Los Angeles herald., 1906-01-08
DIVINE TRUTHS IN RISING OF
MORNING STAR
Faith, Obedience and Soul Life Of New
Born Babe Indicates the Rule
Of Infinite, AIl-Wise
Power


any truth are Complementary. The
one Is that which centers around the
coming into the world of a little child.
It's setting Is the little drama enacted
so long ago among the hills of Judea
i'm theater so small, and among ac-
tors so lowly and obscure that were
it not for its touching simplicity and
fathomless beauty il would have years
since disappeared. Stripped of every |
thing supernatural, it shows us the
human side of child life. The other
the Epiphany TRUTHS that which CEN
ters around the rising of a morning
star. It's setting is found in the story
of the three wise men to the infant
Savior, and because of the symbolism
lying back of the commonplace real
ity-the singing of the hymn of love
and the chanting of the heavenly
choir-it shows the divine side OF
child life. Says a recent writer, In
these the Divine and the human were
so marvelously combined, truth and
form so subtly and deeply harmonized, |
that if they were the creation of the
imagination, nothing else that man has
done approaches them in depth and
audacity of insight and sublimity OF
setting
"The result of all this is to present
before our minds once a year certain
truths in regard to child life which
are fundamental, which are right and
which it is necessary that we should
keep ever before us-namely. that
which child life is, that which it
teaches. that which is our own re-
sponsibility in regard to it.
Source of Life
$50 far as the first of these truths
is concerned. we can arrive at its
meaning by following either of two
lines of thought: we can first follow
ef in his ir1UaCtiOp tiOOG
the origin of life and learn that as op-
posed to the doctrine of spontaneous
generation, life can come only from
pre-existing life. Applied to the fact
of child life we find that this at once
brings us into that mysterious realm
where the new life just begun must
be traced back to the source of ali
life-which is God.
"And yet one does not feel that this
is really the best way of arriving at
the fact that the newly born child
has come from God, because 1T awak-
ems in our minds only one thought
namely, that of God as the Source of
all Life. 1t leaves out so many other
attributes Of God, which are so clearly
present at the time of birth. Why is
it that a child will love one though
ii knows not why? Why is it that it
will cling to what is true, though its
sense is but an intuition? Why is it
I1dL IL VIII leel GSttIl llllDulSC vi ltll-
derness and affection so that it's own
nature reacts uncOnSciouSy upon it?
There is no answer to these questions
unless it be found in the fact that the
child has newly come from God, and
that it's own nature, untouched and
unspotted by the world, is as result
more open and receptive to those at
tributes which are peculiarly Gods
own. If we take then the result of
that which science teaches and that
which our own observation enables us
most clearly to see, we find them both
expressed in the lines of the poet
Wordsworth who said:
"'Our birth is but a sleep and a for
getting,
The soul that rises with us, our life's
star,
Hath had elsewhere it's setting
And cometh from afar-
Not IN entire forgetfulness,
Not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we
come
From God who is our home.'"
Divine Attributes Reflected
"That which child life teaches us fol-
lows as a result of the fact that, in ad-
dition to those things which have al
ready been named, the child uncon-
sciously reflects those two attributes
and at the same time as a supreme
ruler of the universe, demands of us all.
The first of these is obedience. The
second of these is faith. In any truly
God-liIe life these two cooperate and
work together. That is, Jesus Christ
made, not learning the organ of
spiritual knowledge, but obedience. He
said and he taught clearly and strongly
and aggressively that the man who will
tn LynOu of Cod and of the
doctrines of God will be not the one
who gives his life up to study about
these questions, but the one who, with
loving obedience and lowly patience,
gets down and tries to do something
for his fellow men.
1.-The humblest and weakest may
know more of God, of moral evil and of
good by single act of charity or a
prayer of self surrender than all the
sages can teach or all the theologians
can dogmatize upon. 1t is obedience,
it is obedience that God would have us
know is great; and inasmuch as from
this obedience there flows not only
knowledge about God, but faith in God,
and inasmuch as a child, as has been
said, unconsciously reflects these two,
obedience and faith, we see how great
and deep and with what fathomless
spiritual beauty was the teaching of
Jesus when, asked by his disciples as to
who was greatest in the kingdom of
heaven, he took a little child and set
him in their midst and said, 'Whosoever
shall humble himself as this little child
the same Is greatest in the kingdom of
heaven. and whose receiveth one such
little child in my name receiveth me-
IT is the little child, it is the little child
that in life leads us all.
"Such thoughts as these awake in us
anew ou- responsibilities in regard to
the care which should be ours, especial
ly in SO far as IL relates to the moral
training OF children. II the child is
near to God in the beginning, if a re-
suit of it's coming is to bring adult life
nearer TO God, then 1t is but the COM
monplace to say that IL is our duty to
see that on its journey through life
1t is kept near to Gods gracious sane
tuary And one feels that this knowl-
edge is strengthened IL we recall first
how improssionable the life Of the child
IS, how far plastic is its nature, how far
II is unconsciously influenced, by every
image Of beauty that floats in upon its
mind from the field OF nature and by
every word which leaves its impress
10, I.ass sla H.