Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1915-12-28
THE ANGELS
Of CHRISTMAS
A Sermon by the Rev. H. L. Hay.
wood of the Universalist
Church of This
City.
HEAVEN IS ALL ABOUT U.s.
On Account of His Illness the Pastor
Could not Deliver the
Discourse
"HEAvEN IS ALL ABOUT u.s.

H. L. Haywood of the Un1versal1st
church, but which Mr.. H. was unable
to deliver on account Of illness:
Text "And there was in the same
country shepherds abiding in the
field, keeping watch over their flock
by night. And, 10, the angel of the
Lord came to them and the glory OF
the Lord shone round about them
and they were sore afraid Z" And
suddenly there was with the angel q
multitude of the heavenly host prais-
ing God and saying, Glory to God in
the Highest, and on earth peace,
good will among men,
And the night was not different to
the shepherds from any other night
which had ever closed about them
and their fiocks. The stars looked
down from their great but wonted
distances; the swift darkness was as
still and deep; the ground offered it.
self as hard pillow. Nevertheless
| it was on this night that a secret
inner working unstopped their ears
for space and opened their eyes SO
that they discovered themselves sur
rounded by the angel and the glory
of God and the heavenly host. Won
derful night! Blest vision!
But the angel and the glory and
the host had been there all the while
beguiling every midnight with songs
and the sunless glooms with heav-
emily ministries. 1t was not that the
angels came: it was that the people
saw. Heaven had always been
around them. Tonight they became
aware of heaven. The angels of
Christmas were the angels of every
other day. e'A's
1t is ever so. To us all, in day.
time or through the hours when the
night and the stars weave strange
mysteries softly about us, this earth
| is gray and hard and secular. The
lsky closes down over us like the solid
dome our fathers imagined it to be;
the earth is hard and impenetrable.
Heaven, and its glory, and it's angels
seem far off fancies to us while
stones and clods are near and real.
This is the way Jacob felt the
night he found himself overtaken in
the wilderness in place where much
stones were; but ere he had depart
ed he found ladder lifted and heav-
emily forms about him. Christmas
comes to us on the same mission, for
its message is that earth is crammed
with heaven and the celestial world
is close at hand.
Heaven is all about us singing in
our very ears. We imagine that
heaven is voiceless; the truth is that
We are deaf. Angels are everywhere.
This earth of ours is like a Persian
sheik's rude house which seems
outwardly but mud and plaster, not
a fit place for man to dwell in, but
inside when the dark passages are
threaded opens up a little inner
world of beauty and luxury, thus
hidden from the eyes of the tax
gatherer. All that is visible in
space and time serves but as the en-
trance way to another world which
though unseen is infinitely more
wonderous and beautiful than the
seen. It is like the gateway to a pal
ace. There is never any telling
when the transcendant will intruse
itself upon our eyes.
OF this world unseen all prophets
and seers are witnesses; that which
makes them such is their ability to
see better than the others of us.
Hear one of our present day sages
who has long lived in the focus of
the beatific vision:
1--WE live tented in immortality.
There is no other world than Here;
and Eternity is Now. In reality we
exist in a great world, full of visions
and glories and immortal presences;
with boundless horizons, endless Wis
.as, rooted by Infinity. But we are
IN tent. Within its narrow confines
We go about our work, consort with
trends, gaining what may be from
owe and hate, joy and sorrow; we
rave our familiar furniture, our dear
household gods. Many there are who
imagine that this is all their world.
But for others, who find from time
o time leisure for themselves, peeps
# the bigger life which oceans our
Mortality come through chinks in
he tent wall, ghostly presences cast
heir shadows on the threshold or
n the curtained doorway, and far