers of
Christian nations smile at each other as
the golden rule of human conduct Is
mentioned in their presence, or as some
one OF them tells OF the benefeent mission
which the tribunal of The Hague repre-
sents.
In the successive epochs of the worlds
progress national ideals have varied
greatly. Art and beauty have been the
inspiration from which nations have for
ages derived their highest and nobIest
ideals. Rome Of old, followed her career
of conquest and commerce till it failed
her. All she achieved in art and Htera-
ture was but the inheritance she de-
rived from Greece Nineteen centuries
have passed since Rome entered upon
her decline, and the one lasting i'm
pulse which has urged the nations on in
their career during that period has been
the dominant force Of Christianity. How
far have we advanced in the realization
Of the true Christian ideals since the
days OF Romes glory?
Christmas 1900 finds the world better
place to live in for the great mass of
humanity than ever before. There is
more Of material comfort for them pre-
Yaiiing at least in the lands which are
most advanced in the political sense.
Much of the sheer brutality which dis
tinguished mems treatment of each other.
and more especially the treatment of
the masses by their rulers, has dis
Appeared. Crime and famine and pesti-
lence are less frequent. Learning has ad-
vanced, and the people are no longer.
save in a few lands which have not
felt the touch Of modern progress. the
dumb, driven beasts whose lives and for
tunes were in the past the mere pawns
used on the chess boards of the worlds
rulers. But it is power and force which
guides human destinies today quite as
much as it guided them at the begin
ming of the Christian era.
Modern philosophy accepts trade as the
great end of national endeavor. From
trade springs wealth. From wealth comes
happiness or what the world of TODAY
accepts as the nearest approach to hap
piness. The Child Born in the Manger
teaches a lesson of humility which is
but poorly learned by even the best Of
men. Yet to many it symbolizes all that
it was designed to symbolic when the
Son Of God appeared on earth. For this
we must thank the benign influence of
religion. And this after all represents
the greatest advance which has been
made by humanity toward the final ac-
ceptance, in what now, appears to be
the far-om millennium. of the basic
truths OF Christian teaching.
Our century draws to its close; and the
one abiding reflection from which thinking
and humane Christian men may derive
consolation is that the nineteen centuries