The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-26

was then established upon the earth
 that all wars then had ceased; tha Wrangling and discord had disappeared from human life; that all men were a peace with themselves and with God | We know that this was not so, and tha 1 this was not the meaning of the angels 1 song.
 1 But what did they mean? These
 words may have been part of theil
 prayer for men. Then it would mean: 1 May there be glory to God in the high | est! May there be peace on earth! May | there be good will among men" As if they were bringing to men the good l wishes, yea, the prayers, of their fel- lows in heaven. As beautiful as such a | thought is, it is not sufficient to account for the extraordinary apparition of the 1 angels
 Was their message, then, prophecy? Was the time to come though in the far distance, when God should be glori- fled with all the highest glory, when, through the accumulation of the spirit
 ual power of the ages, peace should be established upon earth, when mems wills should be attuned to the goodness
 of God?
 Without doubt there was this pro
 phetic element in the message of the
 angels. But the message related chief
 ly to the person, Jesus Christ who as a
 babe was then to be found, wrapped in
 swaddIing clothes, lying in a manager in
 stable in the neighboring village,
 Bethlehem. To Christ the angels point
 a1 a Io of p1OrV Of
 peace, of good will. From Him the
 shepherds and all men could receive
 revelation of the glory that was within
 reach of their own lives. As men made
 Christs spirit their own they would
 realize in Him ever more and more the
 Prince of Peace. As they learned obe-
 dience from Him they would find their
 lives exalted by union with God in holy
 purposes. Yes. Jesus was to be all this for man. He came to earth with hands outstretched to bless. He came to give men peace.
 How great was and is the need of the peace Jesus alone can give! The his tory of the world makes this manifest The disclosures of the family life make only too clear the need of Christs con- stant presence as the peace maker. The jarring elements and the conflicting mo- tives and purposes of mans individual life are continually crying out for some divine harmonizer.
 War and not peace has characterized too much of the history of the world and too many of the individual lives of men, Even nineteen centuries after Christ's birth. how great the need of Christ as a peace-maker!
 Look out upon the nations to-day and what do we see? Why, we see that na- tion which would seem to have the right from her glorious past to claim to be the great civilizer among the nations of the world; we see England to-day drag ging out bloody and to some it seems an unjustifiable war. We see the great nations of the continent of Europe vast ly increasing their armament of war We see them enlargng their standing armies from the apparent ground of war But when one-sixth of the able bodied men of any nation are under arms it does not look as If that nation were exalting thenfselves by means of the righteousness of peace.
 Or, turning to another field. With the marvellous increase of the comforts of our homes we do not find that the of those homes has in- creased in any such degree. Nay, we even find that the opposite is too often true As we have departed from the | of living of our forefathers, i as we have increased in luxury as we | become more and more dependent upon our servants, with the increased worries | of domestic life, the simple clements of | our forefathers' lives, which were more | easily harmonized because they were | simple, are now most complex and | therefore much more difficult to har- Hence our need of Christ as the harmonizer of our homes Is even greater than that of our fathers.
 Again, as right and wrong are not now as easily distinguished as they were on account of the multiple forms in which they appear, it is evidently more difficult to establish the harmony of the individual soul, and the need of | m individual savious as peace-maker 'ather than diminishing with the ad- years of History, has increased Yes. we gre all greatly in need of the Prince of Peace to-day, of Him to whom the heavenly visitants directed he shepherds nineteen centuries ago.
 Yet we have the definite promise of 1ods holy word that "Of the increase If that peace there shall be no end.'
 God grant us all, as the richest of Christmas blessings, the peace which Christ gave as His greatest legacy to lis disciples. My peace give I unto ,ou," He said With that peace in our |