Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-23

anne Emanuel"
who are biased against miracles bring
forth. is that there is no reference to the
Virgin Birth of Christ in the Old Tesla
ment Except perhaps, in a single text,
or in st. Marks st. Johns Gospels, or in
that therefore, it must be either a legend
or a myth. Strange to say, these OBJ
jectors do not see that the Scripture ar
gument to which they point is not for, but
against, the superstition that the Virgin
Birth of Christ is either myth or legend.
For myth is an idea for which the
imaginations of the pious by-and-by in
vent a fact, and the very silence of the
Old Testament regarding a miraculous
birth of the Messiah shows that there was
no expectation whatever of such fact
in the Jewish mind before Christ came.
On the other hand, a legend is fact
which the ina gination of the pious by-and-
by expands and vaporizes into an idea; but
the silence of the epistles of the New Tes-
Christ are conclusive proof, from the let
tiers of the apostles themselves, that there
was then no tendency in the Christian
mind to thus give legendary splendor to
Berlin, who was himself a disciple of the
Tubingan school of Ferdinand Bauer, says,
with great emphasis that the Virgin Birth
of Christ is plainly neither myth nor a
Third, it is said, by those who are
biased against miracles that the Virgin
Birth of Christ is an unnecessary miracle,
in that it adds nothing to the belief in the
incarnation of Jesus Christ as the Son of
God. 1t is further said that such miracles
do not happen in the case of ordinary men,
therefore it could not have happened in
the case of Christ. But Christ was no or
binary man. He was the Word made flesh.
He was the second Adam. I'm Him." st.
Paul tells us, dwell all the fullness of
difference between an ordinary birth and
a Virgin Birth is the difference between
ordinary men and the Man Christ Jesus
Ordinary IN are sinful; Christ was alb
solutely sii1ess.
When we look at any newborn babe, We
know before he can speak word that he
will be a sinner, on account of the law
of heredty; and that this law of heredity
and bias toward sin cannot possibly be
overcome without moral miracle.
In the whole history of the Bible we
never find God working such a moral
miracle on the souls of men. The Virgin
Birth of Christ, in which this law of
heredity, this ineradcable propensity to
sin, is broken off, is far less stupendous
than if Christ had been born of sinful
parents in the ordinary way and God had
interfered with the workings of Hts moral
law.
These are but two or three of the many
Christians when they say, 81 believe in
Jesus Christ, Who was conceived of the
Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary" To
those who thus believe there is an ex-
quisite purity and delicacy in that
scene of Bethlehem, with which the Gospel
begins that has no counterpart in earthly
history. No wonder that it has inspired
the pen of the greatest poets and the
brush of the greatest painters of the
Christian era.
In the hill country of Judea there are
little band of seekers after God who are
drawn together in the sacred fellowship
of the Communion of Saints.
After Mary had received the message
of the angels. following the natural in
stinctve impulse of every true woman, she
longs for a woman's sympathy. She
thinks of her aged sanity cousin, Eliza
beth. and then journeys with haste,
through to the hill country of Judea, to her
door, troubled in mind as to how she shall
speak and what she shall say. But God
Himself has prepared the way, and as the
door opens. and before the Virgin has ut
tered a word, the holy Elizabeth cries:
Whence is this to that the mother
of my Lord should come unto me?" And
thus it happens that even before Christ is
born four persons already know of His
coming-Zacharias Elizabeth, Joseph and
the Virgin Mary herself.
Then, when the first Christmas arrived,
others of this sanity group were keeping
watch by night on those hills of Bethle-
hem, where David looked up to the stars
and sang, 1.-The Lord is my Shepherd. I
shall not want" To those chosen shep-
herds, who were tending the lambs kept
for the sacrifices of the temple altar, the
angel appeared, announcing the glad It'd
ings of the Savior's birth. It was those
angels who first uttered the word "gos-
pei" which men caught from their lips.
1t was those angels who sang the first
Christmas CAROL GLORY be to God on
high. and on earth peace, good will to
men" And God grant that the echoes of
the angels song may ring through our
souls this blessed Christina slide.