The daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1904-1905, 1904-12-25
A DAY OF FAITH.

Christmas day, the worlds history
was the wandering of the nations
from God. Year after year the
three great concupicences, the lust
of the flesh, the lust Of the eyes, anc
the pride of life,' has been enticine
men further and further from the
divine way to walk in the way of
human error and sin. 1t seemed
while God counted his thousands
Satan counted his tens of thousands
that while Jehova was adored by the
faithful few of a chosen race, the
thousand cruel, lying, and impure
deities were every where in honor.
| The world was a rebel; humanity
was an apostate; it had turned its
back on God.
What could win back the nations ?
What could overthrow Satan and
the power of darkness? What could
free men from their bitter slavery
What could take away the stony
heart from the breast of sinful man
and give him a heart of flesh? Men
had changed the truth of God into a
lie. What could win them from the
worship of the creature, to the ador-
alton of the one true God?
st. John tells us in his sublime
Gospel of the Incarnation: "God so
loved the world as to give his only
begotten Son. The Word was made
flesh, and dwelt amongst u.s.
God knew that in every man there
was a longing for the divine-a
reaching out after the infinite,
which refused to be satisfied with
any thing less than God. Some I'M
believers have denied the divinity of
Jesus on the ground that this earth
Of ours was too insignificant to be
the dwelling place of the most high
God. But the things Of the spirit
are not to be weighed in the balance
of the physical universe. The crea-
tor of all things, whom "the heaven
of heavens can not contain,' is
surely not called upon to choose for
his dwelling place the largest planet.
On the same principle, Our Savior
should have come with all the glory
Of His Heavenly Father, mighty
King having "dominion from sea to
sea unto the ends of the earth.''
To confound the wise ones Of this
world, its God came into it this
blessed day, poor and unknown in
the rude stable-cave of Bethlehem.
Only the humble shepherds heard the
angelic song, "Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace to men
of good will"-only the humble hand
maid Of the Lord and her carpenter
spouse knew their God behind the
veil Of his helpless babyhood. Could
this be the King before whom
Rome's mighty power would wither
away, as the leaves are parched by
the redhot sun? Could this be the
great Messiah and the Ruler Of Is
rael whom the proud ones Of Israel
looked forward to expectantly?
{ Christmas is day Of faith, pro-
claiming to the world Of unbelief
the great dogma of Christ's divinity;
a day of faith, warning us that the
divine often times lies hidden behind
the veil of the weakly human; A day
of faith, bidding us tell others the
glory and the beauty of the Jesus
whom We know and love.
Many men in our day fight shy of
mystery in religion. AS they put it,
they will believe only what they I'M
derstand; they will accept only what
they can verify and test for them
selves. Suppose, for a moment, that
you could make every dogma of
Christianity as clear as the MONDAY
sun, suppose that you could ade-
quately explain the Blessed Trinity
or the Incarnation, why instantly
they would retort that these dogmas
were man-made. If totally in the
compass of the human, why look for
a God to reveal them? Grant, On the
other hand, that the Infinite God has
spoken to his people, does it not fol-
low inevitably that their finite minds
will be unable to grasp the full pur-
port Of His message, or sound the
depths of His will embracing Wis
dom?
1t is, indeed, great mystery that
God, all-happy in Himaelfs should
have deigned to create us at all; it
is indeed sublimer mystery that He
should so dignity our human nature