The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-12-26
> Our literary Cable g

Christmas-the Universal Inspiration; by Miss Anna
Mcguire (class 1903) Ogden Utah.
THE dawn of Christ is beaming blessings Ger a
Newborn indeed was the world at the dawn of
Christ to higher, hoer life; newborn to
a light which will continue it's respondent
when the smoulderng ruins of time shall be no
Even after two thousand years. what spirit of
sweet peace steals over the tong, restless world as
it stops in its onward course to contemplate the
terry of Bethlehem
What pathos what majestic submity in that mid
night where the Majesty of Heaven, robed not
in ermine and purple, but in the humble parb of
erty, looks out with human eyes upon the world of
Lowly, indeed. was the Babe in the manger yet at
His coming the heaven of the angels opens for
glad moment and the midnight skies overlooked
with melody.
Ages before the herald-anthem of the angels re-
sounded through the hills of Judea, the pulse of hui
mainly had been quckened by the expectation of that
Promised One; for the poeprophet, Isaiah inspired
ing of the Virgins Son. Emmanuel; Israels great pa
triarch thrilled by the fore CLEAN of the coming of
the Messiah had yearned that he might His day;
Whlle all adoWn the centuries weary world signed
for the miracle that to be.
How universal was the tradition of the coming of
a Redeemer, 'Ts true, the sublime truth underwent
many changes in its passage through the turbulent
stream of time; yet among every people its bright
buds of promise sprang forth Irvine their fair
lands of hope and consolation around every great lit
erature of the world.
1t had found its way to the ice-bound shores of
Finland to bloom in theSagas of the north; it had
penetrated the sun FURNISHED land of the Hindus to
ehWreathe with It's lalf blossoms thelr natioal epic
nay it found place in vice-steeped Rome where
It's mystic sweetness III
of Virgil.
Lowry. indeed, was the stable in which Christ was
born yet this humble spot the birthplace ofin-
Spiraton-inspiration high and pure and holy
Standing in the mellow twilight of that sacred scene
the artist has gloriied his canvas with reflections
caught from its radiance divine; lingering in fancy
that lowIy crib the musician has imbibed the
heaven strains of the angels until his soul has
burst forth in melody; beneath the shadow of that
humble she'd the poet has breathcd in the inspiration
for the sublmest outpoUrings of his soul
Who, after looking upon the beauty of Corregio's
Holy Night" doubt the inspiration of that first
of Handel's Creation question the power of the
inspiring theme? Who reading Millions lode on the
Nativity, fail to that his puritan soul was
touched for brief by the divine beauty
of that scene of all scenes?
Nor IS the inspiration of Xmas limited to the fine
arts its divine magic touches and glorifies the whole
world but preeminently is its felt in the Chris
tan home What mother, she bends over the child
of her care not inspired by the humility and virtue
of that Mother in Bethlehem?
AS the Xmas bells in vibrant music greet the mid
of childhood with all their inspiration of joy and peace
Everyone from the monarch his throne to the exile
the lonely shores OF Siberia, in the embers OF
the yule-og faces and forms from out the shadowy
past faces and forms which gladdened the Xmas days
of infancy. Fancies these may be which rise and fall
with the Pickering flame, but the inspirations of love
and hope which they bring to the soul lasting
But where is the inspiration of Xmas found in the
higher, purer. holier light than in the Church, wose
of Christ whose every ceremony, every act makes
real the anthem which rang through the valleys Of
Judea-
GLORIA in ExceIsis I)eo!"