Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1901-12-26

II somewhere upon our world huge
meteoric stone. charged with magnet
10 qualities. should fall, 1t would at
tract worldwide attention. II upon 1t
were found impressed evidences that 1t
had been projected from the hand OF
God upon our world. and that its
touch Impaired healing for mans
worst woes, how the multitudes would
flock to see IT and to touch it'll
In the coming of Jesus among men
We have an event far more wonderful
s than all this; for the most conclusive
evidences show that he came from
God, that he brings healing to the
nations and that he has magnetic
qualities which tend to draw all men
unto him. He comes as no inanimate
stone might fall, a strange, mateless
mass of once molten matter found
in some unknown quarter of the uni
verse. He is the word made flesh,
dwelling among US full Of grace ana
truth. "In him is the fullness of the
Godhead bodily" as st. Paul teaches
and in him is the perfection of man
hood spiritually. He shows how deep
divine love can stoop TO rescue men
and how high humanity can rise when
touched with heavenly powers.
The incarnation begun by the birth
and eternalized by the resurrection and
ascension of Jesus, is the most sublime
and influential fact in the history OF
our world. 1t Is this fact we cele-
brate at Christmas.
1t is matter Of small moment
whether men have or have not fixed
upon the correct date for the annual
celebration Of the birth of our Lord.
1t remains too clear for doubt that
some nineteen hundred years ago an
event occurred in Palestine which has
been more influential for good among
men than all the campaigns Of the high
captains OF the earth and all the
sages and statesmen of the ages. A
brief life with a manager cradle at
one end and a borrowed tomb at the
other, was spent in poverty deeper
than that OF the birds of The air and
the foxes OF the forest, and yet from
It has sprung all the riches, both ma
terial and immaterial, found in what
we call Christian civilization. The out
come OF that life is the miracle OF his
tory.
Men need not perplex themselves
about the phenomenon OF Bethlehem's
star and the wonder of the singing an
gels lowering above the amazed shep-
herds. The lights of civilization lit by
his hand which burn above our heads
every day and every night are far
greater and more mysterious, If he be
not God. than the luminary which the
entranced Wise Men followed. The mu-
sic which from cathedral to cottage
pours itself forth upon the evening air
everywhere throughout Christendom
today is a greater marvel than the an
gelic strains which fell upon the ears
of the enraptured shepherds. Whence
oil fhfe hrfyhfnaca In Christian lands
with thick darkness everywhere else
in the world7 Whence all these Han
dels and Beethovens and Haydns and
this innumerable company of singers
, and players on instruments which no
man can number, making Christian
lands resonant with strains OF unearth-
ly gladness, while in the regions be-
yond these lands humanity sits discon-
ISOLATE with harp unstrung upon the
willows which grow by the streams of
earthly grief?
Surely there has broken in upon our
world a supernatural life of love which
seeks to encompass all mankind in its
warm embrace. As one has said THE
world itself is changed. and is no
more the same that 1t was; it has new
er been the same since Jesus left it,
The air is charged with heavenly
odors, and a kind of celestial con-
seriousness, a sense of other. worlds, is
waited on us in its breath"
The facts OF contemporaneous his
tory show that a superhuman energy, is
suing from the man Christ Jesus, is
active in the world, working for the
amelioration of human ills and the &C
complishment of human perfection. No
marvel of a by-gone age can exceed
in magnitude this manifest miracle be-
fore our eyes.
Christian history, after every Just