The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-24
THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS DAY

By the Very Rev. Thomas J. Shahan, s.
 T. D. Professor of Church History in
 The Catholic University of America.
 kCopyright, 1905, by The Catholic Asso-
 ciated Press).
 HE season of Advent has drawn once
 more to it's close, and the mystic
 exaltation of soul which the Chris tfan religion annually nourishes in its adherents finds its ful1lment and reward an the birth of that Infant for whose coming time and humanity were so long consumed with hope and expectation. In rhese weeks the holy church has been putting before us day by day the most sublime thoughts, the longings of the prophets. the acknowledgements of sin, the echoes of despair. the lessons of history, the admissions of experience. All the paths of life have been converging ppon that little crib at Bethlehem; all that poet or philosopher or critic ever imag- dned or true or beautiful or desirable, seems now to take being and shape on Tne threshold of that poor manager. With an iAhnite skill the offices of the church ibring out the hopelessness in the aver Age heart the blindness in the average mind, the moral stagnation in the aver age society at the time of the birth of Christ. There is nothing in the tragedy 80 Sophocles or Shakespeare so grandiose, 80 stern1y true and solemn, so heart-grip- ping as the daily phases by which during these weeks the church unrolls the mean Ing of the Old Testament from the crea- tion to the nativity. Like the Greek chor- ngus, she accompanies the prophets and the singers with her own interpretation and comment It is all infinitely noble, Infinitely deep and significant, yet infinite 1y simple, for 1t is the first time that History was so expounded that the old man at once and the little child could grasp its sense.
 As the splendid drama approaches it's Solution, it's many currents merge into ever fewer and deeper and broader, The follies, the passions, the extravagapces of men, all the immemorial wrong and Injustice of the world all the stony heartedness, and stiff neckedness the in- gratitude and the treachery, the vanity and the waywardness, fall away from the stage and in their place moves out the central figure of humanity-its teacher and its lawgiver, its liberator, it's recon ciler.
 Out of the thousand conflicting clements of the human story, there stand out three things-the internal strife within the soul of man. the external strife within the bounds of creation, and the great reconciliation or appeasement that was worked by Jesus Christ. Here is trilogy worthy of Euripides, nay, worthy of some glorious seraph, who alone could put in fitting language the mighty thoughts that underlies the story of our redemption.
 It is as teacher and lawgver that Jesus Christ is sent to us by the Eternal Father. He cometh not of Himself; He Is sent. as He so often tells us. No teacher chooses himself, but Is called by one greater than he. The Father saw, as he now sees. that the key of human misery was our own disordered will and darken- ed mind Humanity had lost the way of righteousness. The sense and the spirit of holiness, the high moral transforming purpose of religion were greatly weak ened, not to say destroyed. And so the eternal wisdom came upon the earth, in order to rekndle in human minds the lamp of truth and in human hearts the power and the courage to embrace the truth. Before Him there had come into the world many a teacher, and for not a few, we may believe that their hearts were strengthened by sorrow at the sight of the boundless evil. Men of the west Like Pythagoras and Plato, men of the east like Confucius and Buddha, men of theory like Aristotle, and men of prac- tice like Solon and Numa-all had att tempted in some way to better mankind by their teaching or their laws. But the holy church tells that no one like He taught the whole cycle of truth, gath cred all men into His fold. laid before them clearly the necessary and attainable scope of their being, and did all this with aneffable suavity and irresistible power
 70 wisdom that goest forth from the mouth of the Most High, reachest from end unto end and disposest all things with strength and sweetness, come and teach us the way of prudence! Orient, thou splendor of light eternal and sun of justice, come and shed thy rays upon those who are seated in darkness, even in the shadow of death o Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel, who didst appear unto Moses in the burning bush, come and redeem us in the strength of thy arm"
 In the fulness of time He came, in divine and incomprehenslble way. He filled the world with His teaching. First and only one of mankind. He was Himself as perfect as His teaching. And He gave to his new and perfect law It's firmest support in the commentary of His own life and birth In His law there is noth- ing imperfect, confused false sensual, and narrow as in the Law of Mahomet; nothing fundamentally immoral as in the law of Buddha: nothing of the low ration alism of the law of Confucius It is no law of men, for it is nothing less than the original voice of God, heard by Adam in the creation. made known by Moses from Mount Sinai, reiterated by the prophets, made plain and certain for all by Jesus Christ. All other laws are like sign posts, directive; the holy law saves us, and makes us what it indicates-"O Emmanuel, our King and our .-awgiver. the Desired of the Nations, their Savior, come and save us, O Lord, Our God!"
 The true teacher must feel with and for disciples. And so. when Christ would be born to teach all mankind to rise above itself, and to be again like the image