Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1902-12-24
rHR SIGNIFICANCE OF cHRIsTMAs.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRISTMAS.
Thursday morning the star will stand
again o4 or the child in the manager;
though we will not hear the angels sing
ing, we will hear the song they sang on
that first Christmas morning echoing in
every land and tongue, in the chime Of
Christmas bells, in the glad thanksgiv-
ing of devout worshippers, and child
ren's happy laughter round and round
the world. From frozen Arctic seas to
the burning deserts one thought flashes
making all man kin; that once in a
Child, born in extremestwant,o our cav
emily Father had manifested himself in
the form of humanity to teach men how
TO live and how to die.
The times when the meaning Of the
message Christmas day brings sinks
deepest into the hearts Of men are
times of trouble, doubt and distress.
When human errors have yielded their
crop of human ills, and the bitter har-
vest is being CLEANED by many who had
no hand in its sowing the cords OF the
Evangel bring to the heart sore and
weary the stimulus of hope and the
promise of rest In the darkness Of suf-
fering or adversity, men of all beliefs
instinctively grope after Power which
knows neither variableness nor shadow
of turning, and to when belong the Is
sues of this moral state.
ION earth peace, good will toward
men" comes to MS as sweet far-of mel
ody in the midst of business worries and
social pleasures, and popular unrest
For whole year we have thought of
little besides politics and trade and our
petty interests 80 that we have half
forgotten our common fellowship as cit
liens, and our brotherhood as man. As
the calm of this Christmas season falls
over the noise of political disputations,
and stills the tumult of business and in
dustry, let us make good work of the
brief season of kindly greeting to forget
some of the bitterness of partisan strife
and buiness rivalry and financial schem-
ing, and try to blunt the edge Of need
less animosities and slip from our shout
ers some portion of our great load of
care. The good tidings of great joy
which shall be to all people" have not
yet lost their virtue or their meaning
The demand of highly complicated
system of society, the pretensions of q
highly aggressive method of scientific in
quiry, may seem to dim the luster of
the news which came to simple men in
a burst of gladness SO many years ago.
But the tired spirit turns back from
both to find the angels message a sup.
port in the present a a promise in the
future, which the highest flights of sci
entific speculation and the choicest re-
wards of social distinction alike fail TO
yield. The skepticism of the age does
not touch the vital issues of the message
itself, only the doubtful formulas and
rusty creeds which theolegians have
built about it. Let no man fancy that
the world is becoming too learned, too
skeptical for the benefcent spirit of
this message to spread it's leaves as of
yore for the healing of the nations,
The more complicated our avocations
the greater our need Of simplicity the
more ingenious our appliances for pleas
ure, the nearer we are to safety; the
more far-reaching our science, the closer
we come to the inscrutable mysteries of
knowing and being Christianity as it
stands today may not be the highest
manifestation of the religious idea pos
sible to man, Nevertheless the message
an nounced on the plains of Bethlehem
comes with the possibilities of refresh
ing for the jaded, spiritual elevation for
the self-seeking, and satisfaction for the
reverent seeker after truth 1t speaks
to all hearts, and especially to those that
have been touched with sorrow, or are
weary with the hard struggle and
adapts itself to every condition of life,
1t has been the nurse of civilization, and
the herald of progress, not because of
anything miraculous in its origin, or
anything supernatural in its founder,
but because of its grandeur and simple
ity of thf truth it conve, the father
hood of God, and the ! cotherhood of
man. it is old as we call ge;it is young
meas red by days of the everlasting.
But young or old, it appeals to the uni
versal heart of humanity-itis the touch
of the divine finger, the warmth and
glow of the all-embracing Love, viii,
Care, which we call Providence, and in
which all who, in any true sense, at all,
live, move and have their being. Aunt
Lizzie in Lancaster Teller.
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