The Sunday telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1914-1927, 1914-12-20


with the light of hope not yet real.
lied in its eyes. 1t is the child of the
Father Of US all and the friend Of
every son OF man. When did it orig
mate? We shall find that We must
so away back of any authentic his
tory, and that its rise is lost in the
mists Of prehistoric time. But we
can easily read the story of its orig
in and see Of what ideas and beliefs
is has sprung.
Suppose we go to ancient Persia
hundreds of years before Christianity
was known.
There we shall find the people eel
ebrating the day after the winter sol
stice as the birth of their sun god
Mithras. What did it-mean to them?
We next, IL we can, for moment to
put ourselves in their places. For as
today who know some, at least, OF
the secrets of astronomy and who are
able to control the climatic changes
at Our will-for us. of course, 1t is
difficult to appreciate how much
these ideas must have meant to that
far-off simple, superstitious child
hood world.
4 At that day, the storm, the clouds,
the cold, the winter, were veritable
evil spirits, demons, Of which the
people we're afraid.
And among the northern nations as
they watched the sun as the winter
grew, travelling farther and farther
to the south, being more and more
completely shorn Of his beams, grad
ually losing his heat, and his light,
until the shortest day had come, and
the depth Of winter was reached,
there was a feeling as though the
evil powers of the universe were VIC
tors over their god of life and light;
and when after apparently standing
still for two or three days, the sun
began his journey toward the north
lonce more, their hearts were filled
with rejoicing, and they celebrated
with gladness the rebirth Of their
brilliant, shining, life giving, light
giving diety. .
And so we find similar thing tax
ing place in almost all the northern
nations, among almost all the north
ern religions. Even in Egypt, about
this time, they celebrated the birth
day Of their virgin+born, Horus, the
son Of Isis.
In Greece they celebrated the. birth
of Heracles, the god specially dear to
the public heart because he wrought
SO many. labors for the cleansing Of
the earth, and the welfare of the COM
mon people.
And in Rome, about this time Of the
year, the celebration, under another
name, continues even unto the pres
cnt.
They had their s.ree days Saturn
ALA, period during which they cele-
brated the time when their god Sat
urn lived and reigned in Italy, be-
fore there was any war, before any
hatred, before any disease, had come
into the world. before any class dis
tinctions were known.
And, as a part of that celebration,
the servants were treated as il they
were masters; they sat at the table
while those, whom during other parts
of the year they waited on, waited
on them in turn.
And about this time OF the year
they celebrated the birthday Of their
sun god.
| And so this festival reaches back,
being celebrated Just at this partic-
ular period of the year, among all
these northern nations to point be-
yond any power of history to trace.
The special features Of the day
which are so dear to us and so beau
tiful In our thought have also come
to us as the gift OF paganism. The
yule log, the mistle toe, these are the
gifts of Celtis Druids.
The trees, the boughs, with which
we decorate our homes, these are
the gifts of the Germanic nations.
They believed If they brought trees,
boughs, parts of the woods into their
homes, that the sylvan dieties whom
they specially loved would follow
them and be at home in the midst of
their winter festivities and Joys.
Now let us trace the course of
thought in the Christian church and
see how 1t came to pass that the birth
day of Jesus was fixed as the 25th
day OF December, and our Christian
Christmas. II / may be allowed so to
say, was born.
All intelligent students are aware
of the fact that nobody in the world
knows, not the day merely, but even
the month or the year on which Jesus
was born. We know that He was
not born in the year one, of our
present method of reckoning time; so
far as we can find out He was prob
ably born about three or four years
earlier than that
We have no accurate knowledge
that He was born In the month Of De-
cember, on the 25th of that month or
of any other month.
Indeed, we know nothing about It.
1t did not occur to the early Christ
ians az important to write history or
to fix dates.
When they at last determined TO
celebrate the birthday of Jesus, there
were very widely differing opinions
in different branches OF the church. as
TO what day. should be chosen. For
example, in the west 1t was at first
thought that Jesus was born on the
goth OF May; others favored the goth
or the 21st Of April. In the east al
most all persons favored January s.
as the probable date. / speak OF these
simply to show that thes.. knew moth
ing about it; and it was as late as the
fourth century at that, before there
was any general agreement as to the
day which should be adopted and