The Columbus dispatch. (Columbus, Miss.) 19??-1922, 1920-12-22
The GREATEST EVENT
IN ALL HISTORY
BY Carlton Murray BrOsius.

one precious holiday of the nation; ia
fill it full of mirth and good cheer;
to rest from labor and have reckon
ing with time; to open the heart and
the purse to every cry of sorrow and
every wall of distress; to remember
that midnight sky across which star
flashed that had never yet been
seen on land or sea; to ask why in
that lowly manger a Babe was found,
above its head halo and in its eyes
the light of mighty revelation; to
recall how from all the long, cold
cruel, terrible night of paganism
there came forth far voice in the
wilderness echoing the tidings Of a
New Jerusalem; think over all that
Christianity has done for the world,
and may yet do, if men and women
everywhere will accept it in its sub
lime simplicity and perfect purity.
That the birth of Christ, the de-
liverer of the human race, and the
mysterious link connecting the trans
cendent and incomprehensive attribu-
ties of the Deity with human sympa-
thies and affections, should be con-
sidered the most glorious event that
ever occurred, and the most worthy
of being reverently and joyously
commemorated, is proposition which
must commend itself to the heart and
reason of each one Of His followers
who aspires to walk in His foot
steps and share in the ineffable bene-
fits His death has secured to man.
kind.
And was not the birth of our
Savior the most glorious event that
ever happened in all history? The
world was rotten at every pore and
vein and organ and artery Of its
body. Boln in the reign of Tiberius
Caesar, Rome-then almost the mis-
tress of everything known of either
land or water-was given up wholly
to war, murder, pillage, rape, gladia-
torial butcheries, and excuses Of 9TH
er kinds SO monstrous and so un-
natural that historians have not
yet agreed as to their origin
whether, in fact, they were borrowed
from the Greeks, the Babylonians,
the Assyrians, or from a race in
further Egypt, long antedating the
loves, the crimes, the sins and the
follies of Cleopatra.
Look where one would, chastity
was the exception and not the rule.
Woman was literally beast of bur-
den in most of the nations, and was
bought and sold as eve or heifer
upon the hoof. Polygamy aboumded
Slavery in the most intolerable form
ever known to man universally ex-
listed, the master having the absolute
power of life and death over his slave.
War was little less than extermina-
ton. Conquest meant either de-
population, extinction or absorption
Some of the massacres surpassed in
extent and atrocity everything ever
yet recounted of Timour Lenk or
Zingis Khan.
Out of this sort of civilization
there came forth a Nero, Phalaris,
a Caligula, Domitian, Helioga-
balus, a Marius and a Sylla--human
butchers all, possessed of d thirst for
blood that never knew an hour of APP
peasemult until the assassin's hand
smote some, and death in the fullness
of their years smote the remainder.
Paganism was the only religion
if such indeed it can be called-and
it taught nothing but gross and
licentious materialism. To live was
simply to enjoy. Possession was the
only thing for which it was needfpl
to struggle-the possession of
palaces, slaves, kingdoms, jewels,
concubines, fine linen, spices, wines,
wild beast, shows, monster circuses,
triumphal professions, luxury, trop-
HES, monuments, temples, and le-
gions that roamed at will, butchering
as they roamed, through Europe, Asia
and Africa. Might was right, a.ld
the sword the only arbiter. Mankind
appeared to have but one mission,
that of making war, in which the
strong laid hold of the weak, and
either slew them, exiled them, or
made them helpless and pitiful
slaves.
1t was then that the Judean
shepherds, watching their flocks by
night, saw a great, strange light in
the sky; and it was then, in a lowly
stable in Bethlehem, the Founder OF
New Faith, a New Belief, and a
New Religion, first showed himself in
human form to world which was to
put Him to death because, in full ac-
cord with His heavenly mission, He
wished to redeem and save it.
And how feeble and helpless the
struggle first appeared! On every