Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1913-12-25
The DQyspring From on High

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Devotion is Il natural instinct. 1t isn't peculiar
to Christian civilization. Man will worship some
thing. As the centuries lave come and gone, the
Christ Of the Ages has become more and more the
object of universal alteration.
Back in the dim and distant past, wandering tribes
looked forward to, the d%ayspring from ON hign.
Around their %campfires the prophetic hope OF each
passing generation was told to the newest born.
Jacob, the tribal father Of all the clans, makes
this his last will and testament. Generations des-
tined to wear crowns we're %suringing from his loins.
Judah was the lions whelp. From his ancestral line
should come the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. The
expiring head Of a royal family breathed out of these
last words: 1.-THE, scepter shall not depart from
Judah, nor a lawgiyer from between his feet, until
Shiloh come; and unto him shall a gathering of the
people be-" On this pivotal utterance the destiny
of the world has swung. And to this day, as it is
told over and over again, the sweet old story fans
every heart into lambert flame.
Through successive generations, all watched for.
the sign of the times. Under starless skies millions
watched for the daWning light. In the time of Egyp-
titan bondage, in the long watches Of lsraelitish wan
dering, in their seasons Of vast dominion, in their
almost endless enslavement to heather powers
through all these vicissitudes a broken-hearted nation
pinned for the "fulness of time"
Worn and weary, they sat b" the rivers and hung
their harps upon the willows. They could not sing
the psalms of David in a strange land. The harp
strings had long since been stilled. l%Ixpectant Israel
wept and wept. Forty fleeing centuries were gone.
The vast host dwindled down to the solitary House
of Judah. The royal House of Israel was a byword.
Hope was hopeless. A once world-power now wept
over the tomb OF prophets and the shrnes of kings.
Drowsy sheep and shepherds had lain down beneath
Judean skies until the morning broke again.
& 49, 49, Observation-Disclosures -.1v {. a,,r:o %lu = ,l,,,t
herds caught the long lost chord in the song Of a
worlds redemption: GLORY to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, good will toward men, Gods
best and last gift had come-the last, because in
the Babe Of Bethlehem the history of the world from
Eden to the Paradise OF all the future found its last
and final expression.
It brought life and immortality to light. 1t put
new blood into the veins of a dead world. Every
tear would now be radiant with the glories of abetter
world. The announcement of His birth changed
novels into mansions and made prisons palaces prove.
1t hid the sorrows of tao worlds aching heart in
all the sweetest depths of a divine pity. 1t sent it's
throb of power to the remotest ends OF the earth.
Deliverance had come at last. Through all these
four thousand years it had been one stupendous
march from Eden to Calvary. And now we've spent
nearly two thousand years i'll our journeyings from
the Cross back to Eden.
The ancient worthless had their glimpse OF God.
And now we've come again to that blessed view of
all the Child means to us. Forty centuries blazed
the way for the coming of the Child. However slad-
oWy history may have grown, it was one ceaseless
tread toward the one divine evcnt-The Cradle in
Bethlehem. He came and took His place in history
and now all history takes its place in Him.
This is our story OF the Child. AS in all history,
every onward sweep Of the world starts with some
cradle. Around this cradle earth's song and story
have fingered until His name is on every tongue and
In His presence the weary wait for rest.